A few weeks ago, if you asked us to rattle off names of openly gay country artists, we could only come up with one: Chely Wright.
It’s not that we don’t think more are out there, it’s just that our knowledge of country music isn’t that deep. No, really. If the answer to a country trivia question isn’t Dolly Parton or Johnny Cash, we’re toast.
But, at least now we can name two out country singers.
Hailing from Canada, openly gay country music singer Drake Jensen recently released his second album ,“OUTlaw,” which he hopes will attract LGBT fans to the genre.
If you’ve ever been to Canada, you know that the country is as much, if not more, about its homegrown artists as it is about international talents. We wondered if that made for a unique take on the country-music genre.
But, Jensen said, as far as he is concerned, it doesn’t.
“Music is universal. Everything is pretty much the same. People say the sound is different. I know that our sound is different than anything else that is coming out of Canada, for sure. But in general I think everything is the status quo when it comes to music. Music doesn’t have borders. I’ve been to Nashville. We recorded the first album in Nashville and we recorded the second album in Canada. There’s really no difference. I think good music can be created everywhere. You’ve got people making great music in their living room. But the reason why I wanted to go to Nashville was because I’m 43 years old now and I said when I started this that I was going to do everything on my own terms. Everything I do is self-governed and no one else has any say in it. What I did want was the Nashville experience. And people were saying to me ‘What was it like there being gay?’ Well, it’s fine. There are seven gay bars you can go to down there. They have a great community down there. I had a great time. We learned a tremendous amount.”
When asked how his new album compares to his 2011 debut album, “On My Way to Finding You,” Jensen said he has definitely grown as a singer.
“The vocals are so much better on the second album because I’ve had growth. On the second album, there’s a lot more of me. Musically and stylistically, it’s shaped much more for me.”
Another difference between the first and second albums was that Jensen came out in between them, when he released a music video last year for the single “On My Way to Finding You,” featuring his husband. He dedicated the video to Jamie Hubley, the gay Ottawa teen who committed suicide after he was bullied.
Jensen said he isn’t aware of any negative impact coming out has had on his career in the country-music community.
“I don’t really have a lot to do with it,” he said. “I’m not a member of the Country Music Association here in Canada. I find with any organization you’re going to get a lot of politics. A lot of times in the CMA, whether it’s Canada or the United States, there are a lot of cliques and some people get a lot of attention and some people don’t, whether you are gay or you’re straight. With that being said, I still get support from Canadian radio. I just got nominated for Male Vocalist of the Year with the Country Music Association of Ontario. Nashville has been incredibly supportive. So, yeah, I guess you can say there’s a lot of supportive people out there. I think that there are people out there that are interested in what I do and they’ve picked up on it.”
Jensen added that most of the criticism he has received since he came out has come from within the gay community.
“I’ve become a very controversial artist very quickly, and I don’t know whether the controversy comes from me being gay or the fact that I’m a very honest person and I just say what I feel,” he said. “I’m a stand-up kind of guy. There’s no bullshit with me. I’ve stood up and said things and expressed myself and the gay community has not been happy with me sometimes. However, I did express the truth and I got a lot of support for it. People either get my music or they don’t and that’s fine. The people that do get it, whether they are gay, straight, black, purple or green, it doesn’t really matter. “People have been calling me out for not singing ‘gay’ music. I guess they want me to sing about making love to guys and stuff like that but that was never my intention. We wrote the song ‘Checotah, Oklahoma,’ which is definitely about a gay cowboy. That was to me my song paying homage to who I am and how I wanted to express the fact I’ve met so many people in the U.S. that have suffered oppression and could never be themselves. There’s people that have died who could never be themselves. Then there’s a song like ‘When It Hurts Like That,’ which I’ve taken more heat for than anything because I sang a reference to a woman in the second verse. I said that in the LGBT acronym, there’s an L, a B and a T. It’s not all about the G. So get with the program. So I’ve been called on that. I’ve stood up and spoken my mind about these things. I haven’t always been popular for it, but life isn’t a popularity contest. I really believe in what we created and I’m very happy that the people that get it, get it. So it’ll be interesting to see what happens. However, most of my backlash comes from the gay community, not from the straight community.”
With or without the controversy, Jensen is attracting international attention for his music, the level of which was a surprise to him.
“People are just starting to know who I am and the gig requests are coming in now,” he said. “I’m looking at having to tour and I didn’t think I was going to have to do that. I thought I was going to pick and choose where I play and play once in a while. Now it’s getting to the point where we’re getting international attention. People want us in the U.K. We’re planning for the U.S. in the fall. You’re going to see a lot more touring within the next year.”
“OUTlaw” is available now. For more information on Drake Jensen, visit www.drakejensen.ca.