Out Spotlight

Today's Out Spotlight is new to the country music scene. He has no management, no label, but who is making a name for himself, while being himself. Today's Out Spotlight is country singer Steve Grand.

Steve Grand was raised in Catholic family in the US Midwest. He was sent to "straight therapy" for several years shortly after discovering his sexuality at 13.   "I felt like I was a shame to my parents. And I felt there was no way i could make them proud. And I felt like I was a constant disappointment."

The Chicago resident doesn’t have a manager or a record label or any sort of funding or support other than the money he makes playing piano at The Joynt, a jazz lounge in downtown.

He self-financed his music video with $7,000 from saved and credit cards, and according to the Chicago Sun-Times, his job experience "has run the gamut from modeling to supplying music for Catholic church events."

He unveiled his debut video, "All-American Boy," a song about unrequited love, less than two weeks ago. It has since racked up more than 1.3 million YouTube views, making it a viral sensation.

He wrote and produced the song because he believed it was his song to sing and his message to share. The day Grand debuted his video, he wrote on his Facebook page, "I fought with who I was for most of my life. In every way a young person can fight with himself, but starting today… I’m laying it out there. I’m done playing it safe.”

“I’m nervous/excited/horrified/anxious about the implications all of the choices I am making (and have made throughout my journey of discovering myself as a man and as an artist) will have on my future."

“But then I remind myself I never really had a choice. This is the story I’ve been aching to tell my most of my life… it is what I hold dearest to me.”

After the viral success of his video he heard from his mother who told him she was proud of him and what he has done.

In a genre with a demographic that is predominantly assumed to be conservative, he signifies the growth in country music to a much more varied audience. He believes his voice will speak for so many country music fan who have struggled with their own sexual identity.