Whether it was drugs,alcohol or reckless sex, Grant lived on the brink of self-destruction. Now the troubled but witty songwriter has found redemption in ReykjavikFour years ago John Grant flew into Reykjavik for the Iceland Airwaves festival, and walked into a shop and was recognised by a local: “His name was Denni. He said: ‘Hey,man, I love your stuff – if you want to disappear out to the country and see some things…’ and he took me on a three-hour drive.”Grant had been drifting following two decades of bingeing on sex, and drugs and alcohol. Viewing Iceland up close,he “saw this lunar and otherworldly landscape. A cold and treeless Hawaii. The light, the air, and the language…” Language is primary to Grant; he speaks German,Russian and Spanish, and has “a smattering of French, and enough for them to understand,and I made really powerful progress in Swedish, but then I had a dark winter there – that’s where I found out I had HIV.”Continue reading...
Source: theguardian.com