Steve Grand

Today's artist became an overnight sensation when he released a YouTube music video in July 2013. The video went viral in less than a week and the very good-looking artist became the toast of all gay media outlets. The artist is Steve Grand and the video concerns the song All-American Boy.

Steve Grand was born on February 28, 1990 in Lemont, Illinois, which he has "lovingly described as one of the 'blandest suburbs outside of Chicago'." By age 13, he had come to the realization that he was gay and struggled to gain acceptance of his sexuality within his Catholic family and faith. He came out to friends starting in eighth grade. When his parents learned of his homosexuality, they encouraged him to seek counseling that would last five years. While some have called his therapy conversion therapy, he has not. In an interview with Michael Musto of Out.com, Grand said: “I want to make it clear that it’s been misrepresented that I went through what most people know as conversion therapy. I saw a Christian therapist who, among many other beliefs, believed I’d be happier in a straight life. He didn’t shame me for being gay. Most of the focus, we weren’t even talking about my sexuality. But certainly his belief that I’d be living a happier life as a heterosexual was indeed harmful. In no way, shape, or form ... do I condone ex-gay therapy. I think it’s a horrible practice. There’s no scientific basis for it. A person’s sexuality is a part of who they are. And I certainly suffered for not having my sexuality affirmed.”

He came out at age 19, and has attended the Chicago Gay Pride parade. He has since become an active figure in the LGBT equality movement. In addition to being a singer-songwriter and performer, Grand has performed at Pride events — and has partnered with The Human Rights Campaign, The Anti-Violence Project, Bailey House, the GLSEN Respect Awards, Out & Equal Workplace Advocates and the March on Springfield for Marriage Equality.

Grand started writing music when he was 11 years old. After graduating from Lemont High School, Grand attended Belmont University in Nashville, Tennessee, for a year. He then returned to Chicago to enroll at the University of Illinois and later left to focus on his musical career.

He cites a wide range of musical influences, including: The Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, Neil Young, Bruce Springsteen, Elton John, Billy Joel, Blink-182, Green Day, Taking Back Sunday, Brand New, Lady Gaga and Fall Out Boy. Grand told QVegas: “But it was Dad who got me started. He would listen to a song and tell stories about what each song meant to him: where he was in life, who he was dating, what car he was driving. He made me realize the lasting power of music - how a great song can take you back to the moment you first heard it. From that point on, I knew that’s what I wanted to do in life, create something so real and beautiful that it stays with its listener forever.”

Prior to launching his musical career, Grand modeled under a number of pseudonyms. He played piano at four Chicago-area churches and at various clubs in Chicago. He also performed cover songs, including hits by Lady Gaga, Bruno Mars, One Direction and Journey, and uploaded these to YouTube under the name Steve [Starchild]. However, Steve wanted to release original music.

On July 2, 2013, Grand uploaded a music video for his song "All-American Boy" to YouTube—producing it himself at a cost of US$7,000. The video almost immediately went viral. Just eight days later, "All-American Boy" had more than 1 million views. The song, set against a backdrop of country roads, an American flag and friends around a campfire, tells the story of a young man in love with a straight male friend. Grand recorded the vocals in his parents’ basement and maxed out his credit card to self-fund the video, which was directed and edited by Jason Knade. Here it is:

On September 6, 2013, Grand released Stay, the follow-up single to All-American Boy.

... Which he followed up with Back to California:

... And then came Time:

Most of his videos are telling gay themed stories in a positive and attractive way. Definitely worth watching.

His debut album titled All-American Boy was financed by a successful Kickstarter public funding campaign. Just one day after the launch, the original $81,000 goal had been reached and in within 5 days, double the original funding goal, and by close, $326,593 had been pledged by 4,905 backers. The album was released on March 24, 2015.

On a number of interviews and media appearances, Grand disputes himself being a country artist. In an interview with Time Out, New York in preparation for the launching of his debut album All-American Boy, he says: "There's a lot of talk about me being a country artist, and that was the headline from the start: Gay country artist. I never really identified with that - I certainly didn't put that out there myself, and I've never done anything to affirm that label. That was something that was just placed on me. I mean, I understand, [the song] "All-American Boy" does sound country, and the video is certainly very country. But there's stuff that's very dance-pop with not a trace of country on the record. So I think that will surprise people. But I'm a songwriter, and I've always been much more concerned about just the basic elements, the lyric and the melody rather than the production." Metrosource wrote that All-American Boy has "disparate" song styles, but it "works as a cohesive unit - rarely seen today...."

The album was relatively successful in the US: it made #47 in the Top 200, #3 in the Indie chart, #19 in the Digital chart, and #27 in the Sales chart.

It contained all four above-mentioned singles, as well as other good songs. Here's Loving Again:

Here he is with a live version of Whiskey Crime, recorded in the 2016 Pride in Pittsburgh:

In 2014, he released a promotional single - a cover of Elton John's classic Bennie and the Jets:

During the festive season that year, he released his own version of Mariah Carey's All I Want for Christmas is You:

One of the outstanding songs in his album is We Are The Night. Early this year, it was remixed by Dave Aude and released as a single. It's an LGBT empowerment anthem. Here it is:

His last single so far is a duet with fellow out singer Eli Lieb, called Look Away. Lieb will have his own presentation here at a later date.

Steve Grand is a beautiful and sexy man, he seems to posess a nice personality and he definitely has talent. The fact that he has become a "gay celebrity" is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, it's not a bad springboard in order to achieve mainstream success, on the other hand, it can get too comfortable, all these holidays in exotic places and partying with "the beautiful people" can get too comfortable and ultimately distracting in his development as an artist. I hope that he loves his music enough not to let it go, because he has a real chance of becoming so much more that a "one-album gay celebrity boy-wonder". The fact that he's writing and recording songs as we speak is a very good sign. Soaking Wet was uploaded on YouTube as recently as 20 days ago.