Steve Grand Interview with Karrissa Wade

Steve Grand is the smoking hot muscle boy that took the ldbtq musical community by storm with his simmering openly gay country music video, "All American Boy" a few years back and blazed a new musical trail for out musicians.

Karrissa Wade caught up with him and managed to catch a funny, insinuating and provocative interview with the winsome hunk.

For more on Steve Grand, check out his website

Steve Grand Hello, is Karrrissa there?

Karrissa Wade Speaking.

Steve Grand Hey, this is Steve Grant.

Karrissa Wade Hi, Mr. Grant. Yes, hi. It's Karrrissa Wade.

Steve Grand I'm sorry?

Karrissa Wade I said it's Karrrissa Wade.

Steve Grand Curtis, Curtis, yes.

Karrissa Wade Ka-rrriss-a.

Steve Grand Oh, sorry, sorry.  Karrrissa.

Karrissa Wade That's okay. You're just a little late today.

Steve Grand No, I know. I'm very sorry about that. I've been running around. There's been a lot of crazy little changes on our team. And I'm åtrying to get mail forwarded to a new address. And so I'm driving all over the burbs and trying to get ready to leave for Canada tomorrow.

Karrissa Wade There's always something, isn't it? Always something.

Steve Grand Yes.

Karrissa Wade All right. If you could, Mr. Grant, tell us a little bit about yourself.

Steve Grand A little about myself. Well, I'm a singer-songwriter from the suburbs of Chicago. And music has been my passion. I've been playing piano when I was five. And eventually then guitar. And really took to songwriting when I was about 13 years old. And since then, it's been my dream to try to become a rock star and change the world with my music.

Karrissa Wade Now you're an open gay performer. Have you faced a lot of discrimination being a gay artist?

Steve Grand I mean, I'm mostly known within the community. So not so much from outside. I mean, other than people saying, "Go to hell, faggot" and stuff like that, not too much. Not incessant criticism from the community. Definitely bothers me a lot more. I think criticism is valid, but sometimes, I think criticism ends up just being flat-out mean and unproductive. And we should know better. I expect a little more from my LGBT brothers and sisters as far as being kinder to one another. And that doesn't mean that there's not valid criticism. I welcome criticism.

Karrissa Wade And especially in our community, I think there's a lot of kindness that people thrive upon.

Steve Grand Of course, that's all part of it. The inners opened up to the ability of people who just critique what other people are doing, what artists are doing, what creators and any kind of political movement are doing. Always easy to be the person on the sidelines, along the calls. But it's definitely always harder to be the one creating the art will undoubtedly be critical of.

Karrissa Wade Right. Exactly. Like I said, your music often tells the stories of your life. What was the story behind American Boy?

Steve Grand Well, I think It's a story that LGBT people could especially relate to, but I think it's a story that people of all sexual orientations-- I mean, which one of us hasn't fallen for someone you haven't been able to have? And that's the story of All American Boy. That unrequited love. And it's something that I felt time and time again ever since I was a 13-year-old boy, crushing on my counselor at summer Boy Scout camp. And that's what kind of made me realize that I was gay. And ever since then, objects of desire and affection were, by default, straight men. And so there's a special pain that comes with that. Wanting someone that is completely off-limits.

Karrissa Wade And do you still-- on pertaining that, do you still seem to try to attract the guys that aren't right for you I mean, of course, but I think a lot of people-- we always seem to want what we can't or don't have at the moment, and something about that makes it more appealing. I think there's something primal about that.

Steve Grand Well, of course.

Karrissa Wade So I'm no different.

Karrissa Wade Now, is there any off-stage chemistry with the other actors in the videos, especially Daniel Williams?

Steve Grand He is a beautiful man. I hired him to do the job. I didn't know him before, but I got-- I don't hire people because I want to sleep with them. That's actually not happened. We're all very different people. And I think that's cool that as different as we are-- as very different as we are, we came together, and we made something fun and beautiful, and that made people happy.

Karrissa Wade Now, is there a Mr. Steve Grand in your life now?

Steve Grand I'm sorry?

Karrissa Wade Is there a mister in your life now?

Steve Grand Well, I try to keep romantic side of my life out of the public eye for their sake and for my own. That's the one thing that I keep to myself, but I'll say that there's not much going on. .

Karrissa Wade Well, hopefully when you get to Miami, that would change a little bit for you.

Steve Grand Hopefully, when I beat my 20s, I'll look back and be able to say, "Wow, I really was able to do something I really loved, that I made a difference." And I feel like I have a lot of time to find a partner and settle down.

Karrissa Wade Now, where can we see the sexiest man in show business? Where will you be performing ?

Steve Grand Well, I'm in San Fransisco for two private shows. And then I'll be in LA for another private show. And then I'm actually going to be at a white party this year. And I'm just going for fun and not performing or making a big public show of it. I'm going to be there. I just wanted to-- now that the album's done, I just wanted to take some time and have some big old gay fun with my gay brothers and sisters.

Karrissa Wade Right. Well, perhaps we can get your love life on track some time. Now, what has been the craziest interview question you've got? In all the questions you've got, what has been the craziest interview question?

Steve Grand That's a good question. I don't know. I've gotten some stupid questions. I know that. I can't remember specifically what they are. There's also been some good questions. Someone asked me what my spirit animal is, and I didn't have a good answer at the time. But now I would say it's grumpy cat [laughter].

Karrissa Wade Perfect. Absolutely perfect. Well, I'll give you a crazy one just so we can end the interview on a little bit of a laugh. So here's mine. If you were a drag queen, what would stage name be?

Steve Grand I need to think about this for a minute. I should have something good [laughter]. Like Stephanie Grande? [laughter].

Karrissa Wade There you go. There you go. Now, we're going to end the interview with this last question and then I'll let you get back to everything. Tell us about your album that you released because I'm sure everyone would like to know where to get it, and what it's about etc.

Steve Grand Yes. All-American Boy. It has 13 tracks on it, and I'm super proud of it. There's a huge list of amazing musicians. You could see in the credits. They play it on everything. I'm really very proud of this. I wrote all the songs exclusively except for two, which were co-written with me. And then as far as lyrical content, I would say that it has a lot to do with growing up as a millennial, a young 20-something in 2015 and all the things my generation experiences in a kind of unique way. I feel like we especially struggle to transition from youthhood to adulthood for a lot of reasons and some being-- the financial crisis in 2008. A lot of us continue to struggle to find work, and a lot of us has had to move back home, and our adulthood hasn't started exactly like a lot of us were promised.

We were told by our parents we could do anything we wanted, we could do any job we wanted, we should follow our passion and everything. The rest would be taken care of. And I think we found as we entered the real world that's not always the case, and life isn't always that easy. So I think I touch on some of those things, and-- also there's things that are incredibly universal. There's intense adolescence friendship that  I think a lot of LGBT people will especially relate to because it's a very personal song to me about a friendship I had with a young girl. And we were both 13, 14 years old, and when the world seemed so big and exciting, and when i was still struggling to accept myself, she was the person that was able to really accept me before I was even able to embrace who I was. So it's kind of an ode to her and an ode to all of those people that I think-- a lot of, us gay men, especially, have in our lives. Those women that were there to embrace us before we were able to embrace ourselves.

Karrissa Wade Absolutely amazing.

Steve Grand Thank you so much.

Karrissa Wade I appreciate you taking so much of your time today and I look forward to seeing you, hopefully, in the near future.

Steve Grand Absolutely. Me too.