John Grant: Coming in from the cold

Now settled in Iceland, the American singer John Grant is enjoying the warm glow of success, writes Ed Power

JOHN Grant nods solemnly when conversation turns to Philip Seymour Hoffman, the Oscar-winning actor who recently died from a reported drug overdose. The two had a great deal in common: like Hoffman, the singer spent many years in a spiral of chemical dependency. He cleaned up, got his career on track, made peace with his demons. But he knows those dark urges could return at any moment — that he, like Hoffman, could fall off the wagon, into the abyss.

“You have to be wary of that beast,” says Grant. “Every day, it’s with you. The risks can’t be overstated. It’s a wily creature. Philip Seymour Hoffman was not an idiot. It [the compulsion towards self-destruction] is cunning, so insidious. When you see someone like that succumb, you think, ‘it could be me’. You don’t want to be too cocky about where you are. It could all come tumbling apart.”