What you see is what you get...It’s a line we’ve


all heard. Typically, it’s an indication of seeing something and making a judgment call based on its surface value. How often in life has that particular trick backfired? The web’smodus operandi, is a fine-tuned singular lens for that particular superficiality. Brief sound bites and flashy images, grab for our attention, often leaving those who peruse with a flattened one-dimensional perspec- tive on much of what they see. A common and easy mistake to make. Looking beyond is what we do here atThe Rage Monthly.Lucky for us, singer/songwriter Steve Grand is a person on which we were able to focus our attention. Multi-dimensional for certain, Grand hit the ground running with his self-produced web music video sensation, “All American Boy.” Reminding us all what it was like to fall for that best friend...The unattainable one who didn’t return the feelings. The notable difference? It was his straight “Boy” bestie. The song and powerful music video echoed bittersweet memories of unrequited love—then, in a refection of our changing times— seemingly crossed sexuality’s lines. Many other musical moments have followed in


that same vein for Grand with songs like, “Stay,” “Whiskey Crime” and “Say You Love Me” that crossed genre lines. And, much like others emerg- ing on the current music scene, are unapologetic about their experiences of love...In all its forms. The times have changed. Let’s delve a little deeper into one of its collaborators.


I enjoy asking this question of performers. What are your earliest memories around music? I would say that it depends on what stage. It’s


different at different times in my life. First, as a very young kid, I just thought the piano was so cool. I was fascinated with it as a piece of furniture aesthetically and by the way that it sounded. How you could make all of these different sounds out of the keys. Unlike other instruments, like a saxo- phone, you can’t really see how the sound is being made and how it’s being changed. With a piano, it’s very intuitive and you see that there are only black and white keys that make all of the different sounds. I was very interested in that. My dad always had us listen to rock and roll and


loved to talk about it. A certain song would come on the radio and he would say, “I remember when this song was playing. I was with so-and-so during the summer of ’68,” or something like that. He had


all of these really strong memories associated with certain songs. Those are really the two strongest memories associated with music and me. I love the story I read about you building pianos out of cardboard or what ever you could get your hands on. (Laughs) I’ve always been very intensely creative


and I’ve never been able to have an interest and have a mild curiosity with it. I really love to explore things to their limits. You’ve talked a lot about your family and the transformation that’s happened since you came out. It seems in the end, they really helped to set you up for success. I would say that now. As you become an adult,


you go through this period of being very critical of your family. Seeing everything that is wrong and all of the ways in which you were up for pathologies, or seeing where the things wrong with your life come from. Now, the pendulum has swung back the other way and I see my parents in a very different light. I try to tell them that all the time, because you never know with life. I just recently lost my aunt unexpectedly, so I try to tell them that what they did was really noble. People ask about the narrative about my family


not being accepting of who I was and how that was a point of struggle for me. I ended up feeling like, “Oh god, they’ve really been thrown under the bus.” I try to let them know now that the wounds from the past have been healed and that we’ve all learned and have all grown. Beyond those experiences around my sexuality, they’ve instilled a lot of really amazing values in me. They are wonderful, wonderful people. That’s the thing about time and aging, it gives you a certain level of perspective on many of the choices your parents have made. You’ve talked about being in therapy, do you think that has helped you evolve around that? Absolutely, 100 percent...I learned so much by learning how to look at myself. I’ve been endlessly curious about my own behavior. I know that might sound really self-absorbed and in some ways it is, which I’m aware of, but it’s also been a source for really teaching me how to think and how to ask questions. Having someone to bounce your ques- tions off and get responses, even just the practice of putting your feelings and thought into words, you learn a lot from that. We all have this sort of blindness about ourselves, in different ways. Putting your feelings and thought


into words, you actually begin to resolve things on your own. Whereas when you’re sitting in silence, you might think you’re dealing with the same information, but when it’s spoken out loud, you can hear and understand it more clearly. You’re one of a new breed of performers who has really come to prominence primarily through the web. How much has your process around your Internet presence has changed since you started? It’s changed a lot, in a lot of different ways. There


are so many different dimensions. The number of creative people on YouTube and all of the online platforms has gone up. The expectation for frequency of content and the production quality is going up. Humans are amazing; we gravitate towards the most efficient ways of doing things. It’s an incredibly free market to upload a video, which means that there’s a ton of crap. You can really make an ass of yourself in front of a whole lot of people all at once. (Laughs) That also means that the really good stuff bubbles up to the top and gains traction. I do watch a lot of YouTube and I’ve seen so many channels pop up. It isn’t really the future anymore, it’s just the here and now. The video I did in 2013 certainly wouldn’t make the splash today that it did then. That just speaks to our changing culture and changing climate and I think it’s all really great. Like anything new or any new trend, it matures. The old ways still exist and not everyone that


takes a selfie or uploads a video is a contender. There are so many who are interested in really good content—be it music or politics or anything— people find what they like. It is a very democratic process and I really love that. I will fight to defend it, when or if it becomes challenging for someone to upload content and heard by anyone. Inevitably, like anything, the process becomes corrupted. Smart people move in once they see the money that can be made and how they can manipulate the system. That’s why I will always fight for the freedoms of platforms like YouTube. It’s really the same ideology of a free press and a free society... Freedom of expression and from oppression. It’s what we’ve been fighting for from the beginning. It’s just a different modality, don’t you think? Yes, and we need to remember to understand and appreciate it. The idea of “Freedom of the Press” is such a pure concept and can so easily become corrupted. To see it, appreciate it and to make sure that people always have the freedom to express him or herself.


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