Steve Grozier – What can be found from All That’s Been Lost

This time, in 2016, he was speaking to Lucy, promising that he never meant to break her heart while pulling on the heartstrings, with his soul-aching vulnerability and sweet honesty, of the almost 600 people who watched the Porcelain Hearts video.

The records that lined the shelf behind Steve stood to attention like little symbolic reminders of his musical influences in this performance – whether that be intentional influences or not – there's a little part of these artists hinged in the sound of Glasgow's musical wordsmith.

Two records capture the eyes: a pasty yellow one that peers over his shoulders with the words Lou Reed and its neighbour, a muted orange record of the jazz great Miles Davis that stands just a few inches from his elbow. Two very contrasting artists, but both arguably poignant and illustrative in Grozier's extensive and aromatic sound. Even years later, he's raring and ready to demonstrate this on his debut album All That's Been Lost, scheduled for release on May 7 this year.

Grozier tells The Weekender that his sound, though probably fitting in with more of the genre of Americana or country, doesn't strictly fit with everything that he has been influenced by.

He says: "I love bands like War on Drugs or Death Cab for Cutie, these kind of emo-ish, indie-rock bands, and I love a lot of jazz music and soul music."

Instead, Grozier doesn't associate himself with one particular musician or genre, but rather forms an eclectic array of sound based off of a range of varied styles and artists.

However, there are two artists that Grozier claims he owes a lot of credit to for his songwriting influences.

"If I'm struggling with a song," he reflects, "the sort of people I go back to are Jason Melina, who was in Magnolia Electric Company. I listen to his music when I'm trying to kind of figure out lyrics or composition.

"But the reason I picked up a guitar was because of Bob Dylan. If you can write something half as good as Bob Dylan's best work then you're doing pretty well I think."

Grozier, just like the folk legend and his songwriting influence Bob Dylan, acknowledges his love for English Literature, novels and poetry as the catalyst for his own musical beginnings.

He adds: "Before I picked up an instrument, I would always try to make sense of the world.

"As a teenager, you're going through all these really intense emotions, and you're just like 'What the f**k is going on? How do I deal with this stuff?'

"So I would start writing it down – I'd start journalling or writing some poetry. Then I found a guitar that my dad had and I learned quite a few chords and got into it that way."

In stereotypical high school form, groups and cliques would start to spring up from the melting pot of angsty teens and Grozier was fortunate enough to slip into the hands of some like-minded people.

"In my school and in university, there was always people playing in bands that I was friends with," he says. "We all just sort of gravitated towards one an other and hung out, then it just kind of seemed to be what we would do. Some people would go play football – we'd just hang out and write songs."

From playing little café venues in Toronto, Canada in his early 20s to becoming just the second Scottish musician to play the Americana Music Association's showcase in 2018, Grozier has been no stranger to the industry.

Yet years of demanded creativity can take its toll as he reveals: "I took a big break from music because I was a little bit burnt out on the whole thing. A bit tired of it.

"I think the thing with the industry side of things is it can be a bit stressful and tiring at times."

Grozier made a return to the scene about four or five years ago, releasing two respected EPs and making what can only be described as a rising come-back.

Unfortunately, as most musicians will understand, the circumstances of the last year have put many in the industry up against creative challenges which Grozier was able to overcome in the making of All That's Been Lost.

When asked what the creative process was like for Grozier and his album, he responds: "It was good...I mean it wasn't quite what I had in mind. I've recorded a couple of EPs and some other songs for solo work before and I was working with quite a lot of the same people, but those had been in a proper, professional studio where we'd all be there at the same time. We'd all get to play our parts together live as a band and it's not quite the same when you're all separate because you can't really direct as well."

Grozier elaborates: "It's a lot harder if someone's not getting that part that you want them to play. So, it was a little bit more time consuming I guess and more complicated than if we'd all been in the same room. It was just what we had to do due to the restrictions."

However, the challenges posed by the restrictions for the making of this album also served as a great reminder to Grozier of his musical beginnings.

He says: "It was a bit more relaxed. It was just like hanging out with my friends, making music rather than working with professional engineers that can sometimes make you feel pressured.

"The people I play with, we're all good friends so it was nice to hang out and make music. That's why I got into doing this in the first place."

Highlighting some more benefits that came with making this album at his friend's home studio under such unusual circumstances, Grozier says: "Doing it this way, we had more time because studios are so expensive. It wasn't costing me anything at all, like our time to do it.

"So I could afford to bring in some session musicians to play the instruments that we weren't so good at."

All That's Been Lost is an instantly eye-grasping title for an album, not to forget its augmentation from the minimalistic and desolate cover that it reads upon.

"It seemed like a nice phrase and I guess I kind of liked how it sounded," Grozier says. "I thought you know, people might find that interesting if they see the title. They might find something in that because it's a universal emotion.

"Everyone's got to identify with something to do with loss. It just tied the themes of the songs together so I'm going to guess that's the main reason I opted for that for a title."

Grozier tells of how the individual themes of the songs build to create the overall theme for his perfectly-phrased title

"This was all before the pandemic started," he recalls. "So I wasn't thinking about it in terms of 'lots of people are dying and losing loved ones'– it wasn't really related to that.

"It's one of these things that's not just straight forward: 'someone's died' or straightforward: 'you just broke up with someone kind of loss', but like bigger picture loss in every sort of sense of the word you could think about.

"It just seemed like the songs that I was writing and the sort of themes in the songs or what the songs were about, they all seemed to kind of be about loss in some form."

Grozier's debut album is said to be a concoction of emotions, from the experiences of loss, heartbreak and sadness; yet his intention, he revealed, is not for the listener to assume that this is going to be a sad record because the instrumentation tells a different story of its own.

He says: "It's not just a guy strumming on an acoustic guitar moaning about stuff. There's a lot of electric guitars on there and I'm drawn to music that's kind of quite sad, lyrically, but the music's not a total downer. Like the War on Drugs vibe I was talking about earlier."

For this album's release, Grozier talks about his fears of misinterpretation and hopes his listeners understands what his music is trying to convey.

"I'm kind of hoping people will see that and they don't just see it as a sort of misery record. That's not really what I'm hoping will come out of this," he adds.

With the reopening of music venues in the not-too-distant future, Grozier, like most musicians in the past year, is in a state of 'wait and see' for his plans for live performances. However, he tells The Weekender: "As soon as I get the invitations to play, then I will definitely be there.

"I feel now that as things start opening up again and people want to celebrate, they maybe don't want to go see someone playing acoustic guitar and all these sad songs.

"I'm hoping to try and get a band together and start rehearsals pretty soon and I'd like to get practicing so that we're in a position to go play some shows once things are back up and running."

There was definitely some sort of subtle foreshadowing of musical growth in the New Hellfire Club performance of Porcelain Hearts, an almost elude to the character of Steve Grozier. An interesting, down to earth yet simultaneously unabashed character whose performance as a solo poet with a guitar is moving and tender.

However, there's something to be said about returning to your beginnings for progressing in the future – and with his friends, making music and creating this album, that's exactly what Grozier has done. As for his making of this album, All That's Been Lost seems to have been found.