David Gray, performing at The Cosmopolitan, sings with sincerity

He calls it his second adolescence, complete with mildly disturbing imagery.

"It was an uncomfortable period," says British singer-songwriter David Gray of his sudden rise to fame with his 2000 digital-folk hybrid "White Ladder," equating the times to the awkwardness of one's teen years, "like sprouting pubes out of your face."

Huge laugh.

"That's mine, by the way," Gray says, attempting to collect himself and only halfway succeeding, still tickled by the unsettling mental picture he's conjured for us. "I'm going to paint that."

Eventually, the chuckling subsides and Gray elaborates on his allergic reaction to fame.

"I realized that as soon as it really hit me that it wasn't for me at all," he says. "I didn't rise to the occasion, quite the reverse, I sort of retracted with every fiber in my body. Awards shows or this guff -- I couldn't be bothered with any of it. I've never liked it. I've never taken part. I was just, 'Oh God, get me out of here.' I'm not interested in people who are interested in me for some other reason than the music I'm making."

Gray is candid and to the point when he speaks, and you could say the same thing about much of his repertoire, which is mostly posited on a palpable sense of earnesty and direct, unadorned emoting.

You can tell what many of his songs are about just from their titles alone -- "We Could Fall in Love Tonight," "When I Was in Your Heart," "Holding On," etc.

Some might brand it all a bit maudlin, but Gray seems invigorated by sharing such unguarded sentiment.

"There's this sort of vulnerability in peeling off the armor, like a hermit crab stepping out of his shell, naked, that's what you are when you're up there," he says of performing such confessional songs, "and yet, by the very act of defiance of doing that in a world where everyone else is doing the opposite, it makes you a stronger person. It gives you a strength, and the strength comes from the audience who are with you in it. So it emboldens you and protects you in a strange way."

To further illustrate what he aims for, creatively speaking, Gray recalls a recent performance he saw from South African singer Angelique Kidjo.

"The hairs on the back of my neck stood up -- it was so from the heart, every single syllable was just sizzling with sincerity and feeling," Gray says, practically purring his words. "I thought, 'This is what it's all about.' I'm not interested in the ironic art crap. That's what I'm after: the telling of the tale, right from the heart. This is what really counts, whether it hits the top of the charts or not."

As Gray alludes to, his recent albums, including his most recent disc, 2010's spare, intimate "Foundling," where Gray largely eschewed the electronic flourishes that underscored some of his earlier hits such as "Babylon" and "Please Forgive Me," haven't reached the commercial heights of "White Ladder," which sold more than 7 million copies worldwide.

Still Gray considers "Foundling" an artistic success -- and we won't argue, as it's an affecting, stirring record voiced by a true believer.

"Some of the songs are incredibly quiet and exposed, and it's a refinement rather than a stripping of everything back, refining ideas down to their purest point," Gray says of the disc. "I felt like I accomplished a few things on that record. I feel like I got to the place that I'd been craving to get to.

"Those songs are very much conceived and executed in a way where there was no external pressure," he adds. "They just existed of themselves. They weren't to be born in the marketplace to go out and kick some butt on my behalf. I was just doing something that I'd always wanted to do and arriving at a place that I'd always threatened to get to."

OK, but where does he go from here?

This is the question that Gray is currently attempting to answer as he starts writing for his next album.

It's been a struggle, he'll admit.

Then again, there's not much a man this forthcoming won't admit.

"I've written a lot of stuff. I think that I'm hung up on what shape the music should take," he says. "Why make another record? What's its raison d'etre? I'm listening for that sound or that song. I'm going through one of my questioning phases, which is part of the process.

"It's just not enough to knock out a record based on what I've written in the last 12 or 18 months," he continues. "I want something more. I want to move things on, whether that's going to be a more electronic sound or whether there's going to be some other elements, I'm not sure. There's lots of knitted brows," he says, looking forward to his Vegas gig to get a brief break from it all. "I'll be exuding a sort of artistic angst when I get there."

Contact reporter Jason Bracelin at jbracelin@ reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0476.