Reykjavík Grapevine - Apr 2021, Page 9

9 The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 04— 2021
The presence of his fellow musicians
helped John overcome any inertia those
voices might have imposed. “I mean
they've travelled and they’re here to do
this,” he says of his creative crew, “so
you just deliver. And Cate was good at
helping me focus.”
“I'm pretty particular. It's funny,
for somebody who doesn't feel like
he knows what he's doing I have very
specific ideas about how I want it to be,”
he laughs. “So yeah, I’ve managed to
poop out another record with the help
of Cate Le Bon. And I'm so proud of it.”
Heaven and hell on
earth
John’s loving relationship with Iceland
started back in 2011. Promoting his
debut solo album ‘Queen Of Denmark’,
he visited Reykjavík to play the Iceland
Airwaves Music Festival and expe-
rienced a life-changing moment in a
downtown gentleman’s outfitter.
“I was in a store called Dressmann,
on Laugavegur—which is no longer
there—and this guy was staring at me,”
John recalls with a smile. “And I thought
maybe he'd caught me looking at him
and I was gonna get beaten up for being
a faggot, you know?”
“And he was like, ‘Are you John
Grant?’ And I was like, ‘Yeah, but how
the fuck do you know that? Like—
seriously–how do you know?’ I was
supposed to be incognito. Anyway, he
offered to show me around and he and
I are still fantastic friends. He is one
of the loveliest human beings I've ever
met.”
Soon afterwards, John moved to
Iceland for the “crisp air and deep
connections” that he had found here.
John’s new friends included a man
who would become his long-term
partner. Biggi of Icelandic electro
legends GusGus also came into John’s
life around that time, and went on to
produce his second solo album, ‘Pale
Green Ghosts’.
The following years saw two more
albums from John—‘Grey Tickles, Black
Pressure’ and ‘Love Is Magic’—with
'Boy From Michigan’, his fifth studio
outing, bringing the story up to date.
However, John’s development as
an artist has been superimposed on a
roller-coaster ride of personal issues
and challenges: anxiety, depression
and the drugs prescribed to counter
them; hedonistic, self-destructive sex
which led to him contracting HIV;
and an addiction to booze, along with
sundry other narcotics.
Preceding and underpinning all
these issues was John’s experience
of growing up gay within a strictly
Christian environment; an intolerant
atmosphere, where homosexuality was
regarded as a wicked lifestyle choice.
It meant going straight to hell, giving
licence to those around them to create
hell on earth for the purported sinner.
This environment precipitated lifelong
personal struggles within John, which
have taken time to address.
“My sensitivity was not something
to be destroyed and crushed, which I
tried to do with alcohol and drugs,” he
says. “It was actually a very beautiful
thing about me and it has taken me
decades to start to think about wanting
to be able to accept it someday.”
Reaching back to
Michigan
John Grant’s past is writ large over his
work, along with the clear evidence
that it’s not always an easy thing to
share.
“You know, there's a lot of ugliness
in my story,” he acknowledges. “I feel
rage and hatred in my heart for the fact
that I couldn't defend myself against
the people who were attacking me on
a daily basis, because I believed that I
deserved that treatment.”
To tell his story, John has made
himself an open book through his
music. There is no separately created
public persona; what you hear from
John the artist comes straight from
John the person.
This transparent approach is consis-
tent across his first four albums, each
reflecting elements of his life from
across the years. 'Boy From Michigan’
reaches furthest back, with themes
revolving around John’s upbringing in
Michigan and Colorado.
“The album is sort of childhood
viewed through the prism of adult-
hood,” he says. “I definitely romanticise
that time in my life; I'm a little obsessed
with Michigan, you know.”
Album tracks “The Rusty Bull” and
“County Fair” both evoke a folksy mix of
John’s real Michigan childhood spliced
with his idyllic fantasy version, while
the song 'Boy From Michigan’ juxta-
poses a warm, welcoming groove in the
verses with a jarring, anxious feel to the
choruses. Its refrain carries a warning
from John’s childhood friend—delivered
just before John moved from Michigan
to Colorado—about the treacherous
world beyond what they currently knew.
“It was sort of out of the frying pan,
into the fire—because that's when the
shit really hit the fan,” John says of the
move.
The track “Mike and Julie” depicts
the teenaged John—now in Colorado—
deftly side-stepping the issue of his
sexuality by positioning a female friend
between him and a male admirer. Clos-
ing the Colorado chapter of his youth,
“The Cruise Room” reflects John’s last
night in Denver before emigrating,
hopeful that Germany would offer a
more accepting environment.
Closing the album, however, is
“Billy”—a gentle ballad, lamenting a
relationship stifled by society’s expec-
tations of manhood.
“I think part of the fight for me is
about the cult of masculinity,” John
says. “I was quite sensitive and I sort of
got crushed by everything around me
because I had no defences. And when
it became about me being gay, I didn't
really want to talk about it. But I was
forced to deal with the issue on a daily
basis. ‘Quit that faggot shit,’ you know?”
Are we not men?
As a young John started to develop an
interest in music, what appealed to him
immediately marked him out as differ-
ent.
“What my brothers were bringing to
the table—because they were seven to
nine years older—were bands like KISS,
Aerosmith, Van Halen, Molly Hatchet
and Lynyrd Skynyrd,” John remembers.
“But for me it was Abba, which led to
side-glances and, like, ‘Fuck, we’ve got
a live one here, boys! Let’s see if we can
get him on the Aerosmith bus!’”
“Oh, and Donny and Marie—we were
listening to that too,” he laughs, embar-
rassed, but not.
John was captivated by the post-punk
and new wave movements of the early
eighties, and “Rhetorical Figure” from
the new album is a direct connection
to that scene. The song channels Devo,
John’s favourite band of the period and
still a major influence on him. “I love
songs like that,” he enthuses. “I can't
get over songs with that kind of bass.
I'll never stop making songs like that.”
John adopted the flamboyant fash-
ions that came with the new music, but
his need for self-expression soon ran
into the brick wall of conservative social
intransigence.
“My mother was an extremely sensi-
tive person and so lovely, but man she
really struggled with me. She was so
ashamed of me when I would come to
her store wearing eyeliner. And it wasn’t
just like, ‘I can't believe you’re wearing
that’. It was a deep shame and disgust,
like ‘I can't believe my son is…’” John
recalls, his voice trailing off.
Angry orange baby
“All this stuff going on in the United
States today makes me feel like every-
thing from my youth is happening
again,” John says. “There’s all the nasti-
ness and hatred, but people aren't even
ashamed of it now. It's just right on the
surface, unapologetically.”
"I suppose
I never really
tire of going
back over my
life and trying
to figure out
what the fuck
happened."
"It's funny, for some-
body who doesn't feel
like he knows what
he's doing I have very
specific ideas about
how I want it to be."