“I can be all over the place”

John Grant talks to Victoria Segal.

Why did you pick such a stark title for your new record?

“I think that’s a reaction for me of having to hide for a large portion of my life – and feeling that I don’t need to hide any more. I can say exactly what I think and feel so that title it feels good – I like the simplicity of it. I love Michigan and I love thinking about it – it’s a really beautiful place and I romanticise it a lot. But you were being indoctrinated into this sick society. All societies are sick but I feel like the American one has some stuff up its sleeve when it comes to the sickness of the society.”

What does the sculpture in The Rusty Bull mean to you?

“For a long time I couldn’t find anyone who remembered that thing so you start to wonder decades on, ‘Did I imagine that?’. I found a Facebook page of people who had grown up in that time in this town in Michigan and one day I remember someone asking if anyone remembers this bull in the woods off this road, and it was a really great moment for me because of course, I knew it was real. I use it as a talisman, a symbol of what I was dealing with: this thing that was growing inside of me – my sexuality, which was considered not good and evil and perverse and sick, and this thing in the woods was looking at me and saying, ‘We have all sorts of horrible things in store for you.’ It’s sort of a metaphor for coming of age and dealing with being a gay man in small-town America back in those days.”

Was there music that was particularly important to you during recording?

“We thought a lot about Chris & Cosey – I’m always thinking about Chris & Cosey. I was thinking about Jean-Michel Jarre and specifically his album ZooLook from 1986. Vangelis, Blade Runner and Talk Talk because that album The Colour Of Spring was so huge to me. Devo came up quite a bit because I’m always thinking about Devo as well. I quickly homed in on the sound that I wanted. A lot of the songs started on piano, but I had a lot of beautiful little soundscapes that I had made on my synths in my studio. One of the things Cate did was to help focus the sound and bring it some cohesiveness because I can be all over the place. We talked about saxophone a lot because we both love saxophone, and clarinet. Like that sax solo on Baker Street by Gerry Rafferty, that’s one of my favourite things.”