Horror movie actor and rising Hard Rock act Kurt Deimer has teamed up with Ghost Cult to share his new music video – “True!” The melodic, but heavy track is killer, and the narrative video, directed by Myles Erfurth, brings it to life! The clip comes from Kurt’s new album, A Grog Is Born, out this week! Watch the clip here!
Stream on all DSP’s here:
https://kurtdeimer.ffm.to/agrogisborn
Kurt commented:
“‘True’ is a song that I wanted to remind people that you always need to be true to who you are. Your character, your principles, your values. The world is fucked up. But always stay true to who you are, help other people, be kind, and spread love and peace. And that’s what the song is all about. It’s Americana, it’s ‘turn up the radio, let’s jam, let’s enjoy life every day we have on Earth.’ That’s ‘True’.”
Bio:
Please allow Kurt Deimer, the distinctively deep-voiced rock singer and scene-stealing horror actor, to reintroduce himself.
“Kurt Deimer is The Grog,” he says in his signature grumble. “And The Grog is Kurt Deimer. That’s very important for people to realize.” Indeed, that creative persona defines a thrilling new chapter: his ambitious second LP, A Grog Is Born (out May 8, 2026), which touches on everything from bruising hard rock to epic balladry; his standout character in the upcoming Paul Boyd film Scared to Death (out March 13); and the expanded universe of videos, songs, and live events that tie all of these wild projects together.
Deimer’s whole life has been building to this reinvention. After a nomadic and inquisitive childhood, he started his first rock band at age 20 in his native Cincinnati and then pivoted to a more conventional path by launching multiple companies. But this guy’s life has been winding and unpredictable, and one of his business ventures, his oil brand Starfire, inadvertently revived many of his artistic dreams. After securing product placements in a couple films, he was able to land his own cameo in the 2019 John Travolta racing drama Trading Paint. All of a sudden, his path had changed. “I’m like, ‘Whoa, that’s crazy. I just fuckin’ became an actor,’” he recalls. “Next thing you know, I’m getting cast in [the 2018] Halloween [revival] and getting killed by Michael Myers.”
While filming that role, his “brain churning” while decked out in a grisly and distinctive prosthetic, he had an epiphany: “I’m like, ‘I want to do my own horror movie,” he says. “I can be a leading actor because I’m nuts. I can morph into anything, and I just love this.’ I never even thought that would happen, and music was the last thing I thought at that point.”
But soon enough, he proved those skills of shapeshifting. While acting in some other film projects in Birmingham, Alabama, he linked up with local songwriter Ben Trexel, who convinced him to get back into music. They wound up collaborating on a batch of vibrant rock tunes—many of which appeared on Deimer’s album under the name Bald Man; some of which found their way onto his first official solo record, And So It Begins…; and others that were earmarked for his more expansive and cinematic follow-up, A Grog Is Born, which overtly connects Deimer The Singer and Diemer The Horror Star under the Grog moniker.
That new LP—also featuring contributions from guitarist Phil X (Bon Jovi), multi-GRAMMY Award winning mixer and producer Chris Lord-Alge (Green Day, Muse), and mastering engineer Ted Jensen (Eagles, Green Day, Alice in Chains)—finds Deimer taking a major leap as a vocalist and bandleader, stretching out his instrument beyond distinctively low speak-singing into a more robust melodic style. His more confident and colorful delivery, elevated by years on the road—including a run opening for rock giants Buckcherry and Steel Panther as well as tours with Sebastian Bach, Tesla, and Drowning Pool—allowed him to explore an even more impressive range of styles, from brooding Gregorian-rock of “800 AD” to the optimistic and beautifully atmospheric “True” to the twangy tale of destruction and salvation “Always There.” (“think it bridges me into where I can do more country-type rock songs as well,” he says of the latter. “It’s powerful.”) But to Deimer, it’s ultimately all just rock and roll. “I’m Kurt Deimer,” he says. “I do it the way I do it, like Cheap Trick did or like Rush did or like AC/DC did. I’ve got my own sound.” But he knows that refined vocal approach is allowing him to explore new territory.
“When I first came out, I had to retrain my voice,” he says. “I hadn’t sung in so many years. My range wasn’t where I wanted it to be. We would err on the side of talking the lyrics. Now with the second album, there’s no talking. I’m singing now, even the high parts. My range has gotten bigger. My pitch has grown working with Chris in the studio, and I think the constant touring helped really strengthen my vocal cords.”
A perfect example of that evolution is a heavy recreation of the Phil Collins classic “In the Air Tonight,” full of soaring vocal harmonies and horns-up guitars that elevate the song’s unsettling imagery. Speaking of which:
Deimer also flexes his creepiest muscles on “Scared to Death,” a haunted-house rocker that also appears in Boyd’s film of the same name. That movie, along with the track’s music video, visually introduces Deimer as The Grog, an iconic horror actor who takes part in a seance at an abandoned orphanage. (The song’s menacing screams and laughter also do their fair share.)
“I met Paul Boyd at the Havana Room cigar bar in Beverly Hills,” he says. “I enlisted him to write the script for my film Hellbilly Hollow 2 [a sequel to another of Deimer’s upcoming horror projects]. He had this script for Scared To Death. I said, ‘I want to do a movie that can introduce the world to who I am authentically.’ He rearranged some of these characters and said, ‘I want you to be The Grog, and you’re gonna take on the persona. The Grog is you—the way you are on stage, pretty much you as you are in life, the way you look. The whole movie is about a live seance, to get prepared to shoot a movie. I got to be me. To work with [co-stars] Bill Moseley and Lin Shaye was amazing. Now we’ve become great friends. We got to ad-lib a lot in the movie. We went off script quite a bit for some of the funny moments. It was amazing. Then Paul and the producer said, ‘We need a title song for the movie,’ and I said, ‘I’m gonna do that.”
“Scared to Death” is where all things Deimer converge. But A Grog Is Born never lingers in one space for too long—it has, as he puts it, plenty of fascinating “twists and turns.” One of its centerpiece moments is a gorgeous reinvention of Queensryche’s 1990 prog-metal anthem “Silent Lucidity,” featuring guest vocals from that band’s Geoff Tate. And on the other end of the spectrum is the thunderous, no-frills opener “In Deep,” elevated by Buckcherry’s Josh Todd. “That one used to be called ‘He Was Good to Me,'” Deimer recalls. “I wrote it with Ben back in ’19 or ’20. But back when I was touring with Buckcherry and Steel Panther, Josh agreed to do a collab with me. He loved the music of that song, and I said, ‘You can do whatever you want with the lyric.'” They wound up with a heavyweight single about a hypnotic attraction (“You’ve got me under this spell when you’re touching me”) that cracked the Top 40 on the Mediabase Active Rock radio chart at the start of 2026.
“I think you can tell—we’re taking our game to the next level,” Deimer proclaims. “I think this second album really shows the fans my progression as a singer and our progression as a band.” It also shows his progression as an all-around multi-talent. The music, the movies, the videos—it’s now all intertwined. He’s already planning Scared to Death sequels, and he has two other films in post-production: the Myles Erfurth-helmed horror project Pandemic Sex Party and the Boyd-directed addiction-and-recovery drama Relapse. There will be Grog merch, increasingly scaled-up tours, appearances at horror conventions, even theater gigs featuring screenings of Scared to Death followed by Deimer shows. This is the moment of connectivity, both literally and figuratively, that Deimer has been waiting for.
“The main thing I want to do in life is connect with people—connect with their lives, get to know who they are, and bring them hope,” he says. “Yeah, the world is a bitch. It’s hard. But there’s hope, and you’ve just gotta work hard every day, be kind to each other, take care of each other, and bring peace and unity. That’s pretty much my mission.”
Follow Kurt Deimer and buy his music and merch here:
www.kurtdeimer.com