John Grant

John Grant conveys both vulnerable ballads and biting tirades through his resonant baritone, addressing gay experience, hypocrisy, and social wrongs via sardonic humor and direct candor. Although the thoughtful craftsmanship of his lyrics stays consistent across projects, the sonic palette has shifted across his discography. His first solo outing, Queen of Denmark in 2010, extended the atmospheric textures of his earlier group the Czars—an act that fused alt-country and dream pop—while he integrated deeper traces of his longstanding affection for synth pop and industrial music on later records such as Grey Tickles, Black Pressure in 2015. The increasingly intimate and politically pointed material on Boy from Michigan in 2021 and The Art of the Lie in 2024 highlighted his singular knack for moving without warning between ironic detachment and sincere feeling.

Born in Michigan, Grant remained with his Methodist parents, who frowned on his developing sexuality, until age twelve. The family then relocated to Colorado, where high-school bullying compounded struggles with anxiety and addiction. After heading to Germany in 1988 to pursue language studies—he became fluent in German, Russian, Spanish, and Icelandic—he came back to the United States in 1994 and assembled the Czars, a Colorado outfit whose sound bridged shoegaze, dream pop, and alternative country.

Anchored by Grant’s songwriting and polished vocals, the band issued two independent albums during the 1990s before joining Bella Union, the imprint founded by Cocteau Twins’ Simon Raymonde, one of Grant’s key influences alongside Ministry and Siouxsie and the Banshees. Although the Czars cultivated a modest global following through releases such as Before...But Longer and The Ugly People vs. the Beautiful People, the group disbanded in 2004 following Sorry I Made You Cry.

In the aftermath, Grant settled in New York, taking work as a waiter and as a Russian interpreter at a municipal hospital while also collaborating with Midlake and the Flaming Lips. Amid efforts to manage substance issues, he kept composing. In 2009, Midlake members accompanied him in the studio as his backing ensemble for the debut album Queen of Denmark, issued by Bella Union in April 2010; the candid, idiosyncratic collection earned praise for its candid treatment of addiction and sexuality. Seeking to foreground his lifelong passion for electronic music, he enlisted Biggi Veira of Icelandic electro-pop group GusGus—whom he encountered at the Airwaves Festival—for Pale Green Ghosts. Cut in Reykjavik and released in March 2013, the record included guest vocals from Sinéad O’Connor. Like its predecessor, it drew strong notices, and Grant received a nomination for Best International Male Solo Artist at the 2014 Brit Awards; that same year saw the concert album John Grant and the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra: Live in Concert.

Having established residence in Iceland, Grant strengthened his ties there by co-writing the country’s 2014 Eurovision entry “No Prejudice,” performed by Pollapönk. He also supplied a cover of “Sweet Painted Lady” for the fortieth-anniversary edition of Elton John’s Goodbye Yellow Brick Road and appeared on Hercules & Love Affair’s third album, Feast of the Broken Heart. For Grey Tickles, Black Pressure in 2015—its title drawn from the Icelandic expression for midlife crisis and the Turkish term for nightmare—he enlisted producer John Congleton along with Tracey Thorn, Amanda Palmer, and former Siouxsie and the Banshees drummer Budgie. The album achieved both commercial and critical success, peaking at number five on the U.K. Album Charts.

After an extended tour, Grant pursued further collaborations, writing a track for Robbie Williams that appeared on the singer’s 2016 album The Heavy Entertainment Show, recording a duet with Susanne Sundfør for her 2017 release Music for People in Trouble, and contributing to Vessels’ 2017 single “Erase the Tapes.” Early in 2018 his dark electro-pop venture Creep Show—featuring former Cabaret Voltaire frontman Stephen Mallinder, Tuung’s Phil Winter, and Ben “Benge” Edwards—issued its debut album Mr. Dynamite. He also partnered with Edwards on the fourth solo album Love Is Magic, released in October 2018. Drawing on the 1980s synth-pop textures of the Eurythmics, Ultravox, and Visage as well as the Carpenters and Einstürzende Neubauten, the set featured Midlake’s Paul Alexander and reached the U.K. Top 20.

Following a guest spot on the second album from Raymonde’s Lost Horizons project, 2021’s In Quiet Moments, Grant returned with Boy from Michigan that June. Produced by Cate Le Bon, the fifth album extended the reflective tone of Love Is Magic through expansive, detailed songs that proved more explicitly autobiographical and political than much of his earlier output, climbing to number eight on the U.K. charts. The next year his interpretation of the folk standard “God’s Gonna Cut You Down” became the theme for the BBC One series Inside Man. Late in 2022 he began work on his subsequent record, teaming with producer and composer Ivor Guest—recognized for collaborations with Brigitte Fontaine and Grace Jones, two artists Grant admires—after they met at that year’s Meltdown Festival. Following Creep Show’s 2023 sophomore album Yawning Abyss, Grant released his sixth full-length, The Art of the Lie, in June 2024. With the Invisible’s Dave Okumu on guitar, drummer and composer Seb Rochford, bassist Robin Mullarkey, and Guest’s production, the album paired Grant’s caustic yet tender reflections on family, religion, and politics with rich electro-acoustic arrangements.