How to go
Who: David Gray with special guests Amos Lee and Rachael Yamagata
Where: Rose Music Center, 6800 Executive Blvd., Huber Heights
When: 7 p.m. Tuesday. Doors open at 6 p.m.
Cost: $49-$72
More info: 937-228-2323 or www.ticketmaster.com
Artist info: www.davidgray.com
Other Rose concerts
Who: Easton Corbin and Scotty McCreery with special guest Jana Kramer
When: 7 p.m. Friday, June 19. Doors open at 6 p.m.
Cost: $35-$63.50
Artist info: www.eastoncorbin.com
Who: Sammy Hagar & the Circle featuring Michael Anthony, Jason Bonham and Vic Johnson
When: 8 p.m. Saturday, June 20. Doors open at 7 p.m.
Cost: $52-$79
Artist info: www.redrocker.com
Who: Jonny Lang and the Kenny Wayne Shepherd Band
When: 7 p.m. Wednsday, June 24. Doors open at 6 p.m
Cost: $33-$47
Artist info: www.jonnylang.com and www.kennywayneshepherd.net
David Gray was in a reflective mood during a recent telephone conversation. It’s not surprising considering the British acoustic pop singer — performing at The Rose Music Center in Huber Heights on Tuesday — was launching his summer tour the following day in Portland, Maine, which was also is his 47th birthday.
The topics included aging, searching for balance and his 10th album, “Mutineers” (2014), which Gray says marks the beginning of a new era.
Getting older
“It’s a period of reckoning isn’t it, the middle of your life? The youthful momentum is gone. Responsibilities wear you down and the clarity of age is not yet yours, so there’s a lot of internal negotiating and clutching at straws as you try to make sense of life. Family, mortgages and everything you get caught up in, you muddle through it like everything and try to make the most of it. It’s been an intense period, the last 15 years or so, but I’m in a good place.”
Finding balance
“Making music is something that makes sense within itself. I feel very enriched and very lucky to be doing the things I love to do. I don’t take that for granted for a moment. That becomes more precious to me as I go on but my works is such an indulgence that it confuses and blurs the lines. I spend a lot of time working and a lot time doing family stuff so I need to take more time out for myself. That’s where you need a bit of balance in your life.”
New era
“In a creative sense, there were some voyages of discovery, major and minor, I had to take to get ‘Mutineers’ made. I challenged myself, and I found other ways of making and doing. I challenged the assumptions I once had about writing songs and about how best to do it. I had to confront a lot to get the record done so to come out the other side affected by that was very significant. It’s left me a changed person.”
Team spirit
“I was very much impressed by the collaboration (with ‘Mutineers’ producer Andy Barlow) and what it brought to the music. I feel like the way forward for the next while is looking for other people to bring ideas and throw a completely different light on things. I want to step into the unknown rather than the familiar. That’s sort of where I’m at and that way I’m very engaged and very interested in what happens next.”
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