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John Grant: ‘I love the Irish so much. You have this incredible unflappability and love for life that I really connect to’

The Michigan songwriter, who plays in Ireland this week, at Sligo Live, on his singular approach to music

John Grant: 'I’ve always felt that I was going to just do what I wanted to.'

Tony Clayton-Lea's face
Tony Clayton-Lea
Tue Oct 31 2023 - 05:15

There are some creative connections you don’t see coming. One of this year’s most surprising has been John Grant, the acclaimed Michigan songwriter noted for his sardonic wit and piercing confessionals, performing songs made famous by the late US country singer Patsy Cline.

“My father had these wonderful eight-track tapes of Roger Miller, Johnny Cash, Loretta Lynn, Jeannie C Riley and Donna Fargo,” says Grant, who is playing in Ireland this weekend. “I heard all of that when I was growing up, but I wasn’t terribly interested in it. I didn’t hate it, but as a teenager I was heavily into new-wave music, like Devo, New Order and Missing Persons, and a lot of heavier electronic sounds, the industrial stuff, like Skinny Puppy, Throbbing Gristle, Chris & Cosey, Fad Gadget and Ministry. That was my scene, so it was quite strange to me that from when I watched Sweet Dreams — the 1985 biopic directed by Karel Reisz — I was just completely taken by the music of Patsy Cline.”

Grant, who last year became a citizen of Iceland, where he has been living since 2013, allows that he is at the point in his career where he is established enough to choose whatever creative path he pleases. In his early 20s he moved from his home in Colorado to Germany, where he studied as a translator. (He is fluent in German, Russian, Spanish, Swedish and French.) By the time he was 26 he had returned home and cofounded The Czars, but the usual music-industry conflicts (alongside his drug and alcohol dependency) caused the band to split in the mid-2000s.

Grant took a break from performing between 2006 and 2009, although he continued to write songs while working at various points as a waiter, flight attendant, hospital interpreter and retail assistant. He released his intensely personal debut solo album, Queen of Denmark, in 2010, since when he has walked a singular path.

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“I’ve always felt that I was going to just do what I wanted to. The record label I’ve been with, Bella Union, has never put any pressure on me to do anything in a certain way, so I’ve been able to go in whatever direction I felt I needed. And for me, honestly, I still feel like a baby in the industry, because I still think the possibilities are endless.”

Grant says that, despite being in his mid-50s, he is continuing to figure out his creative game plan. “Some artists come out fully formed, people like Rufus Wainwright or the incredible Chrissie Hynde, but it’s taken me a lot longer because I didn’t have the confidence those people have. That said, I have a much better handle on my place in the world, and I’m slowly settling into my groove, finding my particular voice. I definitely think I’m getting there, and I think there’s a type of lyric and a type of ballad that is typically John Grant.”

That the singer is well known enough to perform in reasonably big venues means he can continue to make a living despite there being such a “mind-boggling amount of music out there that it can often feel like it’s hard to cut through the noise. There are days when you feel you couldn’t possibly be heard or you couldn’t possibly be relevant, and it’s important to remember that. These days it’s like the individual should be steering the ship, not the other way around. I hate even saying the word, but the algorithm is steering people, and that’s just nauseating,” he says, referring to the automated recommendations that streaming services such as Spotify make.

Grant’s music and lyrics are far removed from uniform pop or rock. He feels most comfortable writing his lyrics in English, he says. “You spend your time steeped in your own culture and language, paying attention to all the interesting turns of phrases, colloquialisms, vernacular, jargon and all the different registers that people have. It amazes me that some people concern themselves with what is considered high language and what is considered low language. I just feel they’re all equal, and that what they do adds specific nuance or colour to what you’re doing.”

A downside of English, he says, is that it can be quite challenging for rhyming. “It’s easy to rhyme in German and Russian because of the grammatical endings; there are so many, and it’s just the way the language is structured. In addition, I would say that I get a lot of joy from the sounds of Russian words, because they’re so beautiful.”

Humour is extremely important, he says. “That’s one of the reasons I love the Irish so much. You just have this specific, incredible unflappability, childlike curiosity and love for life that I really connect to.”

As a polyglot, Grant would probably pick up a few words of Gaeilge pretty easily. “It would be a fascinating journey for me,” he says. “I’ve never really delved into it. Somebody taught me the Irish word for jellyfish — smugairle róin — and apparently it translates to ‘snot of the sea’, which right there is a beautiful example of Irish humour.”

John Grant