It's a strange world where John Grant’s deeply personal work can lose out on an award to the guy who spent a song telling his girl he wanted to marry her “for something dumb to do”.

But speaking the morning after The Brit Awards, Grant admitted he had no hard feelings towards the Best International Male winner Bruno Mars and his only regret from the night was not meeting Kylie Minogue.

“I had a nice time, got to hang out with Boy George and see Prince and Beyonce,” he says. “It was like being in a candy store – with all these amazing people like Nile Rodgers running around!”

Grant is no stranger to celebrity now, following his two acclaimed albums.

Sinead O’Connor covered the title track of his 2010 Americana-indebted debut Queen Of Denmark and provided backing vocals for several tracks on its more electronic follow-up Pale Green Ghosts last year.

Grant has also just completed his contribution to the 40th anniversary edition of Goodbye Yellow Brick Road – a cover version of Sweet Painted Lady – after being approached by Elton John himself.

“It was a big record for me – one of my favourites of all time,” admits Grant.

“It was just amazing to be asked, and to be in the studio with Peter Asher as producer was a huge deal for me.”

Now, as the promotional touring for Pale Green Ghosts winds down, Grant is focusing on what comes next.

Both his previous albums were written after periods of change and upset.

His first followed a long period outside of music after the break-up of his band The Czars, in which time he had fought to control his drinking and worked as a Russian translator.

And Pale Green Ghosts came together as he moved from his US home to Iceland and discovered he was HIV positive.

“I think the next album will probably be a slow transition into exploring other stories and other characters rather than what’s going on with me personally,” he says.

“The first couple of records were about the upheaval in my life – the things I went through, looked at and observed.

“I don’t suppose I did much of that in my career with The Czars because I was taught to be ashamed of being myself. It took a long time for me to feel like I had something worth saying.

“For me it was about telling it like it is – whether it is pretty or not.”

Grant’s songs have documented a move to the Brooklyn ghetto in Chickenbones, his early sporting failures in Silver Platter Club, teenage battles with his sexuality in Jesus Hates Faggots and wondering what childhood hero Ernest Borgnine would do after his world crashed down around him.

Running throughout his lyrics is a strong vein of humour, often taking the sting out of the deeply personal revelations.

“It’s refreshing to tell people exactly what’s going on in your head,” says Grant. “I like hearing that from other people – when I ask somebody how they are I don’t expect them to say ‘I’m great’, I expect them to say how they are doing, if they’re having a s*** day.

“A lot of depression is caused by stuffing things down and not processing them. It causes a lot of damage. There’s a lot of s*** out there, there’s a lot of horrible things, but a lot of humour there too.

Finding happiness

“If you can get to a point where you can enjoy the little things in life every day, then that’s a form of being happy. It’s being in the moment and enjoying the light coming through the window.

“It’s not the truth that everything sucks and there’s no point. It’s never the end of the story, so I do think it’s important to build that into the music. Nobody would buy it if it was all doom and gloom – because it’s simply not reality.”

Thanks to the internet he has been able to read and hear about the effect his music has had on others and believes it’s important in helping those in trouble keep perspective.

He admits he’s become so addicted to the internet he has had to move his computer out of his bedroom.

“It can really take away a lot of time,” he admits. “It’s going to be fascinating to see how social media develops in the future.”

For now, he is looking forward to his next album.

“I had a lot of fun with the synths on the latest album and I hope to go further with that in some ways and in other directions,” he says.

“My favourite record last year was Kim Gordon’s Body/Head album – it got me excited about guitar sounds again, so there might be more of that on the next record.

“I feel excited to see what is going to happen – you don’t know until you do it. You can have plans but some things work out exactly the way you hoped and some things work out completely differently.”

He is also settling into his new Icelandic home, including tackling the language.

“I’m making great progress right now,” he says. “It’s such a complicated language, the grammar is extremely involved, more than Russian.

“I lived in Germany and crossed that language barrier – once you have done that there is almost no difference in where you were born. You’re never going to be quite a native but it’s a fascinating process. You start dreaming in the language.

“It’s going to take a lot longer with Icelandic because it’s much more complicated...”