Particularly in America, those with only passing knowledge of Eddy Grant know only “Electric Avenue” and think of him as a “one-hit wonder.” But Grant’s highly prolific career spans over five decades, beginning with his time in the pioneering multi-racial pop/rock outfit The Equals. The Equals had three Top 10 singles in the UK, and their 1968 hit “Baby Come Back” also cracked the US Top 40.
“With regard to the Equals story, the Equals had what was an earth-shattering success, because there hadn’t been one like them before,” Grant told me in a 2019 interview I did with him for Please Kill Me. “And in the time, in England and Europe, it really was social upheaval, a disruption in the social context. Because we were so young, and obviously were a lot younger than either the Rolling Stones or the Beatles, we kind of enjoyed a special kind of success. And being of mixed race as well, it just gave the other side something to hang on to.
“It was a lot of a hope factor, in the Equals. Both black and white, it just produced a kind of relationship. As we played around the country, as we played in Europe, we could find the temperature of the moment. And because we were absolutely energetic, we kind of blew a lot of bands, who probably were musically more gifted, off the stage. That’s what happened. For me, it was a wonderful time.”
Illness led to a personal re-evaluation and his departure from The Equals. In the 1970s, Grant worked toward becoming completely self-sufficient, launching his own label, Ice Records, recording studio, and even his own record-manufacturing facilities. His initial breakthrough as a solo artist came with his 1978 album Walking on Sunshine, which contained the UK Top 20 hit “Living on the Frontline.”
Grant surpassed this with Killer on the Rampage in 1982, an album that saw him embracing then-new digital tools like the Fairlight sampler and Synclavier synthesizer.
“I’d been looking for this certain way for years because horn players couldn’t keep time [with my music],” he explained in Chaos Control’s 2023 interview with him. Killer on the Rampage is the album that contained ‘Electric Avenue,’ but outside of the US it had already spawned another hit.
“‘Electric Avenue’ came after one of my biggest songs ever, which was ‘I Don’t Want to Dance,’” he says. “But because of the peculiar way in which the records were released, ‘I Don’t Want to Dance’ got a chance everywhere else in the world. And then, ‘Electric Avenue’ came and finished the job. In America, it was not that way. I just happened to end up in a funny chronology, that ‘Electric Avenue’ came out first. So, after having that really amazing success in America, the DJs, and the VJs, and whoever else were the arbiters of taste, would not give ‘I Don’t Want to Dance’ a chance. I mean, I thought it was going to absolutely kill America.”
Grant’s most recent album is 2017’s Plaisance, which is named after and dedicated to his hometown in Guyana. In July 2025, Ice Records re-issued The Equals’ back catalog.
Read my full Please Kill Me interview with Grant at pleasekillme.com/eddy-grant and my Chaos Control interview with him at chaoscontrol.com/eddy-grant-interview.
