Steve Grand is an out gay man, currently following a career in the music industry. His iconic gay song All-American Boy has been so successful to the public, especially to the gay public as it tells the story of a gay man falling in love with a straight boy.
Steve talked about every detail about the song and how he felt about it, bout the depths and the meanings, the way it impacted the audience and how important the song is in his life.
The song was released in the summer of 2013 and it was a period of emotions and tension for the young singer. Few days after the release, Steve Grand was nervous, couldn’t sleep, lost weight. Steve obsessed over the way people will react to the song. He had come out earlier in his life, everyone knew he was gay, yet the song was like he had opened his heart in front of the world.
All-American Boy was like a second coming out for Steve, one where he would be the most of who he is, the most sincere version of himself.
“I think that we’re at a time now where there’s no room to be anything but totally honest and totally who you are,” he said. “I decided this is who I’m gonna be to the world. Just my true, raw self. I’m putting it all out there.”
Gay and straight viewers empathized with the singer’s song and the way he put it in a video. What exactly had inspired Steve to write the song?
When he was 13, Steve was remarked by a male counselor at camp, and he started to get attached by him. When he realized that they must separate he was heartbroken.
“That’s actually what made me realize I was gay,” Steve said. “That deep longing, that achy feel, for someone that’s just out of reach, someone that you’ll never have. I remember driving away from camp after I said good-bye, and I felt the deepest ache of my life. I felt that was the end of my childhood.”
During high-school his parents found out about his sexuality and it was not an easy approach. The struggle turned him to music, yet the aching didn’t go away. The song reveals all the repressed feelings, the pain he felt, he just wanted to tell it to the world.
“I needed to do something to share the ache and share the pain that I’ve felt for most of my life,” he said. “This is the story I wanted to tell. This is who I want to be. I owe that. I owe that to all the people who have felt this.”
To produce the video, Steve made financial sacrifices and despite being advised not to use gender pronouns, in order for the song to appeal to a wider range of people, the singer did not take the advice.
“I’m sending a message to people,” Steve said. “The power of music transcends. The gender pronouns are just a little side part.”
“My sexuality hasn’t been a secret for a long time,” the hot singer said. “It’s something that’s not really talked about in my family, so this is kinda like a big move. Me and my mother have shed a lot of tears over it. It’s one thing to say ‘I’m gay,’ but to see it and to see that kiss and to see it all up on screen, it’s something the world is gonna see.”
His friends and family were very supported, he said that his mother’s proud of him, coming a long way, accepting him and understanding.
With this song, Steve wanted to send message about being honest, putting yourself out there, being brave and accepting consequences of who you truly are. That’s what he did by exposing himself to the public and opening his heart.
As for the story inside the song, “It really is a human story,” he said. “It’s a universal story of longing. An ‘all-American boy,’ it doesn’t mean ‘American,’ it doesn’t mean ‘boy,’ it just means that person that you love, and that you idealize, and that person you ache for. There are guys who sing along to Taylor Swift songs, and I don’t understand why they can’t sing along to my song. To me, there’s really no difference. It’s a story about longing.”
