John Grant continues to have a hugely successful 2013. Having recently been nominated for as Best Sole Artist in the Q Awards alongside David Bowie, Laura Marling, Jake Bugg and Ellie Goulding. He will play the Olympia Theatre on Monday 3rd March. Tickets €25 incl. booking fee go on sale this Friday at 9am nationwide. But wait, put those wallets away because we have a pair of passes to the gig to give away. All you have to do to enter is visit our competitions section and answer the (ridiculously easy) question!
t’s been an extraordinary journey for John Grant, from a point where he thought he would never make music again or escape a life of substance abuse to winning awards and accolades, collaborating with Sinead O’Connor, Rumer and Hercules & Love Affair and having his music featured in the award-winning film Weekend.
It’s a journey that’s taken him from his birthplace in Buchanan, Michigan to be raised in Parker, Colorado, studying languages in Germany and, after his band The Czars split up, basing himself in New York, London, Berlin and, most recently, Iceland, where the bulk of Pale Green Ghosts was recorded. It’s also been a journey from The Czars’ folk/country noir to the lush ‘70s FM alchemy of Queen Of Denmark to the astonishing fusion of sounds that lifts Pale Green Ghosts to even giddier heights.
His second album Pale Green Ghosts is a show of strength and survival, of moving on with life, on what will continue to be an incredible journey. "Moving to Reykjavik, at the age of 43, was incredibly risky and scary," says Grant. "I didn’t know anyone here, but I’ve built up a life here, and recorded an album I’m really proud of, that distils what I’m about down to its most essential components, better than ever before. And this was during the middle of health issues. It means I’m trying to take the bull by the horns, and to live."
