I've kept most of my friends for decades, and I continue to make new friends.
John Grant
The most horrifying thing I ever did was work as a steward on an airplane. I wanted to get hired by United. I thought, 'With my languages, this will be amazing; I will work in First Class.' But I could only get a job with an airline going from Newark, New Jersey to Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
I have trouble with things like Facebook. It presents such a warped vision. I get sick of people's opinions about every little thing and this warped view that everyone is as happy as a pig in garbage.
I realized that a lot of the things I had been telling myself about not being good enough just weren't true, and 'Queen of Denmark' gave me the chance to prove to myself that I could do something real.
I could have easily said that I don't believe in anything when I came out of the upbringing that I had, but I do still believe that there is something there, and I have a difficult time figuring it out. I suppose I don't want to be thought of as stupid or unintelligent because I believe that there's something out there bigger than us in the world.
'Ernest Borgnine' is sort of my version of Woody Allen's 'Purple Rose Of Cairo' in that it's about the occasional difficulty of coming to terms with the cold hard facts and the temptation to escape into another world - like movies, for example. I'm a pro at escaping.
Sometimes I wish I was one of those artists like David Bowie. They're not putting their private lives out there; it's about show and entertainment. But an alter ego is very dangerous for me. Because I am the guy who will become lost in that.
When I came out, I found I hadn't been born with the right genes. It's quite brutal. If you're beautiful and you have the right genes, then the gay scene is a place where you can be worshipped. But if you don't, it's a different ball of wax.
I loved the whole New Romantic, New Wave thing... New Order, Soft Cell, Depeche Mode, Gary Numan, Blancmange, Yazoo.
I'm angry because I was so scared for so many years about just being myself.
If I had a good scream, like Frank Black, I'd be doing punk music, 'cos I love that.
Madeline Kahn is one of my favourite people in the entire world and one of the funniest. She was a talented Broadway star and also sang opera.
Being in school, whenever I laughed or smiled, I would turn to find someone staring at me with this terrible hatred and disgust. I had to control everything - control my voice, control my facial expressions, control my hair and my clothes, and where I walked and where I sat - at every moment. I think that drove me to terrible anxiety.
I'm very proud that I have learned German and Russian. Especially Russian, because of how difficult and beautiful it is and because of how much I struggled in the beginning to get my head around how it works.
I think the humor, when applied in the right amount, only serves to intensify the other emotions in a given song; it highlights them, makes them stand out.
I had never considered myself a political guy, but there are certain things I can't shut up about. When I hear people say things like, 'If 'we' allow gays to marry, then people will want to marry animals and children,' I can't just stand there.
Becoming a musician was all about escape. It was about getting away from the foulness that was me.
I just feel like this guy who's visiting the music business over the weekend. Every time I write a song, I feel like it's never going to happen again.
When I reached my senior year in high school, I fell into a hole that took a couple of decades to get out of.
For me, every single thing I do seems to be about the process of letting go because that's what I so desperately need to do with so many things: with fear, with what people think of me, and all these things I've worried about my whole life.
Most of the bad things that have happened to me happened in Denver.
I love a lot of different styles, but my heart belongs in electronic music.
Being embraced by the British people is a beautiful compliment for me. It feels very special.
People have always painted me like a pessimist, like somebody who sees the glass half-empty. But I think the fact that I keep showing up and saying, 'No, there must be a way for me to live in this world,' that shows I'm an eternal optimist.
In order to not have to deal with being gay in the world, you have to control everything. You try and walk in an un-gay way so as not to be found out. You try to control every situation, check the people around you, that you're not in the wrong place, and that can be exhausting. It goes on for decades, and it becomes mental sickness.
The lead character in 'Adaptation' is pretty much me but with more talent. Every time I watch 'Adaptation,' I feel very emotional because it makes me be kinder to myself and see the human situation a little more clearly.
The lion's share of what I listened to in the Eighties, what really affected me, was coming from Britain.
I know I'm likeable, but living with me is different. Yes, I can be charming. That desire to please people and learning what to do to charm their socks off is something many of us do. But you get into a relationship, and the party's over at some point. They see the real you.
I'm a seriously flawed individual, but I guess everybody is.
I spend a lot of my time just looking at words and grammar and writing things down that I don't know.
I have to strip away all the layers when I'm writing the song. I have to cut through all these layers of years of putting up walls and putting protective layers around myself.
It's not like we wanted to talk about the fact that we're gay all the time, but the world has forced it to be an issue.
The rejection I received when I was young for being a homosexual... that's nothing compared to the number you do on yourself when you've been taught that you are not a human like other people.
You can only be you, and there are plenty of people out there who wouldn't have you be any other way.
I don't want to leave the house, and I don't want to settle down.
The only difficult thing is learning to recognise the interesting bits from those millions of moments life provides you with every day and writing down those snippets.
In my family, I was loved, but only if I would fight this gay thing and not let it take over me. I would be loved unconditionally if I could be cured of my 'sickness,' but it certainly would not be OK if I couldn't.
There's an incredible amount of pain involved in being a human, but this humorous stuff is essential in overcoming it.
I think The Czars had an identity crisis, as we were five guys pulling in different musical directions.
The thing is I don't feel like my story is special. I don't feel like it's different to anybody else.
I feel like, in the Czars, for example, I was afraid. I couldn't express myself. I didn't have a connection to myself. That's one of the huge reasons why it was such a difficult existence. I put a lot of that on myself. I couldn't access myself. I couldn't look at myself, because I was too ashamed.
My mother was a very sweet soul and a beautiful person, but she had a lot of fear.
Do you know the solo at the end of 'Why Don't You Love Me Any More?' that sounds like a chainsaw breaking through? That is what I can't do with my voice. That's when you hear how painful this has been to me.
I can only live in the world of truth, inasmuch as I'm able to be truthful with myself at any given point, on any given day.
I suppose my ideal brain food is learning languages.
I don't feel like I'm writing music for gay people. I'm a gay man who is writing music about one tiny little experience of what it's like to be a human on this planet.
I'm not saying that I don't have skills. I'm saying I don't feel like I can use my skills to achieve self-esteem. I feel like it's cheating. I think that I should have self-esteem simply because I am a human being who deserves love and deserves everything just as much or just as little as everyone else.
I do feel I have a hard time dealing with things being OK.
The first 20 years had such a profound effect on me, I spent the next 20 dealing with them.
I don't cry easily.
