Mitch Grassi is one fifth of everyone's favorite a cappella group, Pentatonix.
Did you know he's also part of a music duo with his best friend?
And what's the latest with his solo career?
Keep watching to find out all about Mitch Grassi.
While Grassi now lives in L.A., the singer spent his formative years in Arlington, Texas.
For a young queer boy obsessed with singing pop music, it wasn't always the easiest place
to call home.
He told Bringin' It Backwards,
"It was a complex experience for me, I think, as a queer person."
"It's a very sports-centric town, and there was a lot of toxic masculinity growing up."
Even though Texas wasn't always the most natural fit for Grassi, that was where he met Kirstin
Maldonado and Scott Hoying, who eventually became the other members of their original
three-person a cappella group.
Grassi told Go Pride,
"We had been in choir for most of our high school careers."
Sounds like Grassi found a little pocket of Texas where he fit right in.
It's hard to imagine hearing Grassi sing without being utterly blown away.
However, as he explained to Bringin' It Backwards, there was a time when audiences weren't as
impressed as they are today — so he didn't initially believe in himself as a singer.
He explained,
"My voice is strange and my interests were strange and the musicians that I grew up on
were strange, so I never really got sort of the approval I was looking for from everyone
else saying, 'Oh, I can see what you're trying to do with your singing voice.
I get it and I like it.'"
"I don't know if I ever really knew I was extremely good.”
No wonder it took him a while to find an audience who understood exactly what he was doing artistically
— he was ahead of the curve.
Even though Grassi loves doing covers, he's also a songwriter in his own right.
He explained that when Pentatonix began writing their own songs, they began with the melody.
But, of course, it wasn't easy at first — he told Go Pride that the process was actually
quite difficult.
Over the years, Grassi has become more confident.
He now has an organic, creative process that he uses to write.
He explained to Intersect Magazine,
"Usually, it starts with a chord progression and loose melodies.
I'll lull myself into a meditative state and try to clear my mind as much as I can."
After he gets into the zone and has a feel for the musicality of the song, he starts
to add a thematic concept to the song.
Then, he'll distill that into lyrics.
He added,
"The songwriting process is very unpredictable for me; it's always full of surprises."
"It's really hard to write alone because you don't have anyone to bounce ideas off of so
I was just like sitting and meditating."
For Grassi, music and acting aren't his only forms of self-expression — fashion is also
super important.
In an interview with Fifteen Questions, Grassi explained,
"Both [fashion and music] require heavy attention to detail.
The exploration of self parallels the exploration in artistry."
Fashion gives him an opportunity to express what he feels on the inside and on the outside.
As he put it,
"My inner world is only unique to me and me alone."
Trying different styles also allows him to experiment with different facets of his personality.
As Pentatonix stylist Candice Lambert McAndrews explained to Vogue, his fashion journey really
began during the 2016 Grammys when he wore a shirtdress.
McAndrews recalled,
"He embraced it and went for it and was like, 'This is who I am.'"
Since then, Grassi has served numerous killer looks.
And, in 2020, he even played a part in announcing Balenciaga's latest collection.
Over the years, many fans have "shipped" Grassi and his friend and frequent collaborator Scott
Hoying — but the pair have never had a romantic connection.
Instead, they're lifelong best friends.
The pair met when they were kids while doing a community musical theater production and
later reunited in high school choir.
Grassi told Billboard,
"We weren't immediately best friends, but there was definitely, like, a match to us.
We were both nerdy, we were both singers, we were both performers, both in the closet."
And that connection has stayed strong to this day.
Grassi gushed to Yahoo,
"It's just the most comfortable bond.
The most accepting, comfortable thing.
We can just be around each other and be totally ourselves, talk about whatever we want, vent,
laugh.
It's amazing."
While Pentatonix is certainly Grassi's biggest claim to fame, he's also well known for his
music duo with Hoying called Superfruit.
"It was your idea."
"It was my idea, and I just sort of liked the word, I don't really know where it came
from but it sounded gay to me, which I love."
Superfruit is vastly different from Pentatonix — for one thing, they use instruments!
However, one of the biggest changes for Grassi was that the group gave him the chance to
explore visual performance as well as music.
He told BUILD Series,
"[It's been about] making Superfruit more of a sort of audio-visual thing and focusing
heavily on the performance as well as the music, so one's [...] not stronger than the
other."
"It's so nice now to be like, what is our sound,”
“Right.”
“And what direction can we go?"
"Exactly yeah."
As Superfruit, the pair certainly have pushed the boundaries when it comes to creating visual
content.
For instance, in their music video for the song "Worth It," the pair created an extravagant
video featuring a young boy wearing a pink dress and a girl in a tuxedo dancing together.
Grassi has definitely earned the label of icon in the music industry.
With three Grammys and multiple successful albums under his belt, it's fair to say that
he sits squarely within the mainstream.
Nevertheless, Grassi doesn't always feel comfortable there — especially since he's begun experimenting
more with experimental fashion.
He told Out magazine,
"It's a weird duality I have, where I have this totally avant garde interest in art,
fashion and music, but at the same time I'm well aware of the industry — the pop world
and pop culture.
I totally get it."
He tries to straddle the two realms, making popular music to suit the mainstream audiences,
while still pushing the boundaries.
Plus, simply being visibly queer, he said, was somewhat radical in his industry.
He summed it up by saying,
"It's all about creating your own niche and doing something nobody else has done before."
Grassi is openly gay — and for him it's a way to support other young queer people
who listen to his music.
He told Out mag,
"The Pentatonix demographic is very different across the board, but one that's very common
is Midwesterners and Christians — they love our music and I've gotten people saying, parents
especially, 'You guys helped me accept my gay son, my gay daughter,' and I think that's
really cool."
As Grassi explained in an interview with Go Pride, being openly gay actually helped his
career, too.
He said,
"Some people might say that being openly gay in the music business might deter you from
having a career, but I don't think that's true.
My career, as a queer person, has been pretty successful."
"This is so amazing, and inspiring people is so amazing, making art in this way is amazing."
As if Pentatonix and Superfruit weren't enough to keep Grassi busy, he also launched a solo
career in 2021 under the name of "Messer."
His first EP, "Roses," was released in August 2021.
It's clear that the songs on this EP were intensely personal for Grassi.
"Machine," for instance, was a song about self-love.
He told FrontView Magazine,
"I wrote it at a time when I was starting to come into myself and starting to put myself
first and give myself love.
In that way, it's an inner promise I carry with me, to broach my emotional needs with
kindness, consideration, and self-love."
The song "Angels Pray," on the other hand, is about yearning to escape.
He explained,
"It's that inexplicable desire to run out the nearest exit and leave everything behind
in search of your higher personal truth."
It's no secret that Grassi totally loves a cappella — he did form the world's most
popular a cappella group, after all!
As he explained in an interview with Joy 94.9 Australia in 2016, his love of a cappella
began when he discovered a group called Rockapella.
He said,
"Me personally, I didn't grow up listening to that much a cappella."
But when a friend gave him a mix CD of Rockapella songs, he was hooked.
He recalled,
"I remember hearing their version of 'Bohemian Rhapsody,' and I was totally blown away.
I was like, 'This is amazing, I can't believe they're doing this with just voices.'"
After discovering a cappella through that one mix CD, he began listening to more collegiate
a cappella groups.
Soon, he became fascinated by how humans could use their voices as instruments.
Plus, he learned to love how performing made him feel.
And the rest is, of course, history.
Every icon needs inspiration and Grassi is no exception.
When he was younger, he had plenty of people he looked up to in the music industry.
He told Out that Lady Gaga is one of his biggest queer icons.
He gushed,
"When she came out as someone who fits within the queer umbrella, she came out in a big
way.
It was so incredible and inspiring to me as a 17-year-old in suburban Arlington, Texas,
because I was so excited that somebody was standing up for the outcasts at [that] time."
Another big musical influence for Grassi is Imogen Heap.
"I pretty much just copied all of her nuances when I was a teen just because I fell in love
with her voice."
He also mentioned Alanis Morissette as being a big influence in his childhood.
Even though Grassi gained fame from being in an a cappella group, he eventually needed
to do more.
That's where his duo Superfruit and his solo project as Messer came in.
Branching out from the world of a cappella gave Grassi a whole new world of possibility.
He explained to BUILD Series,
"There are more options sound-wise and you can layer as much as you want."
"It's less of a puzzle to put together, I would say."
Working on other projects outside of Pentatonix is an opportunity for Grassi to explore creatively
without certain musical restrictions, and it’s also a chance to express himself properly.
He revealed to Out mag,
"If I had to be totally someone else — be totally G-Rated and could never step outside
any little G-Rated box, I'd go crazy."
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