“The last time I was [in Australia] I think we performed on [Australian Idol], and we rocked around a few radio stations. But I didn’t do a live performance,” Gray explains over the horrific telephone line with which we’ve been blighted. “Before that was way back, like 2003.” Since then Gray has released four studio albums, collaborated on multiple tracks with an absolute myriad of other musicians, acted in a number of films, opened her own music academy and raised her three, now teenaged, children. Not exactly putting her feet up, ol’ Macy. On a reel of behind-the-scenes footage during Covered’s recording, she mentions how fabulous Zappa’s studio was to work in, and it’s this that I ask her about first.
“Oh, it’s awesome,” she says warmly with that same slow, overstated articulation of her singing voice “It’s just like, a perfectly built studio. You get the sound from the studio, the wood inside. The way [Zappa] built it, it’s so perfect. You’ve got to see it, it’s pretty amazing.” Hal Willner, who produced the album, is also a devotee of the way Gray prefers to record: with all musicians playing live together in the one room, as opposed to the more common method of isolation. “Well that’s how they used to make records,” says Gray. “So it’s actually the natural way to do it. You actually get a way better performance because you’re live, and you don’t want to be the one that messes up. It’s a way better way to record for me. It’s way more immediate.”
Gray had wanted to record an album of covers for a long time, but no label she’d been with had ever considered it a viable project. It wasn’t until she signed with 429 Records last year that her design could come to realisation.”They thought it was a good idea and I played them some of the music that we were going to record and they liked it, so it’s kind of the right people who want to do what you want to do.” What Gray wanted to do was choose a pretty eclectic bag of tracks, including Radiohead’s Creep, Metallica’s Nothing Else Matters, and Arcade Fire’s Wake Up. The instrumentation and approach to vocals and their phrasing is markedly different from each original, making these tracks true reinterpretations rather than just rehashes. Wake Up in particular, the song which accompanied the recent adaptation of Maurice Sendak’s gorgeous story Where The Wild Things Are, is very apt for Gray as she’s always encompassed something of a childlike bearing. “Oh, I love the lyrics to that song,” she says. “What it’s about and the way [Win Butler] says it is so awesome, and it was really the lyrics of that song for me. It has that rebel yell in it. I just like it,” she concludes with the gravity of someone who knows the statement means more coming from her mouth than your regular human.
The childlike mien extends to Gray’s behaviour, as she connects with her fans in ways some musicians would never dream of doing. During recording for Covered she put her telephone number up on her site, so that admirers could ring up and chat. The idea came from the studio’s namesake himself, as Gray explains: “I was out with Frank Zappa’s wife, and she said that he got a hotline in the studio. He’d put the phone number on records and whenever he wasn’t busy he’d pick up the phone. And I thought that was the coolest thing: that people would just call through,” she says with real wonderment. “So I put up a Skype number. I was doing it for like two weeks straight; I would set an hour aside during the day to talk to people.” It’s almost like ChatRoulette, but less dicey (one would hope).
In addition to her tour dates, a major studio film which Gray has narrated is due to be released in October. “It’s called Paperboy,” she says. “Nicole Kidman’s in it, and John Cusack… it’s a pretty great movie.” As the cross-medium work keeps rolling forth, Gray certainly doesn’t look to be resting on her laurels at any near point, and her shows promise to be a lush affair encompassing all of the soul, humour and verve that her fans have come to love.
BY ZOË RADAS
