Tom McCormack weighs the pros and cons of openness
By David Noh
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| Singer Tom McCormack says being out is a "moral and artistic imperative." |
Tom McCormack has managed to attract a considerable, highly devoted following without the help of a major label. He is an uncompromisingly out performer in a business that has traditionally been less than totally welcoming to any kind of individuality. Additionally, he’s a founder of the Gay and Lesbian Music Awards (GLAMA), which recently featured such stellar supporters as k. d. lang and RuPaul.
McCormack has just released his second [sic] solo CD, Missing. His music has drawn comparisons to the early work of Elton John, before the bombastic orchestrations and smarmy memorials.
The 34-year-old describes his process of writing as "a funny thing. It varies on what’s going on with me and my psyche. It’s only after a song is completed that I realize where it sprung from. It could be something bubbling under the surface that emerges six months later. I don’t really do the "confessional" style of writing. My music always has a great emphasis on the lyric content and tends to be more acoustic-sounding. I guess I cop to the ‘singer-songwriter’ label if anything."
McCormack was not always as open about his sexuality as he is today. It only happened after his college years, at age 25, when he heard the music of Gay artists like Y’All, Grant King, and Patrick Arena.
"I wasn’t really connected to the more mainstream stuff like The Flirtations or the queer punk scene. My coming out process was really pretty slow and arduous. I realized later that I was writing all these songs about hiding and having secrets. I was pretty clueless for a long time. I used to think it would be pretty foolish to be out career-wise but when I heard these other artists’ work reflecting back, I realized that it was both an artistic and a moral imperative for me. I’d wasted so much energy being in the closet that should have gone into creative pursuits."
Being so out as a performer has it admitted ups and downs. He finds being labeled as a Gay artist can get tiresome: "I feel like I should have the word ‘Gay’ tattooed on my forehead sometimes." But the most rewarding thing for him is when he connects to Gay audience members, many of whom approach him afterwards to tell him how his music spoke to them.
His worst experiences as a performer, ironically, have been in Gay venues, like the time he was booked to do a New Year’s Eve show in a Vermont club.
"They weren’t equipped to serve food," he remembers. "The crowd was getting drunker and hungrier by the minute and they were still serving by the time I came out. Most of them were not in a mood to hear my kind of mellow, introspective stuff and, during my song "Missing," there’s a line that goes ‘So where do you go when you find yourself missing? Go run to silence.’ At that very moment a waiter right in front of the stage dropped this huge tray of glasses."
But even that experience had an up side, he notes: "I shouldn’t say this ’cause we’re no longer together, but I met my boyfriend that night."
For the moment, McCormack is content to maintain artistic control and release his work on his own label, Spotted Dog.
"I’ve done the dance with the major labels," he says, "and it’s a frustrating process. On my first CD I was really trying to sell myself and it got me nowhere, so on Missing, I decided to do it completely for myself."
The response to his work from industry professionals has been encouraging, McCormack says. "This big honcho at RCA loved it, but said ‘We already have Michael Penn.’ So they’d already signed their one singer-songwriter they were willing to take a chance on. So, for right now, I’m content to keep it small and not have to get multiple piercings and bleach my hair."
