David Gray's tale has been well documented. The years spent being messed about by various record labels, the meteoric rise to international stardom with 'White Ladder'. But what is perhaps more interesting is his desire is to make modern roots and acoustic music for this century. On both White ladder and the follow up "New Day at Midnight", modern techniques such as sequencing (looping a repetitive beat or groove) and sampling (recording a part of one song and incorporating it into another). Gray has certainly strived to use these techniques in a way that preserves heart and soul, the basis of all good roots music. A life long fan of Van Morrison, Bob Dylan and Neil Young he still credits them with being his biggest influences.

David spoke to Undercover's Paul Cashmere during a trip to Australia;

Paul Cashmere : David Gray, welcome to Australia. It's good to have you finally in this country after you wrote that song 'Kangaroo'.

David Gray: Yes, that was cheeky. I think that it is a bit of an obvious Australian thing, Kangaroo. Over here everyone is rather unimpressed with my Australian reference (laughs). We played it the other night. It featured early.

PC: The Kookaburra gets a mention in that song as well. DG: That is much more interesting. It's a better word. PC: Did you study Australian wildlife before you wrote that song?

DG: No, I'm such a nature enthusiast that I knew all about kangaroos and kookaburras without any prompting.

PC: Let's move on to the David Gray story. You are the most unlikely pop star. DG: It certainly took a long time for things to click. It took three or four albums before I broke through in any kind of meaningful way. I suppose so in that respect. PC: Overnight success was not a term I was going to use.

DG: (laughs) No

PC: You've had more overnight failures.

DG: Yeah, it was a bit of a struggle. I didn't realise at the beginning because on the first album I was just full of the joys of having a record deal and having the chance to go out and tour in America, Europe and England. I think after a while though you have to accept things are doing to well. You aren't selling many records and when you are not on the radio something has got to change. That's when you realise this is serious and something has got to change and this is business. Yes, there were some tricky times but I wouldn't change any of them.

PC: A lot of lesser artists would have packed it in.

DG: There is nothing like getting kicked in the nuts all the time. It teaches you everything. PC: It will make a great book one day. The great thing about 'White Ladder' is that you put your hand in your own pocket and funded it yourself.DG: It doesn't cost much money. I suppose, reality speaking, it was a big deal at the time. No-one at that point was jumping forward to fund it for us. By that point, I would have told them where to go anyway because I was through with record company nonsense. We made it for next to nothing and then decided to go a step further and put it out ourself and finance the release of it and pressing the records. That was certainly a learning curve, a wonderful one. When it started to do well we realised how simple the whole thing could be. We didn't have a master-plan.

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