David Bowie Made Me Gay

by Darryl W. Bullock

  Major labels were still scared of the truth, especially in the US. Known for her confessional lyrics and raspy, smokey vocals, singer-songwriter, guitarist and activist Melissa Etheridge’s eponymous debut album peaked at Number 22 on the Billboard chart, and its lead single, ‘Bring Me Some Water’, was Grammy-nominated. Born on 29 May 1961 in Kansas, when she signed to Island Records in 1986 she was warned by the label to keep her sexuality quiet.32 Despite the demand, she came out as a lesbian in January 1993 at the Triangle Ball, an LGBT celebration of President Bill Clinton’s first inauguration, telling the audience that her ‘sister, k.d. lang has been such an inspiration,’ and that she was ‘very proud to have been a lesbian all my life,’ a move which clearly influenced both the title and the material chosen for her next album. lang, who was also there to celebrate, told the audience that ‘the best thing I ever did was to come out’.33 Etheridge’s 1993’s Yes I Am and the accompanying Top 10 single ‘I’m the Only One’, catapulted her to stardom: the six-times platinum album would spend more than two and a half years in the US album chart. The next few years were busy for Etheridge – duetting with her idol Bruce Springsteen, co-parenting two children with then-partner Julie Cypher (in 2000 the couple revealed that David Crosby was the biological father of both of their kids) and recording successive hit albums. She and Cypher split, but soon after she met actress Tammy Lynn Michaels; the couple took part in a commitment ceremony in 2003, and three years later Michaels gave birth to twins. Despite being diagnosed with breast cancer in 2004 (she made a full recovery), Etheridge kept working, performing at the 2005 Grammy Awards (still bald from her chemo treatment), helping raise funds for victims of Hurricane Katrina and, in 2007, winning an Oscar for Best Original Song for ‘I Need to Wake Up’, from the Al Gore documentary on global warming An Inconvenient Truth. Etheridge and Michaels split in 2010. On 20 June 2016, Etheridge released ‘Pulse’, a song written in reaction to the mass shootings that took place at the LGBT nightclub in Orlando, Florida eight days earlier, which left 49 people dead and 53 others wounded. The Admiral Duncan, one of London’s longest-established gay pubs, was the scene of a nail bomb explosion in April 1999 which killed three people and wounded around 70, but the Pulse attack was the deadliest incident of violence against LGBT people in US history. All money raised from the sale of ‘Pulse’ was donated to Equality Florida, the state’s largest LGBT civil rights organisation.

  Sia

  Sam Smith

  HiFi Sean

  Beth Ditto

  Conchita Wurst

  Olly Alexander

  Bright Light Bright Light

  k anderson

  CHAPTER 19

  Out and Proud in the Twenty-First Century

  ‘We all choose our roles, our situations; whether we choose to learn from them is the essential thing’

  Boy George1

  Just as the old century was drawing to a close, a young Puerto Rican singer called Ricky Martin, who had originally found fame as a member of the massively successful Latino boy band Menudo, scored a massive hit with the song ‘Livin’ La Vida Loca’. The song was a huge international success; it took the Number One spot in the UK, US, Spain, Finland, New Zealand, Canada and Ireland, hit the Top 10 in ten more, and sold in excess of eight million copies worldwide. That phenomenal achievement helped to kick-start an explosion of interest in Latin pop, with Spanish-speaking artists including Enrique Iglesias and Shakira making a successful assault on the English-speaking market. With his first English-language hit, Ricky Martin was being hailed as the crossover kid, and – after a breakthrough performance at the 1999 Grammys – was catapulted into the limelight.

  Sadly, this level of seemingly instant fame came with a catch, and certain sectors of the media immediately began to question his sexuality. The interest in Martin’s love life was puerile and ugly, and smacked a little of racism: he’s different; let’s get him. Martin, they reasoned, looked gay; he had a large gay following (so does Kylie, and I cannot recall anyone trying to force her out of the closet) and he chose not to talk about his private life. He must be gay! True, his style owed a lot to the gay clubs of Puerto Rico and, following speculation from American tabloids, George Michael (of all people) and the academic and social critic Camille Paglia he was asked, in a December 2000 interview with The Mirror, to comment on the rumours. ‘I don’t think I should have to tell anyone if I am gay or not, or who I’ve slept with or not,’ he answered, but the sniggering continued for almost a decade until, on 29 March 2010, Martin publicly acknowledged his homosexuality in a post on his official website.

  He wrote, two years after becoming (via a surrogate) the father of twins:

  I am proud to say that I am a fortunate homosexual man. I am very blessed to be who I am. Many people told me: “Ricky it’s not important”, “it’s not worth it”, “all the years you’ve worked and everything you’ve built will collapse”, “many people in the world are not ready to accept your truth, your reality, your nature”. Because all this advice came from people who I love dearly, I decided to move on with my life not sharing with the world my entire truth. Allowing myself to be seduced by fear and insecurity became a self-fulfilling prophecy of sabotage. Today I take full responsibility for my decisions and my actions.2

  Martin, whose career had hit a slump, was clearly re-invigorated by his admission: the two albums released after he came out sold better than his last ‘straight’ release (2005’s Life), both receiving universally positive reviews and garnering several music industry awards.

  Ricky had learned the hard way that they only way forward was to be honest with himself. ‘There [were] many times when I went to bed hating myself – when I went to sleep at night, saying like, “You are not – you are not a good person”,’ he admitted:3

  I was very angry, very rebellious. I used to look at gay men and think, “I’m not like that, I don’t want to be like that, that’s not me”. I was ashamed. When you’re told you’re wrong by everyone, from society, from your faith – my self-esteem was crushed. I took my anger out on those around me. I look back now and realize I would bully people who I knew were gay. I had internalized homophobia. To realize that was confronting to me. I wanted to get away from that.4

  As Martin discovered, life for LGBT people has changed dramatically over the 100 years since Tony Jackson wrote ‘Pretty Baby’. In 2000, the age of consent in Britain was finally equalised, with sex between same-sex couples and between heterosexual couples legal from the age of 16: the homosexual age of consent had been set at 21 in 1967 but reduced to 18 in 1994. In September 2003, after three years of opposition from the House of Lords, Britain’s Labour government wiped Section 28 from the statute books and, just two years later, the first civil partnerships took place in the country, with Sir Elton John (and his partner David Furnish) and Labi Siffre (and his partner Peter John Carver Lloyd) being some of the first LGBT musicians to take advantage of the change in both law and attitude. In March 2013, the law was updated once again and, for the first time, two people of the same sex could legally enter into a marriage together in Britain. Same-sex marriage is now available in more than 20 countries, with legal rights guaranteed to same-sex couples in at least as many more. However, many countries and territories still have laws which criminalise LGBT people and in 11 countries (along with Daesh or Islamic State) homosexuality is punishable by death.

  This new sense of freedom and acceptance has seen a number of major stars feel safe enough to come out in recent years, including international hit-makers Sam Smith, Sia (who has collaborated with Zero 7, Christina Aguilera, Kylie Minogue, Beyoncé, David Guetta, Rihanna and Flo Rida among others), Adam Lambert (who, since 2011, has toured and recorded with Brian May and Roger Taylor of Queen), singer and plus-size clothing magnate Beth Ditto, who describes herself as a ‘fat, feminist lesbian from Arkansas,’5 and Olly Alexander, the lead singer of British band Years & Years who, at the time of writing, was working with the ubiquitous Pet Shop Boys. Lambert is one
of the new breed of LGBT pop stars who, like Britain’s Will Young, was discovered via a prime-time TV talent show. But both Lambert and Young are anomalies: most of the winners and also-rans who found a measure of instant celebrity on American Idol, Britain’s Got Talent and so on faded into obscurity just as quickly. It remains to be seen if out-gay performers Lucy Spraggan, Saara Aalto and the like can forge successful, long-lasting careers out of their moment on the spotlight.

  We’ve also seen openly ‘queer’ performers such as Austria’s Conchita Wurst and Israel’s Dana International winning the Eurovision Song Contest. Perhaps more importantly, heterosexual actors, musicians and other artists who openly support LGBT rights have become more vocal and more militant: when Australian pop star Kylie Minogue and her English actor fiancé Joshua Sasse announced their engagement, they also made it clear that they would not marry until Australia legalised same-sex marriage. Kylie’s huge LGBT fan base wholeheartedly approved.

  In 2001, Sean Dickson, leader of Scottish indie rock band the Soup Dragons, decided to come out. Best known for their UK Top Five hit ‘I’m Free’ (a cover of the Rolling Stones’ song), the group had disbanded a few years earlier and Sean, after forming the psychedelic pop band The High Fidelity, was fast becoming one of the UK’s best-known DJs and producers. He was also married, and he and his wife were expecting a baby. ‘It was a hellish decision,’ he admits, ‘to say those words and realise you were going to hurt those around you, especially those you love and care for very much. Maybe it was a bit selfish in retrospect, but I had to do what was right.’

  With a friend, Dickson started a new club night in Glasgow, Record Players; one of the earliest acts to perform there was the Scissor Sisters. Then, through another friend, he met Mike. ‘Falling in love is not a choice,’ he says, ‘But staying in love is. As I wrote in the song ‘I Thank U’ [released as a single by The High Fidelity in 2000], ‘you left my right and you right my wrong’; that usually helps answer any questions for me when I have no answers for them.’ In 2016, as HiFi Sean, he released a new album, Ft., a celebration of dance music on which he collaborates with a number of iconic artists including Billie Ray Martin (of Electribe 101), Crystal Waters, Yoko Ono, Fred Schneider of the B-52s and David McAlmont. ‘From a historical point of view, I think that being gay in dance music – like within disco for instance – was likely easier as it was way more hedonistic and flamboyant than the more macho Rock ’n’ Roll stance in band culture,’ he adds. ‘The celebration of clubland has always, and will always, have to have a major payback to gay culture, as if it were not for those musical icons and revolutionaries back then who stood loud and proud where would we be today?’

  In an interview with Fader magazine issued the same week as his debut album In the Lonely Hour, Sam Smith came out, hinting that repressing his sexuality had caused him to consider self harm.6 The revelation did nothing to harm his meteoric ascendancy: in September 2015, Smith released ‘Writing’s on the Wall’, the theme song to the twenty-forth James Bond film, Spectre and the first Bond theme to reach Number One in the UK. The song earned Smith an Academy Award for Best Original Song. As Sean Dickson says: ‘Music and sexuality mean nothing to me as a package; I never cared or thought it made any difference. All I cared about was if the actual record, or song or artist et cetera, were any good. I still do to be honest. I don’t think in musical genres and especially not in sexual genres.’

  Dickson and Smith are not the only LGBT artists to have struggled with their sexuality. Once the leader of the critically acclaimed Czars, John Grant is one of biggest openly gay stars in the world today, with three hit solo albums, collaborations with Elton John and Sinead O’Connor and a slew of awards to his name. Heavily influenced by ‘a lot of music that comes from the United Kingdom, especially during the late 70s and the 80s – things like Gary Numan, Blancmange, Visage, Depeche Mode, New Order, the Pet Shop Boys, XTC, the Psychedelic Furs – a lot of Trevor Horn-produced stuff,’ he’s also a huge fan of Boy George. But that fame has come with a price, not the least of which was, in 2012, discovering that he was HIV-positive. Add that to dealing with what he himself terms ‘decades of brainwashing’ from a traumatic childhood (his parents’ religious beliefs lead to years of what he terms ‘spiritual abuse’),7 an anxiety disorder plus a self-destructive streak – with its roots in the homophobia and bullying he faced during his youth in Michigan – which saw Grant battle with drug and alcohol abuse, and it’s a wonder he’s producing music at all.

  ‘When I was young, people were so disgusted by me,’ he told NPR’s Mark Daley. ‘Before I even knew that I was gay everybody else had it figured out and, you know, they were letting you know.’8 ‘At home and at church I was told “you’re going to spend an eternity being punished for this behaviour, which you have brought on yourself”. If I had been able to express myself I would have found that there were some places and some people who would accept me, even back then and I find it sad that I was never able to access that, because for me it was just hostility wherever I went.’ His third solo album, 2015’s Grey Tickles, Black Pressure, features an eyeless Grant on the front cover; promotional shots included a blood spattered Grant wielding a croquet mallet. ‘It’s what I feel like doing every time someone calls me a faggot,’ he admits.

  Now living in Reykjavík, his lyrics can be as dark as an Icelandic winter (‘grey tickles’ is the Icelandic for ‘mid-life crisis’; ‘black pressure’ comes from the Turkish for ‘nightmare’), and he doesn’t shy away from singing about his own sexual experiences, as he did with excruciating honesty on the song ‘Jesus Hates Faggots’ (from his debut solo album Queen of Denmark), which contains the lyrics ‘I’ve felt uncomfortable since the day that I was born’ and ‘I can’t believe that I’ve considered taking my own life’. With his background, it should not be surprising to find songs filled with hate and anger, but there is tenderness, too. ‘Although my story is no more or less important than anyone else’s, at least at this point I can admit to being a human who deserves to be happy no more or less than anyone else,’ he says. ‘If I had heard a song like “Snug Slacks” [from Grey Tickles, Black Pressure] when I was a gay teenager I think he could have saved me 10 or 15 years of heartache and pain,’ Tom Robinson adds. ‘It’s great to hear somebody making music this unashamed and irresistible’.

  Canadian musician Woodpigeon, aka Mark Andrew Hamilton, began playing music (on what his official biography claims was a stolen guitar) while living in Edinburgh in 2005, around the same time that he started to fully embrace his sexuality. ‘The first time I ever felt like a complete person was when I moved to Scotland as a young adult,’ he explains. ‘There I got to live as an openly gay person. And I started to feel and understand why people feel so tied to where they live and why they go to such great lengths to defend pieces of land.’9 Of shared Scots and Germanic descent – one set of grandparents fled Berlin after Hitler rose to power – Woodpigeon has been compared favourably to John Grant: the two men are friends, have toured together and share a confessional approach to lyric writing. ‘I don’t think that anyone who comes to see Woodpigeon thinks that they are coming to a gay band – or a straight band for that matter – but I don’t hide it and [being gay] is explicit in my lyrics,’ he admits.10

  John Grant was supported on his 2015 tour by Bright Light Bright Light, the stage name of New York-based Rod Thomas. Brought up in the valleys of South Wales, Rod learned how to play several instruments from an early age, and started busking in the London Underground after moving to the metropolis to study. With three successful albums behind him, plus plaudits from the Pet Shop Boys and Elton John, Bright Light Bright Light showcases Rod’s love of pop, disco and electronica, yet he began his musical career a decade ago (under his own name) playing what he describes as ‘organic, folk-y’ music. Thomas is one of the most independent pop stars in the world, managing every part of his career himself, from booking his own gigs to running his own label, Self Raising Records, whose expanding roster i
ncludes Bridget Barkan, Beth Hirsch and Slow Knights, a musical collective put together by the Scissor Sisters’ Del Marquis in which Thomas also features. He also publishes his own music, organises his own recording dates and is completely hands-on when it comes to the visual image Bright Light Bright Light presents to the public. ‘A lot of the artists that influence me have really strong identities,’11 he says. ‘Lots of people who shape-shifted that were also very clearly identifiable like Kate Bush, Bjork, Elton John, Erasure, the Pet Shop Boys, David Bowie, people like that who worked in lots of different genres, and really showed that you could push boundaries and that you could try your hand at lots of different things but still remain quite clearly yourself. They were also people who let me dream and pushed my mind a little bit.’ His influences, and his DIY ethic, are shared by Manchester-based composer/producer Ben McGarvey, who has released two albums and a trio of EPs under the name Minute Taker via his own Octagonal Records imprint. Nominated (in 2011) for Mojo magazine’s New Voice Award, Ben creates his emotive and often dark songs using a mixture of acoustic and electronic instruments. Rod Thomas’ style has changed quite dramatically over the years, and he has worked with Elton John, who became something of a mentor to the young Welshman, as well as John Grant, the Scissor Sisters and many other big names. ‘It’s not quite because of the community that we all met, but it does feel fucking brilliant to be accepted in to that world. There really is a danger; a lot of people still feel so completely isolated in their lives because of their sexuality, and it’s not a given that the gay world is going to accept you: it can be really brutal. I feel really, really happy and really grateful to have found a place in the gay community where the music that I make is appreciated and I’ve got to meet some absolutely incredible people. That’s the nicest thing about success.’