New Shades Of Gray

"I wanted to see if I could do it, first. I know people talk a lot about covers albums but they're not really that easy to do, and I think I did something interesting. I just did it for fun and for good songs, and I think we did good. And I learned a lot and it made me a lot more excited about doing my new material, my new songs. When you listen to those other songs, how beautiful they are it gives you a new fire, you know, inspiration to do better, to write better songs,” says Macy Gray done the phone from the US. It's stupidly early in her part of the world on a weekday morning, and unnecessarily late on ours for a school night chat. Either way she is chipper, sincere and sweet. And yes, that trademark gravel, somehow sure and whispy at the same time, is also there when she talks.

Gray is, of course, the lady who blew us all away with her R&B/pop revival before it was The It Thing, starting with On How Life Is and the uber success of I Try, as the 20th century turned to the 21st. Now over a decade on, with some significant life changes of her own (family, four more albums, countless other additions including the establishment of The Macy Gray Music Academy to help share the musical love), she's put down the songwriter's pen and picked up the covers baton briefly. It's about celebrating music wherever it comes from, and working out how to find truth using other people's words.

The resulting album covers everyone from The Euryhtmics (Here Comes The Rain Again) to the Yeah Yeah Yeahs (Maps), Arcade Fire (Wake Up), Fiona Apple (Sleep To Dream), Kanye West (Love Lockdown), Metallica (Nothing Else Matters) and Radiohead (Creep). While some have already done the re-tread rounds (seems Radiohead really nailed the universal, existential crisis with a good tune and a well-placed swear word), others have been left sleeping, until now. “The album was definitely songs that I knew, and mostly it came down to lyrics. Songs that I knew and songs that I could translate the lyrics, it would be honest coming from me, it would make sense, you know? But it was what the songs had to say.

“Is it harder [than singing my own songs]? No, I wouldn't call it harder, but it's all about translation and how you interpret it. You have to put your heart into it in, in a way, so it's just more about having to feel using someone else's song.”

Being an award-winning songwriter herself, was she tempted to approach the original authors first to ask for their blessing or guidance? “We did the album first and then we spoke to different people like Dave Stewart from Eurythmics, and different people just to send it to them and see what they thought. But I didn't get to Thom Yorke or anyone like that,” she admits. Speaking from her own experience of someone covering your work, she adds, “I wouldn't call it strange – it's like, you can't wait to hear it, you know, you always get a giggle, it's like 'Wow', you know? It's not weird or anything, and it's definitely flattering, and some of them [other people's covers of her songs] are pretty good you know.”

The promo describes the recording in almost battle-like terms, offering in big letters next to title “Macy Takes on Rock's Biggest Acts”. Given her pop/R&B mainstream crossover, and more recently, rightly earned jazz and even dance cred (notably via collaboration with Australian producer/DJ Kay Katz a few years back), was rock a deliberate target here? “Oh no, I wasn't taking on the entire genre. I love a lot of rock and roll music and I just wanted to pick a style – I thought picking old soul beats would be too obvious, everybody does that… I just thought rock and roll would be interesting. And then I had a listen to some of the people who've done similar things, Nina Simone did some Beatles songs and stuff like that, and so I thought, 'That'd be cool.'

“We've done some of the songs live anyway, and so it was just more an experiment. I had a good time doing them. [Some songs like Radiohead and Metallica] are pretty classic, but there are some others that aren't, say a lot of people [who don't explore rock] may not be familiar with the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, for example. But you know, and anybody who listens to music constantly like I do, would know those people. And it's cool also to discover a song via a cover even if you haven't heard the original, then you can get out the original. I've heard a lot of songs as covers and I didn't know they were covers, and there's no crime in that, and it's a great way to hear music.”

Gray's Covered includes 11 different artists and their tracks, and while it was recorded for fun and relatively quickly, there was still a process of honing, negotiation and some cutting-room floor fodder. “Well, we recorded fourteen - we did this album really fast, in a couple of weeks - but there were a couple that didn't make it on. And then we tried a couple of Prince songs, a few Prince songs, but none of them came out very well, so we didn't use them,” she says with regret, but also clear love for the man. As anyone who's seen him live can confirm, it's often amazing to see the man himself scale the massive musical mountains he creates, let alone give anyone else the task. “I know! It's rare to hear a good Prince cover, I've only heard a couple.”

While in Australia to tour Covered and her back catalogue, Gray is also exploring what else she might preview. “When you're on stage every night you have to be inspired and you have to still mean it, after all this time. And so I think about where I was when I was writing and what I was writing about, but then you just go for it after that but you do have to find it when you're up there. We have actually two albums already finished, so we might play some stuff, I don't know… but it'd be fun to do it like that.”

Macy Gray will be playing the following shows:

Sunday 16 September - Sydney Opera House, Sydney NSW
Wednesday 19 September - Jupiters Casino, Gold Coast QLD
Thursday 20 September - QPAC, Brisbane QLD
Friday 21 September - Hamer Hall, Melbourne VIC