American
Here is an excerpt:
On his early attempts at songwriting, “My songs were like campy, sexy electro, like Peaches and Goldfrapp. I can look back now and realize I wasn’t very good at it. I was trying to put in way too many words. I was trying to be way too melodramatic and serious, you know? It’s like what a junior high student does with poetry. But over the course of a couple years, I started really trying to listen to what worked out there in music, like hooks — and realized that less is more. The simple idea is better in a song.”
On where he wants to go musically, “I want to do something that has theatricality, a nod to the glam rockers that I love, but is also contemporary. It’s not all going to be happy-go-lucky because I think it’s important to explore other emotional parts of yourself as an artist, but there’s a time and place for it. I would love to work with Madonna. I’m a big fan. I just want to play dress up and be fabulous. When you’re a kid, you do the make-believe thing — you play dress-up and pretend. That’s the child mentality, and I feel like if you’re an adult and you can adopt the child mentality to something cool, that’s what being a “rock star” is. It’s just playing. It’s Halloween. It’s make-believe. It’s fun. And who doesn’t want to do that? That’s the kind of music that I want to make — music that encourages people to play make-believe, escape and have fun.”
On experiencing discrimination, “A few years ago, I did a musical with Val Kilmer, The Ten Commandments at the Kodak Theatre in Los Angeles. I was finally personally awakened, wearing nail-polish, feeling attractive and comfortable in my own skin for the first time. We’d go out sometimes with Val, and it was the first time I’d ever been around a celebrity — it felt really fabulous. One night, we hung out at his house and Sean Lennon came over to jam with us. I was like, John Lennon’s son? This is the coolest thing I’ve done in my life. But I had a lot of problems with the people putting on the show. One day, the director pulled me aside and said, “Can you turn it down? The producers are a little uncomfortable. It’s a little too … gay.” I was like, “Um, are we doing a musical here? I’m sorry, there are fags all over the place, dude.” It was very upsetting.”
On making his sexuality public, “There are so many old-fashioned ways of looking at things, and if we want to be a progressive society, we have to start thinking in a different way. There’s the old industry idea that you should just make sexuality a non-issue, just say your private life’s your private life, and not talk about it. But that’s bullshit, because private lives don’t exist anymore for celebrities: they just don’t. I don’t want to be looking over my shoulder all the time, thinking I have to hide, being scared of being found out, putting on a front, having a beard, going down the red carpet with some chick who is posing as my girlfriend. That’s not cool, that’s not being a rock star. I can’t do that.”
For more, including exclusive footage of the singer’s cover shoot click here