![]() He was sitting up on his balcony and he said, “I heard you doing this really ‘swanky’ and kind of ‘poppy’ song. I remember Frank Hannon coming up to me while I was in the dining room area and he brought up. I thought that song would have been the least likely to do that. Michael Grant: I think the one thing that I kept hearing was the song “Red Light Run” really connected with people. Sleaze Roxx: What did you take away from that gig? Michael Grant & The Assassins performing “Red Light Run” live at the Monsters of Rock Cruise in February 2019: Jimmy displayed the highest level of professionalism and don’t tell him this but he actually made us sound better ! We were excited but definitely a little anxious because we only had one rehearsal. I think we had about 90 minutes of rehearsal. Michael Grant: Right, the night before the cruise some things changed and Jimmy graciously offered to play with us and we had one rehearsal before the cruise set sail. How was that for you? You had Jimmy D’Anda of the BulletBoys on drums for that. Sleaze Roxx: You played on the pool stage on the 2019 Monsters of Rock Cruise. We have a band in place that will bring the live vision to life, when we’re able to hit the road. We’ve played in a room together and we’ve gotten a chance to jam some songs and then this quarantine thing happened, which makes things a bit more tricky all around. I think the true test will be when you get to do a tour and take the band out to do it live in front of an audience. You have to check out a lot of people before you find out who really works. Sleaze Roxx: As far, as with the Assassins, is it safe to say that it’s basically you handling the bulk of the instrumentation and the songwriting? Generally, I keep the creativity flowing and keep it in the now. If I run out of inspiration, I might dig into those archives at some point. There’s a chance I might revisit a song or two from these sessions, but I’m a huge fan of writing for the now. There’s a nice catalog of songs archived from these songwriting sessions. You must have a wealth of tunes in the archives. Sleaze Roxx: In the past two years, I imagine you’ve written and recorded songs that you’ve added and subtracted from the vision of what ultimately would make the album. There was a moment where I lost inspiration, but then I found it again, then I banged it out. All of these things resulted in the delay of the album. I didn’t have a label and when I did find one, the negotiation of a contract happened at a very slow pace. It was a tough time I had to move, a break-up and a bunch of other stuff happening at the same time. It was a pretty tumultuous and life changing time for me, after breaking it off with L.A. At the time, I was still shopping for a label. Michael Grant: It was two years ago, you’re right. You were gearing up to get your band launched. Sleaze Roxx: I was listening to Eddie Trunk’s show. People stop getting along, things dissolve and eventually the band goes away. Endeverafter is one of those likely stories. Endeveafter got selected to do Jeff Hardy’s theme music. I enjoyed your album ‘Kiss Or Kill’ quite a bit and if I recall, you guys got a little bit of a pop, you wound up getting a song on WWE and you were asked to do Shiprocked. Sleaze Roxx: I caught that show in Portland at The Roseland on like a Wednesday night and caught three new bands. Michael Grant: And Airbourne! That was such a great tour. Sleaze Roxx: Your previous band Endeverafter did a tour with Stone Rider… Guns, the delay in the release of the album and how Prince’s “Purple Rain” wound up in the L.A. He also spoke to us about his previous band Endeverafter, his time in and his departure from L.A. It’s been long in the making for various reasons that he detailed to Sleaze Roxx when we spoke with him on June 22nd, 2020. Guitarist Michael Grant is about to release ‘Always The Villain’ via Frontiers Records on July 10, 2020. Photos: Olivier (first, third and fourth photos) INTERVIEW WITH MICHAEL GRANT & THE ASSASSINS FRONTMAN AND EX-LA.
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