Anyone who haunted Avenue A’s infamous karaoke joint Sing Sing a few years back might remember a dashing, tattooed guy named Johnny Stevens behind the bar pouring drinks.
As it turns out, he’s now a Grammy nominee.
In 2015, Brooklyn-based rockers Highly Suspect (comprising the 29-year-old Stevens on vocals and guitar, and 30-year-old twins Rich and Ryan Meyer on bass and drums, respectively) released their debut album “Mister Asylum.”
Just six months later, the largely unknown trio were shocked to find they were nominated for the Best Rock Album Grammy — alongside such heavy-hitters as James Bay, Slipknot, Muse and Death Cab for Cutie. The group also received a nod for Best Rock Song for the ferocious, sinister single “Lydia.”
“I still can’t believe it,” Stevens tells The Post while en route to the 58th Grammy Awards in Los Angeles.
The singer feels it’s his lyrical honesty that, in part, has seen them receive acclaim — and helped “Lydia” rack up 10 million plays on Spotify. “There’s already too much bulls - - t in the world,” says Stevens, who served sake in Alphabet City for 18 months until Highly Suspect got signed in 2014. “The best art is honest.”
The band (who play Le Poisson Rouge on March 5) originally formed in 2009 in Cape Cod, Mass., but moved to Bed-Stuy in 2011, living in an apartment that initially had no electricity. At first, the band lived a dual life, working in New York City as Highly Suspect and heading back to New England every few days to play sets of covers in bars.
All the while, the songs that would eventually make up “Mister Asylum” took shape, and it certainly finds Stevens wearing his heart on his sleeve. The singer howls out songs such as “Bath Salts” (written after a 2012 overdose on the drug) and “Mom” (about his mother who abandoned him as a child) with a visceral rasp.
Adding to this is the Queens of the Stone Age-style assault of the band as a whole, and Highly Suspect amounts to an uncomfortably frank, and occasionally brutal, listen. “The kind of things I sing about happen to people every day,” says Stevens. “That’s what I think our fans relate to. Plus, it’s good therapy!”