After years fronting a heavy metal band, Dusty Grant decided to try his hand at solo acoustic performances in 2017. A year later, Grant is issuing a new video for the song "Done So Much" and has busied himself with a variety of live performances including a recent tour with Sprout The Anti-Hero of the band Screaming Red Mutiny.
Grant debuts his new video this Saturday, July 7, at The Elbow Room.
Interview Highlights
You've been doing this solo acoustic thing for about a year?
I released my last song last February. My first gig was in September of 2017, so I'm about six months into gigging myself. I've been playing as much as I can and I think I've done 25-30 shows, just trying to cut my teeth and get used to playing alone.
So tell me about this single that you sent me?
The single is "Done So Much." It's a follow-up to "All Crash Down." I put a video out for that. I did "Done So Much" with Chris Dawson, who recorded the first single as well. He's done a lot of awesome recordings. He's done "Seasons After" and a lot of great stuff. The dynamic with he and I recording the stuff has been really good.
When I shot the video for "All Crash Down," I had just finished recording "Done So Much," so I took it into the people from Shattered Glass Films. I said, "Hey, maybe we should just shoot a video for this one instead." The light bulb went on. Naythan Smith, Victoria Gayer and John Doornbos are brilliant at what they do. They said, "We're actually going to do that right now."
It's like a follow-up to "All Crash Down." It'll conclude the story. It takes a really interesting twist. There's going to be fight scenes in the video, there's gonna be stuff in there that hasn't been done a lot around here. So, I'm excited about the song. It's a real dreary, gloomy sad song. The video is gonna be the same. It'll be a surprising conclusion for sure to "All Crash Down."
It's almost like a mini-movie. Both of the songs are pretty dreary sounding, sad songs. So I wanted to follow it up with a bang, so hopefully I can do that.
Having a video is different than just having a song because there's a whole different presentation. What is the difference from your perspective?
When you're scrolling through your feed and you see something that will visually capture you, you might click on it and actually listen to. I think the average person leaves something on a screen before they swipe down, probably three seconds or something. So you have three seconds to capture somebody. If they see something on the screen that looks professional, something that looks well done, it's a great marketing tool. It also helps tell a story. You're watching it, you become more interested in it, you're more invested in it when you're watching characters and it has a narrative behind it as well. That's what we try to do.
Having the story and movie part of it was really interesting for me, as a guy who's never acted a day in his life. You're having to do these scenes where you're fighting with somebody or arguing with somebody and you have to sell it. It's really helped to have a professional looking video when I send it out to people and say, "This is what I do. I'd like to book an event here." It seems to legitimatize you in a way that just sending an MP3 does not. It's a great promotional tool and I think it really drives home the story of the song.
Jedd Beaudoin is the host of Strange Currency. Follow him on Twitter @JeddBeaudoin. To contact KMUW News or to send in a news tip, reach us at news@kmuw.org.
