While many musicians spend their downtime watching movies and TV, singer-songwriter David Gray opts to crack open a book. "I've been in New York for nearly a week and I haven't turned the telly on yet," he tells Spinner during a recent interview. Being a big reader, he bounces from style to style, from novels like Graham Swift's 'Waterland' to non-fiction. One book he's been enjoying of late is 'Last Train to Memphis,' a 1995 biography of Elvis Presely that has given Gray a new appreciation for not only the king of rock 'n' roll, but that whole era. "After reading this Elvis book I'm definitely gonna go out and buy a whole load of '50s stuff," he tells Spinner. "I'm not a huge Elvis fan, but he's Elvis, isn't he?"

Though not a big biography reader, he still gets a fair amount of them. "Sometimes because people don't know what to get me for Christmas and stuff -- I'm like the man who's got everything -- I get bought a lot of books," he says laughing. "So often someone buys me like a Tom Waits biography. Even if it's kind of cruddy reading this was amusing because it's just got lots of quotes and he's basically a comedian amongst other things."

What are some of the other musical works outside of albums he's been digging of late? "I read the story of the Cramps. I was a big Cramps fan when I was young. Lux Interior, R.I.P.," he says. "Someone bought me the DVD set of the story of the Beatles, which is quite amazing actually. It's all footage of them and in-depth interviews with them over the years going through the whole of their careers, from the very beginning, Liverpool and Hamburg and that's quite amazing and engrossing too. You realize how much you love the Beatles as you start to watch it. They're the best, just like Elvis. They just had it."

And although he read Bob Dylan's 'Chronicles' because it's basically required reading for every musician and fan, Gray is not a Dylan scholar. "I don't pursue Dylan in that way, although I've obviously always been a huge fan of his work,' he says. "I've never tried to learn much about him. I don't feel the need to know the facts of someone's life -- the music seems to speak volumes."

That's an attitude we believe Dylan would truly appreciate.