David Gray's favourite instrument

“My favourite instrument is my Steinway Model D grand piano I installed in my Church Studio, not that my rather clumsy fingers can do it justice. The studio is big and I thought it needed a massive piano. I got it in 1994 when the money came in after I experienced my first wave of success.

Instead of making a move for the Ferrari I thought I’d make buying a piano my big extravagance. I went all over London looking for one and tried numerous pianos at auction rooms and wherever. I found this one down at Steinways showroom near Oxford Street. The guy there was obsessed with it being a really special instrument. It cost me £80,000 then, so it would probably cost about £100,000 now. It was too big for the lift at the studio by about five inches, so we had to get a crane, knock in the back wall of the first floor of the studio and crane it in through what had been a window. And this on the day of a blizzard!

At least, nobody will be able to nick it! You can tell the quality of it when you play low down and there’s no muddiness. It’s chocolate smooth down there. At the top end it rings out like bells. It fills the room and surrounds you. There’s something very moving about it, and I’ve used it on everything I’ve recorded over the past five years. It sounds particularly well on ‘Kathleen’, ‘Transformation’ and ‘Fugitive’ on Draw The Line, and it’ll be heard on all its glory, just the piano and drums, on the track ‘The Red Chair’ on my next album Foundling.”

David Gray has a new single out ‘Full Steam’ with Annie Lennox and he plays The O2 on December 19 with Regina Spektor.