In this month’s issue, Uncut holds An Audience With… John Grant, as the Iceland-based singer-songwriter prepares to release his third solo album, Grey Tickles, Black Pressure.
Responding to questions from readers as well as Elton John, Holly Johnson, Midlake‘s Eric Pullido and Villagers‘ Conor O’Brien, Grant calls Freddie Mercury and The Divinyls’ Christina Amphlett his ideal dinner party companions, and discloses the advice that Sinead O’Connor gave him.
Of his new album cover, in which he appears alongside a pair of ornamental owls with his eyes scratched out, Grant says:
“If I’m honest, I suppose there’s something I don’t want people to see in my eyes. They really are the window to the soul. It looks like a photo that you’d take of a child, maybe through the eyes of David Lynch. And so I wanted to take away the innocence. I was trying to express what was expected of me and what I have become.”
Grey Tickles, Black Pressure is released through Bella Union on October 9. Watch the video for “Disappointing”, featuring Tracey Thorn.
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