IF Leonard Cohen hadn’t already released an album called Songs of Love and Hate, you could easily imagine John Grant giving one of his records this title.
The Michigan-born, Colorado-raised and now Iceland-based singer with the brilliant voice and incredible stage presence is revered for his honest and warts-and-all songwriting and there’s a large amount of love and hate in his lyrics.
The title of Grant’s new album Grey Tickles, Black Pressure combines the Icelandic for 'midlife crisis’ with the Turkish for 'nightmare’. Lyrics on the album include “I can’t believe I missed New York in the 70s – I could have got a head start in the world of disease, I’m sure that I would have contracted every single solitary thing... But there are children who have cancer and so all bets are off, ’cause I can’t compete with that..."
Grant revealed in 2012 that he was HIV positive and has spoken at length about how he regrets wasting so many years of his life on sex, drugs and alcohol. (He signed up to Alcoholics Anonymous in 2004).
When I interviewed him over the phone in 2011 ahead of a gig in Belfast, he was touring his stunning 2010 solo debut Queen of Denmark and was working on his next album.
“I don't know what I'm going to call it yet but I guess the working title I have in my head is The Anger Stage,” he said at the time. The consequent album, released in 2013, was called Pale Green Ghosts.
I got to interview Grant in Belfast last week ahead of yet another show-stopping gig and he admitted that he still gets angry when he looks back over his “wasted” years.
“I don’t think the anger will ever stop. I know it’s something you have to let go of, but I feel p****d off about all the years I wasted in self-loathing and escape, not planning for any future; thinking that there wouldn’t be one to plan for. That makes me angry and it’s hard to let go.”
Grant is an imposing bear of a man in person but is very much a gentle giant, a man of great wit and a genuinely lovely human being. When he was getting photographs taken in his Mandela Hall dressing room, he referenced Zoolander by joking to the photographer, “Here’s a little Blue Steel for you... Blue Steel mixed with Evil Dead.”
He has a devoted following in Ireland; after his Belfast gig he went on to play Galway and Cork and he returns in July to play his biggest Irish headline show to date, at the Iveagh Gardens in Dublin.
“Any time I play here it’s very uplifting and it really gives you a lot of the energy that you may be lacking when you come out on stage. It’s always amazing to play here. It’s humbling to be treated like that by an audience. A little overwhelming, but always fantastic. But I don’t want people to get sick of me.”
As an openly gay man and something of an equal rights campaigner himself, Grant was happy to lend songs of his to the 2015 Panti Bliss/Rory O’Neill documentary The Queen of Ireland, which was centred around the gay marriage referendum in the Republic.
“I think [Rory] is a real bad-ass. He’s amazing and so funny. I was proud to be included in that film and I have the DVD sitting at home, so I just need to watch it. It takes me forever to get to things.”
Grant has been on the road pretty much non-stop for the past five years, but he does take time to chill out when he’s at home in Iceland.
“I like to read my books and watch my Blu-rays and watch X Files and Twin Peaks and hang out with my boyfriend, who is a stellar human being.”
As a man who can speak Icelandic, German, Russian, Spanish and French, he likes to brush up on his languages when he’s on his tour bus.
“I’m always working on my Icelandic. I’m never bored on the road. I’ve always got tonnes of books, even though I usually I stick with my grammar books.
“At home I find that the internet is sort of getting in the way of book-reading and I let it. But I’m trying to interrupt that, because I don’t want to rot away on my sofa looking at the internet.”
As for writing songs on the road, he says “it just either happens or it doesn’t”.
When Grant played the Mandela Hall in 2014, he was joined on stage by Conor O’Brien of Villagers and was supposed to be joined by Sinead O’Connor too, but she had to cancel because of illness. So is he still in touch with O’Brien and O’Connor?
“I haven’t talked to Sinead in a while, so I don’t know what’s going on with her right now. I hope to see her soon; I miss her. I haven’t been in touch with Conor lately, but he’s always on my radar, because he’s amazing.
“I connect with a lot of people out on the road, but those relationships are quite unsustainable because you barely have time for those closest to you. It’s tempting to concentrate on these lovely people that you meet on the road, because it’s new and fresh. But I tend to try and do what most normal people do and try and maintain my important relationships.
“That means that it’s just not always possible to interact with people – even people like Conor, who I’d love to interact with more on a regular basis.”
Grant is also a fan of Dublin singer Damien Dempsey.
“I think he’s got one of the best voices in the whole damn world. His stuff just cuts me to the core and gets through all my defence mechanisms and I’m able to even cry once in a while listening to his stuff.”
Some tracks on Grant’s new album – including Snug Slacks, You & Him and Voodoo Doll – reminded me of Beck’s 1999 album Midnite Vultures and the big man admits he’s a fan of that record.
“That makes me very happy, I totally agree with you on that. Midnite Vultures is actually an inspiration for me. It reminded me of [US band] Devo, which is why I loved it so much. It’s one of my favourite records of Beck’s.”
Grant got a rapturous reception at last week’s Belfast gig, an Open House Festival show. One man in the audience enjoyed it so much that he proposed to his girlfriend, who apparently said yes.
The singer says he quite likes the idea of living in Ireland but is happy in Iceland for now.
“There are so many beautiful places, like Ireland and the Scottish Highlands and upstate New York and San Francisco and New Orleans and Michigan. I love those vast wooded areas and I have a fantasy about having a house in a wooded area.
“I’ve met some great people in Iceland. But you’re just choosing a different backdrop for your bull***t. You get the same lessons wherever you go until you learn them.”
:: John Grant plays the Iveagh Gardens in Dublin on Saturday, July 9. Grey Tickles, Black Pressure is out now (JohnGrantMusic.com).
