January 24, 2025 • 17 mins
25 years ago, David Gray was renowned for how famous he wasn’t.
He had a cult of fans and listeners hooked on his sincerity and plainspokenness – but he hadn’t quite broken into the mainstream.
And then came his career-making album White Ladder, recorded in his home and going on to become one of the best-selling albums of the 21st century so far.
His lasting success has led him to the release of his 13th album Dear Life.
The album is heavily influenced by themes of mortality, which Gray says have been present in his writing and works since the death of his father.
“I was up close and watched him die, and that changes your perspective on things,” he told Newstalk ZB’s Jack Tame.
“Just like watching one of your children being born – it's a privilege to be there.”
“Obviously when you see the sort of parentheses that hold our fragile little lives, you reassess everything.”
Gray also cites the western obsession with agelessness and anti-aging as an influence, as well as the deaths caused by Covid-19.
“This all I ambiently fed in, I think to probably my natural inclinations.”
The songs in ‘Dear Life’ are very direct, Gray says, explaining that they were “born standing up” and ready to go.
“They’re not cutting any strange angles away, they’re not hiding themselves,” he told Tame.
“That’s not to say that they don’t play games within that fixed gaze... there’s a lot of humour, there’s a lot of delicacy.”
“But it was just such a pleasure to write.”
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:07):
You're listening to the Saturday Morning with Jack Team podcast
from News Talks atb.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
You know it is remarkable. So twenty five years ago,
David Gray was renowned for just how famous he wasn't
He had a bit of a cult following at the time.
He had listeners who were hooked on his sincerity on
his plane spokenness. But he hadn't quite broken into the
mainstream with his music. And then came his career defining,
(00:36):
career making album, White Ladder. It was recorded at his
home and it went on to become one of the
best selling albums of this century so far. David's lasting
success has led to the release of his thirteenth album,
Dear Life. If you were listening this time last week
on News Talks, he'd be You'd know that Estella Music
reviewer gave it a glowing review, and David has just
(00:59):
launched it. Now he's headed out on the road and
he joins us this morning. David Gray Kelder, Good morning
and welcome to the show.
Speaker 3 (01:05):
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (01:06):
You're just about to begin your tours. So you're in
Boston at the moment, gearing up for a wee while
on the road.
Speaker 3 (01:14):
Yeah, it's going to be down the rapid style touring
for the next few months. I think we've got fifty
shows between now and the beginning of May, so it's
going to be for a bunch of old farts like us.
It's going to be a bit of a challenge, but
we're up, We're ready.
Speaker 2 (01:29):
Fifty shows is no small total or achievement. How do
you approach a kind of workload like that.
Speaker 3 (01:38):
Yeah, first of all, by just trying to condition myself,
so by playing a lot and practicing a lot ahead
of the actual rehearsals so that I'm in good condition vocally,
because it's going to be very demanding. When you step
on the stage, it's very different than when you rehearse.
When I rehearse, I give it everything, but when I
(01:59):
go on the stage, I give you everything plus a
bit more. So it takes a lot out of your voice.
The voice is the most vulnerable part of the whole equation.
So that's the part that I wish I could put
it in a flight case and ship it from show
to show, but it doesn't work that way. I'm going
to talk to all these lunatics that I hang around
with the whole time, so it's constantly being used, So yes,
(02:22):
it puts a lot of stress on the voice, which
is just a beam of energy. And obviously this is
an exhaustion cycle. We're just going to be traveling every
night and getting up in a different place, sound checking,
gig travel, so and there'll be lots of adrenaline thrown
in and a few glasses of champagne, I dare say,
and god knows what else. So it'll be all the
(02:43):
bells and whistles. It's going to be amazing. I think
it's the most sort of compact and intense period of
touring I've done for quite a while. So yeah, and
that's just the way it's work this time. But we're
all crazy for it with the tickets have gone so well,
that's what really sort of sets up your anticipation.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
Well, I speak on behalf of our audience and confirm
that people are just delighted to have you back and
delighted with your life. So can you talk to us
a little bit about the process behind this album, because
five years right from Go to War, if you include
the mastering, this was quite a process, and over a
particularly tumultuous time in the world.
Speaker 3 (03:26):
Yeah, I think I did put out a scaling during
Lockdown in twenty one, so it's a few years since
that record. But obviously I had all the obligations of
the touring that was frozen by the COVID pandemic that
I had to then pick up after. So twenty two
and twenty three had quite a few touring commitments. So
(03:50):
it's slowed the making of this record down, which had
begun just before COVID. But I think perhaps the songwriting
process was enriched by what happened in so much as
I mean, I'm getting older, so mortalities are kind of
theme anyway. It always is with me really ever since
my dad died. I think I saw something. I was
(04:13):
up close and watched him die, and that changes your
perspective on things, just like watching one of your children
being born. It's a privilege to be there. And obviously
when you see the sort of parentheses that hold our
fragile little lives, you reassess everything. And I think you know,
(04:33):
in our Western culture, death is not an acknowledged part
of things. In fact, everyone's straining every sinew and pumping
every lip with something to make them look younger, so
they're all trying to sort of shrug off the aging process,
but COVID slowed us down. It took the constellation of
constant activity, and it took the horizon away. We were
(04:56):
just in a moment that was very elongated. And also
we're just studying death graphs all the time, so it
was a sort of again. It was a terrible time
in so many ways for so many people, but it
was a huge blessing in other ways if you were
lucky enough not to lose anyone or have to go
through the torment of knowing someone was suffering and you
(05:19):
couldn't be there. But this all I ambiently fed in,
I think to probably my natural inclinations. My life has
been a bit turbulent for a while, with various big
relationships and changes that have gone kind of by the by,
(05:39):
as it were, and so perhaps there was more grist
to the mill as well. But I don't know why.
Certain albums come out with a greater sense of themselves,
a great sense of purpose. I'm always making things. It's
often quite interior or slightly oblique, but these songs are very,
very direct, And what I say about them is they
(06:01):
were born standing up. They're sort of they were ready
to go, and they're very melodic, and they're straight to
camera that they're not cutting any strange angles away, they're
not hiding themselves. They're very and that's not to say
that they don't play games within that that that fixed gaze.
They there's a lot of humor, there's a lot of delicacy,
(06:23):
I think, but it was just such a pleasure to write.
I mean, first and foremost, I'm a lyric writer. That's
my obsession, and like Fak Sinatra said, for me, the
music props up the lyrics. So you know, if there's
been a trend in my writing since I started, it's
probably been to simplify. But with this record, the lymings,
(06:43):
the rhyming schemes just became more elaborate, the language was
more ornate, and just the beautiful magic of words, the
substance of words. It's it's a music in itself, and
it lent such a joyous energy to the process of making.
(07:04):
That doesn't belie what the emotion is under some of
the songs, but the pleasure of the rhyming scheme helps
to sort of create the Trojan horse effect where it
almost like hypnotizes you as the per performer and as
the listener. And first of all, your dark, your ears,
and your mind are moving with the rhythm and the words,
(07:24):
and then the meaning comes along afterwards. So it's sort
of that's sort of my take on the whole thing.
It has a kind of electronic y kind of aspect
to this album, which was going to be there from
the beginning. So when we started in twenty nineteen, I
bought these little drum machines and I was jamming in
(07:44):
sort of real time over the drum machines while my
producer was sort of messing with the sounds, and I said,
this is the way I want to go. I want
it to be like a sort of hybrid form, a
bit like White Ladder in that it's me sort of
being very free lyrically and expressive with my guitar over
the top of something that's very rooted and stuck in
(08:05):
this thing, but with these crazy distorted sounds. So songs
like Acceptance and more than anything, these were the first
ones that came out. But yeah, the song burst, the
star burst of songwriting that happened at the very end
of COVID was when most of the songs were written.
And as I say, that process seemed to have been
enriched by a period of not doing it. I let
(08:26):
the field go fallow, and it took a bit of
courage to stop because my gut reaction to the lockdown
was I'm going to go down into my studio and
make an album on my own. Lots of creatives I
made of this stupid era really of thinking I just
sort of service as normal. But it ultimately the pressure
(08:49):
of the weirdness of the situation told upon me, and
I thought, why am I down here getting stressed about
what I'm doing, like trying to press record and run
in and put my guitar on and play upstairs. My
family is sitting there. I've been saying for the last
twenty years. I was going to spend some time with them. Yeah,
it seems like this is an opportunity to address the
elephant in the room. I love you, guys. I kind
(09:11):
of came back. It was like a row. It wasn't
quite rocky, but I came up the stairs with a
tower on my neck and said that, okay, guys, I'm back,
and they just all completely ignored me and carried on
watching TV.
Speaker 2 (09:24):
You listen to news songs TV and joined the great
pleasure of speaking with David Gray about his latest album
Dear Life. You see and you've seen before that you
see yourself as a lyricist first. Is there a literal
part of the process. Do you write lyrics before you
write music?
Speaker 3 (09:41):
No, And I think when I started, I sort of
wrote songs when the mood took me, and it was
always a chord sequence which I would respond to melodically
and then try and fit a lyric to the melody.
And that's sort of what my process was as I've
gone on, and you know, the sort of the threat
(10:01):
of writer's block, which is really when you disentangle it,
a fear of failure. I used all kinds of means
to get around my self doubt, and one of them
was to work backwards into music from lyrics, which I
have done occasionally in my career, but only very rarely.
(10:22):
So it's become a real asset because what it does
is it disables temporarily disables my sense of taste, melodic taste.
And I don't really know whether what I'm doing is
of any interest whatsoever. All I know is I'm doing
it like a child in a sandpit. I'm sort of
making things. So now I kind of any which way
really to create a song, and I don't have. My
(10:43):
go to is still to do what I've always done.
And the other thing that's changed is that I don't
have the luxury of just making music when I feel
like it. I have to turn up and do it
as a job. And that means you have some crap days,
lots of okay days, and then the odd day when
all the turning up pays off and a song comes
(11:05):
out of the scar and you know the odd thing,
it feels like it's been in a gestation phase. Real
song when it happens, when it really happens, I mean
when what people call inspiration, but when that what is
temple subjectivity a total the barrier that's normally there between
making and not making disappears and suddenly you're it's all
(11:29):
just graspable for a moment, it all goes that, the
fences come down. You can grab anything from anywhere. It's
like well, you know looting, it's like sort of creative looting.
You know, there's no police. You can grab anything in
the department store, so like images this stuff and dredge
up from anywhere and suddenly it's just so as you
have this incredible subjectivity and this unbridled sort of space
(11:52):
that you're suddenly in. You know it's happening because at
the same time, a sort of drone goes up in
your mind and you have this sort of overview of
what you're doing. You make very good editorial decisions. So anyway,
this is what people call inspiration. But it doesn't just
happen all the time. You have to make it happen
(12:12):
if you like. And it's still a very religious experience.
And I'm a sort of a staunch non believer, and
yet I pledge my life to something as intangible as music,
so I must have a faith of some kind. So
that's what happens. So those are the ways that's changed.
(12:35):
Songwriting has changed for me. Essentially, it's the same process,
and I'm still barking up the same tree. Essentially, my
lyrics are always picking away at the same things.
Speaker 2 (12:46):
You mentioned you're a staunch non believer. I wondered how
being confronted with unavoidable mortality through this process had maybe
had affected the way you kind of think about things
like that. It maybe had affected any sense of spirituality
you may have thought didn't exist.
Speaker 3 (13:09):
I think you can be spiritual, I guess I would.
I would say that we're born with a religious instinct.
I don't think of religion as something that we created
or that was given to us by Jesus or some
other prophet that came from somewhere God. Apparently, I see
that we were born with a sense of awe and
(13:30):
a sense of mystery, And how could we not be
because we're born into this improbable situation. So what poetry
touches on the garment of this mystery is it's very
real and very live in all of us, maybe less
live in some than others. I'm thinking of you prominent
prominent world politicians and businessmen as I say that, but
(13:51):
I refuse to mention them by name. So yeah, it's
it's something that's there. So I have a very strong
leaning towards I guess what faith is, which is that
life is a sort of well spring of energy to
me on a sort of an atomic level. Maybe I've
just been lucky in life's been kind to me. It
certainly has, you know. It's it's just it renews me
(14:19):
the world, the natural world in particular, but the world
of music too. This making with my friends, this communal
relationship that we have in being the flesh of the
music and then sharing that. I mean, this is all
so sounding like a religious language, but that's what takes
takes places. It's a it's a hard thing to put
(14:41):
your finger on. So I don't need organized religion. I
see that as being something that's associated with the creation
of communities, larger communities, the urban Suddenly it was very
important to have a set of morals and to start
simplifying God, because otherwise it was just a mess. I
think it's really like urban planning. That's what I sort
(15:03):
of see religion as a sort of a spiritual level.
So you know, I've got all those instincts, I just
can't find a way into the organized stuff.
Speaker 1 (15:12):
Yeah, I'm a pagan.
Speaker 2 (15:15):
Well, like you say that, the distinction between spirituality and
religiosity is also an important one, and perhaps leaning into
the intangible there has helped you create the work you create,
which you know is a is a great benefit to us. All.
Speaker 3 (15:29):
Yeah, this is this is very heavy conversation Saturday morning.
So first I'm going to apologize to your listeners. But
radio isn't like this all the time.
Speaker 2 (15:42):
They know, they know how shallow I am. Don't worry. Hey,
I know we've got to we have to do our
best to protect your voice. So one final question, and
not wanting to add to your to your already impressive
touring schedule, but I know that there are no antipathy
and dates yet. Could we expect perhaps a trip down
(16:02):
Under sometime soon.
Speaker 3 (16:05):
And there'd be anticipating in the Antipodes. See, I can't
help it. The alliteration was there. We're looking at it all,
so we're trying to work it out. I got to
balance my life like a little bit. I'm not very
good at saying no, So if the world is saying yes,
I'm not very good at saying no. But my wife's
(16:26):
got other ideas, so I'm not going to blame her.
But we're looking at that later in the year. It's
not a definite thing yet and it's not completely taken shape,
so it may happen. I thought that's the best I
can say. Well, if it doesn't happen, it won't be
too long before it does. I can guarantee you there.
Speaker 2 (16:46):
Well, that is so good to hear. David. Thank you,
Thank you so much for your time. It is such
a pleasure to speak with you. David's album Dear Life
is out now available and good music stores of course,
and on your usual streaming services, and we will have
all the details at Newstorks INB dot co dot indeed
for
Speaker 1 (17:04):
More from Saturday morning with listen live to news Talks
at B from nine am Saturday, or follow the podcast
on iHeartRadio
You're listening to the Saturday Morning with Jack Team podcast
from News Talks atb.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
You know it is remarkable. So twenty five years ago,
David Gray was renowned for just how famous he wasn't
He had a bit of a cult following at the time.
He had listeners who were hooked on his sincerity on
his plane spokenness. But he hadn't quite broken into the
mainstream with his music. And then came his career defining,
(00:36):
career making album, White Ladder. It was recorded at his
home and it went on to become one of the
best selling albums of this century so far. David's lasting
success has led to the release of his thirteenth album,
Dear Life. If you were listening this time last week
on News Talks, he'd be You'd know that Estella Music
reviewer gave it a glowing review, and David has just
(00:59):
launched it. Now he's headed out on the road and
he joins us this morning. David Gray Kelder, Good morning
and welcome to the show.
Speaker 3 (01:05):
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (01:06):
You're just about to begin your tours. So you're in
Boston at the moment, gearing up for a wee while
on the road.
Speaker 3 (01:14):
Yeah, it's going to be down the rapid style touring
for the next few months. I think we've got fifty
shows between now and the beginning of May, so it's
going to be for a bunch of old farts like us.
It's going to be a bit of a challenge, but
we're up, We're ready.
Speaker 2 (01:29):
Fifty shows is no small total or achievement. How do
you approach a kind of workload like that.
Speaker 3 (01:38):
Yeah, first of all, by just trying to condition myself,
so by playing a lot and practicing a lot ahead
of the actual rehearsals so that I'm in good condition vocally,
because it's going to be very demanding. When you step
on the stage, it's very different than when you rehearse.
When I rehearse, I give it everything, but when I
(01:59):
go on the stage, I give you everything plus a
bit more. So it takes a lot out of your voice.
The voice is the most vulnerable part of the whole equation.
So that's the part that I wish I could put
it in a flight case and ship it from show
to show, but it doesn't work that way. I'm going
to talk to all these lunatics that I hang around
with the whole time, so it's constantly being used, So yes,
(02:22):
it puts a lot of stress on the voice, which
is just a beam of energy. And obviously this is
an exhaustion cycle. We're just going to be traveling every
night and getting up in a different place, sound checking,
gig travel, so and there'll be lots of adrenaline thrown
in and a few glasses of champagne, I dare say,
and god knows what else. So it'll be all the
(02:43):
bells and whistles. It's going to be amazing. I think
it's the most sort of compact and intense period of
touring I've done for quite a while. So yeah, and
that's just the way it's work this time. But we're
all crazy for it with the tickets have gone so well,
that's what really sort of sets up your anticipation.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
Well, I speak on behalf of our audience and confirm
that people are just delighted to have you back and
delighted with your life. So can you talk to us
a little bit about the process behind this album, because
five years right from Go to War, if you include
the mastering, this was quite a process, and over a
particularly tumultuous time in the world.
Speaker 3 (03:26):
Yeah, I think I did put out a scaling during
Lockdown in twenty one, so it's a few years since
that record. But obviously I had all the obligations of
the touring that was frozen by the COVID pandemic that
I had to then pick up after. So twenty two
and twenty three had quite a few touring commitments. So
(03:50):
it's slowed the making of this record down, which had
begun just before COVID. But I think perhaps the songwriting
process was enriched by what happened in so much as
I mean, I'm getting older, so mortalities are kind of
theme anyway. It always is with me really ever since
my dad died. I think I saw something. I was
(04:13):
up close and watched him die, and that changes your
perspective on things, just like watching one of your children
being born. It's a privilege to be there. And obviously
when you see the sort of parentheses that hold our
fragile little lives, you reassess everything. And I think you know,
(04:33):
in our Western culture, death is not an acknowledged part
of things. In fact, everyone's straining every sinew and pumping
every lip with something to make them look younger, so
they're all trying to sort of shrug off the aging process,
but COVID slowed us down. It took the constellation of
constant activity, and it took the horizon away. We were
(04:56):
just in a moment that was very elongated. And also
we're just studying death graphs all the time, so it
was a sort of again. It was a terrible time
in so many ways for so many people, but it
was a huge blessing in other ways if you were
lucky enough not to lose anyone or have to go
through the torment of knowing someone was suffering and you
(05:19):
couldn't be there. But this all I ambiently fed in,
I think to probably my natural inclinations. My life has
been a bit turbulent for a while, with various big
relationships and changes that have gone kind of by the by,
(05:39):
as it were, and so perhaps there was more grist
to the mill as well. But I don't know why.
Certain albums come out with a greater sense of themselves,
a great sense of purpose. I'm always making things. It's
often quite interior or slightly oblique, but these songs are very,
very direct, And what I say about them is they
(06:01):
were born standing up. They're sort of they were ready
to go, and they're very melodic, and they're straight to
camera that they're not cutting any strange angles away, they're
not hiding themselves. They're very and that's not to say
that they don't play games within that that that fixed gaze.
They there's a lot of humor, there's a lot of delicacy,
(06:23):
I think, but it was just such a pleasure to write.
I mean, first and foremost, I'm a lyric writer. That's
my obsession, and like Fak Sinatra said, for me, the
music props up the lyrics. So you know, if there's
been a trend in my writing since I started, it's
probably been to simplify. But with this record, the lymings,
(06:43):
the rhyming schemes just became more elaborate, the language was
more ornate, and just the beautiful magic of words, the
substance of words. It's it's a music in itself, and
it lent such a joyous energy to the process of making.
(07:04):
That doesn't belie what the emotion is under some of
the songs, but the pleasure of the rhyming scheme helps
to sort of create the Trojan horse effect where it
almost like hypnotizes you as the per performer and as
the listener. And first of all, your dark, your ears,
and your mind are moving with the rhythm and the words,
(07:24):
and then the meaning comes along afterwards. So it's sort
of that's sort of my take on the whole thing.
It has a kind of electronic y kind of aspect
to this album, which was going to be there from
the beginning. So when we started in twenty nineteen, I
bought these little drum machines and I was jamming in
(07:44):
sort of real time over the drum machines while my
producer was sort of messing with the sounds, and I said,
this is the way I want to go. I want
it to be like a sort of hybrid form, a
bit like White Ladder in that it's me sort of
being very free lyrically and expressive with my guitar over
the top of something that's very rooted and stuck in
(08:05):
this thing, but with these crazy distorted sounds. So songs
like Acceptance and more than anything, these were the first
ones that came out. But yeah, the song burst, the
star burst of songwriting that happened at the very end
of COVID was when most of the songs were written.
And as I say, that process seemed to have been
enriched by a period of not doing it. I let
(08:26):
the field go fallow, and it took a bit of
courage to stop because my gut reaction to the lockdown
was I'm going to go down into my studio and
make an album on my own. Lots of creatives I
made of this stupid era really of thinking I just
sort of service as normal. But it ultimately the pressure
(08:49):
of the weirdness of the situation told upon me, and
I thought, why am I down here getting stressed about
what I'm doing, like trying to press record and run
in and put my guitar on and play upstairs. My
family is sitting there. I've been saying for the last
twenty years. I was going to spend some time with them. Yeah,
it seems like this is an opportunity to address the
elephant in the room. I love you, guys. I kind
(09:11):
of came back. It was like a row. It wasn't
quite rocky, but I came up the stairs with a
tower on my neck and said that, okay, guys, I'm back,
and they just all completely ignored me and carried on
watching TV.
Speaker 2 (09:24):
You listen to news songs TV and joined the great
pleasure of speaking with David Gray about his latest album
Dear Life. You see and you've seen before that you
see yourself as a lyricist first. Is there a literal
part of the process. Do you write lyrics before you
write music?
Speaker 3 (09:41):
No, And I think when I started, I sort of
wrote songs when the mood took me, and it was
always a chord sequence which I would respond to melodically
and then try and fit a lyric to the melody.
And that's sort of what my process was as I've
gone on, and you know, the sort of the threat
(10:01):
of writer's block, which is really when you disentangle it,
a fear of failure. I used all kinds of means
to get around my self doubt, and one of them
was to work backwards into music from lyrics, which I
have done occasionally in my career, but only very rarely.
(10:22):
So it's become a real asset because what it does
is it disables temporarily disables my sense of taste, melodic taste.
And I don't really know whether what I'm doing is
of any interest whatsoever. All I know is I'm doing
it like a child in a sandpit. I'm sort of
making things. So now I kind of any which way
really to create a song, and I don't have. My
(10:43):
go to is still to do what I've always done.
And the other thing that's changed is that I don't
have the luxury of just making music when I feel
like it. I have to turn up and do it
as a job. And that means you have some crap days,
lots of okay days, and then the odd day when
all the turning up pays off and a song comes
(11:05):
out of the scar and you know the odd thing,
it feels like it's been in a gestation phase. Real
song when it happens, when it really happens, I mean
when what people call inspiration, but when that what is
temple subjectivity a total the barrier that's normally there between
making and not making disappears and suddenly you're it's all
(11:29):
just graspable for a moment, it all goes that, the
fences come down. You can grab anything from anywhere. It's
like well, you know looting, it's like sort of creative looting.
You know, there's no police. You can grab anything in
the department store, so like images this stuff and dredge
up from anywhere and suddenly it's just so as you
have this incredible subjectivity and this unbridled sort of space
(11:52):
that you're suddenly in. You know it's happening because at
the same time, a sort of drone goes up in
your mind and you have this sort of overview of
what you're doing. You make very good editorial decisions. So anyway,
this is what people call inspiration. But it doesn't just
happen all the time. You have to make it happen
(12:12):
if you like. And it's still a very religious experience.
And I'm a sort of a staunch non believer, and
yet I pledge my life to something as intangible as music,
so I must have a faith of some kind. So
that's what happens. So those are the ways that's changed.
(12:35):
Songwriting has changed for me. Essentially, it's the same process,
and I'm still barking up the same tree. Essentially, my
lyrics are always picking away at the same things.
Speaker 2 (12:46):
You mentioned you're a staunch non believer. I wondered how
being confronted with unavoidable mortality through this process had maybe
had affected the way you kind of think about things
like that. It maybe had affected any sense of spirituality
you may have thought didn't exist.
Speaker 3 (13:09):
I think you can be spiritual, I guess I would.
I would say that we're born with a religious instinct.
I don't think of religion as something that we created
or that was given to us by Jesus or some
other prophet that came from somewhere God. Apparently, I see
that we were born with a sense of awe and
(13:30):
a sense of mystery, And how could we not be
because we're born into this improbable situation. So what poetry
touches on the garment of this mystery is it's very
real and very live in all of us, maybe less
live in some than others. I'm thinking of you prominent
prominent world politicians and businessmen as I say that, but
(13:51):
I refuse to mention them by name. So yeah, it's
it's something that's there. So I have a very strong
leaning towards I guess what faith is, which is that
life is a sort of well spring of energy to
me on a sort of an atomic level. Maybe I've
just been lucky in life's been kind to me. It
certainly has, you know. It's it's just it renews me
(14:19):
the world, the natural world in particular, but the world
of music too. This making with my friends, this communal
relationship that we have in being the flesh of the
music and then sharing that. I mean, this is all
so sounding like a religious language, but that's what takes
takes places. It's a it's a hard thing to put
(14:41):
your finger on. So I don't need organized religion. I
see that as being something that's associated with the creation
of communities, larger communities, the urban Suddenly it was very
important to have a set of morals and to start
simplifying God, because otherwise it was just a mess. I
think it's really like urban planning. That's what I sort
(15:03):
of see religion as a sort of a spiritual level.
So you know, I've got all those instincts, I just
can't find a way into the organized stuff.
Speaker 1 (15:12):
Yeah, I'm a pagan.
Speaker 2 (15:15):
Well, like you say that, the distinction between spirituality and
religiosity is also an important one, and perhaps leaning into
the intangible there has helped you create the work you create,
which you know is a is a great benefit to us. All.
Speaker 3 (15:29):
Yeah, this is this is very heavy conversation Saturday morning.
So first I'm going to apologize to your listeners. But
radio isn't like this all the time.
Speaker 2 (15:42):
They know, they know how shallow I am. Don't worry. Hey,
I know we've got to we have to do our
best to protect your voice. So one final question, and
not wanting to add to your to your already impressive
touring schedule, but I know that there are no antipathy
and dates yet. Could we expect perhaps a trip down
(16:02):
Under sometime soon.
Speaker 3 (16:05):
And there'd be anticipating in the Antipodes. See, I can't
help it. The alliteration was there. We're looking at it all,
so we're trying to work it out. I got to
balance my life like a little bit. I'm not very
good at saying no, So if the world is saying yes,
I'm not very good at saying no. But my wife's
(16:26):
got other ideas, so I'm not going to blame her.
But we're looking at that later in the year. It's
not a definite thing yet and it's not completely taken shape,
so it may happen. I thought that's the best I
can say. Well, if it doesn't happen, it won't be
too long before it does. I can guarantee you there.
Speaker 2 (16:46):
Well, that is so good to hear. David. Thank you,
Thank you so much for your time. It is such
a pleasure to speak with you. David's album Dear Life
is out now available and good music stores of course,
and on your usual streaming services, and we will have
all the details at Newstorks INB dot co dot indeed
for
Speaker 1 (17:04):
More from Saturday morning with listen live to news Talks
at B from nine am Saturday, or follow the podcast
on iHeartRadio
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