Gay Music: In the Key of Q

In the Key of Q is a weekly podcast featuring Queer musicians from around the world as they share stories, inspirations and of course their music.

Lloyd Best performing as Dead Method is an alternative pop artist based in Cardiff, Wales. They started a solo career in 2018 and they've gone on to support 65 Days of Static and Public Service Broadcasting. In 2020, their debut album Queer Genesis was released, an exploration of queer culture and identity.

The sceptre of Section 28 hung over his upbringing as merciless homophobic bullying went unchecked in his Welsh Catholic school. Despite the comfort and support of a loving home the experience and failure of teachers to act in loco parentis still scar him today.

Despite growing up in the country's capital city of Cardiff he faced narrow-minded attitudes towards his sexuality. Perhaps surprisingly these were present in the city's music industry too which left him feeling small and silenced.

Thankfully he found his tribe as so many of us do, which allowed him not only to blossom as a musician but also as a queer man. This is shown no better than in his empowering and catchy new album release, Femme.

• Dealing with homophobic bullying at school from Stonewall.
• Dead Method on Spotify, Apple Music, Bandcamp, YouTube
• Dead Method on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok
• Dead Method homepage

If you enjoyed this episode why not take a listen to Daniel Versus the World.

In the Key of Q is a weekly podcast featuring inspiring Queer musicians from around the world as they share stories, inspirations and of course their music.

Theme tune is by Paul Leonidou and many thanks to Moray for his continued support.

The podcast can be reached on email with the main website here. Would you like to appear on the show? Or have an artist you'd like to recommend, please tell them to get in touch via email.

Presenter and Producer Dan Hall is a documentary producer / director, and his showreel can be found here.

In the Key of Q is a weekly podcast featuring Queer musicians from around the world as they share stories, inspirations and of course their music.

Gentleman Reg hails from Toronto in Canada. He's a singer songwriter, drag artist, DJ and makeup artist. He has released seven full-length albums with various bands, including Light Fires, and Regina Gently. A former member of the group Hidden Cameras, Reg has also sung is also sung with Broken Social Scene and Owen Pallett.

Intriguingly he also had a cameo in the film Shortbus, which this year sees a rerelease.

Reg had a nomadic upbringing. With a military pilot father, he grew up in both Germany and Canada. Eventually settling in the small town of Guelph he found himself surrounded by music, not least because of the indie-celebrating festival, Hillside.

Eventually releasing his own music, he worked with many different bands and guises including the highly popular Hidden Cameras.

He has a striking look with white hair and pale skin, and eventually learned to embrace people's wrong assumption that he was albino. And as the effeminate kid in school, from an early age he learned to roll with is Otherness.

Gentleman Reg embraced online living during the pandemic and found himself not only entertaining his old audience but swathes of new people who never usually visited bars. He is an advocate of the alternative side of the queer scene, and this was a natural extension of that, reaching audiences for whom mainstream queer living mostly ignored.

• Gentleman Reg on Spotify, Apple Music, Bandcamp
• Gentleman Reg on Twitter, Instagram
• Gentleman Reg homepage

If you enjoyed this episode why not take a listen to Nick Vaan.

In the Key of Q is a weekly podcast featuring inspiring Queer musicians from around the world as they share stories, inspirations and of course their music.

Theme tune is by Paul Leonidou and many thanks to Moray for his continued support.

The podcast can be reached on email with the main website here. Would you like to appear on the show? Or have an artist you'd like to recommend, please tell them to get in touch via email.

Presenter and Producer Dan Hall is a documentary producer / director, and his showreel can be found here.

In the Key of Q is a weekly podcast featuring Queer musicians from around the world as they share stories, inspirations and of course their music.

A-Natural founded Natural City Music recording label and has himself won two international independent music awards. He's opened for T-Pain and has written and produced for multiple major artists. In 2020 he released the album, 'Kwame', a seminal autobiographical piece in 12 tracks.

Gospel church music has been hugely influential on A-Natural with the church being very present throughout his upbringing. B Slade (formerly Tonex) is mentioned as a particular inspiration - a "gospel Prince"!

Coming into college A-Natural discovered new kinds of music and went into writing and performing his own material. But the task is not easy, and as a friend of his said, musicians sacrificed their lives so that everyone can have a soundtrack to theirs.

He faces the challenges of being Black, American, Queer and Christian helped particularly by the book Conversations with God by Neale Donald Walsch. He tells us, Faith doesn't just have to be about God. Faith is about understanding that the things that you want for your life can come to pass. If you just believe.

After a period of homelessness he gets onto his feet, but is raped on the night he loses his virginity. It's a traumatic memory that has laid dormant until viewing the BBC show 'I May Destroy You' by Michaela Coel in which the character Kwame experiences a similar experience.

He goes on to plea for musicians to give themselves time and space to be creative; to allow themselves to make their art and not just 'content'. He says with sadness, We're demanded to be these caricatures of ourselves. And we get exhausted and burnt out trying to please an algorithm that really doesn't know who we are.

Additional Material

• A-Natural's homepage.
• A-Natural on Twitter and Instagram.
• A-Natural on Spotify and Apple Music.
• Leaflet providing assistance to those affected by sexual violence.
• Help after rape and sexual assault from the NHS.

If you enjoyed this episode why not take a listen to Wuhryn Dumas.

In the Key of Q is a weekly podcast featuring inspiring Queer musicians from around the world as they share stories, inspirations and of course their music.

Theme tune is by Paul Leonidou and many thanks to Moray for his continued support.

The podcast can be reached on email with the main website here. Would you like to appear on the show? Or have an artist you'd like to recommend, please tell them to get in touch via email.

Presenter and Producer Dan Hall is a documentary producer / director, and his showreel can be found here.

In the Key of Q is a weekly podcast featuring Queer musicians from around the world as they share stories, inspirations and of course their music.

Benjamin Stewart has been making music for over 10 years and has written and recorded since the age of 12. They define as non-binary. Living an authentic life in America's Mississippi state.

In November 2021 they released the album 'Spaces', a dystopian electronic eight-track instrumental work.

Benjamin is constantly inspired by the everyday, accidental rhythms around them such as the weekly fire alarm test in their complex. These lead to the creation of their long, complex instrumental pieces that are both edgy and relaxing. Listen with headphones! The music will take you into another world.

Further inspiration is taken from within as Benjamin talks about lucid dreaming and the remarkable way that they have managed to teach themselves the skill to regularly achieve it. It's all about habit, hands and a candle! And tied in with this is Benjamin's celebration of rest, and a plea to the world to allow itself time-out.

Narrow definitions of gender are very much not their bag. Benjamin talks about their own journey, delighting in the freedom granted by being freed from gender expectations.

• Benjamin on Instagram and Facebook.
• Benjamin on YouTube, Spotify, Apple and Bandcamp.
• A great article celebrating non-binary living and great ways to be a tip-top ally.
• The Guardian newspaper asks Can Lucid Dreaming Help Us Understand Consciousness?
• Fans of Benjamin's work might like to hear music from the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, one of the pioneers of the genre.
• This week's cross-promotion comes from the wonderful Song Surfing Podcast.

If you enjoyed this episode why not take a listen to Dhorin Fireheart.

In the Key of Q is a weekly podcast featuring inspiring Queer musicians from around the world as they share stories, inspirations and of course their music.

Theme tune is by Paul Leonidou and many thanks to Moray for his continued support.

The podcast can be reached on email with the main website here. Would you like to appear on the show? Or have an artist you'd like to recommend, please tell them to get in touch via email.

Presenter and Producer Dan Hall is a documentary producer / director, and his showreel can be found here.

In the Key of Q is a weekly podcast featuring Queer musicians from around the world as they share stories, inspirations and of course their music.

This week's guest is Brandon James Gwinn, a Live Nation touring artist and Billboard number one indie music producer. He won the Richard Rogers award for musical theater writing. Previous winners include such illustrious alumni as Rent's Jonathan Larson. His most recent album Bullit is a rock delight with glorious splashes of Hedwick, Scissor Sisters, and musical theatre.

Lock two gay men on a call and it is inevitable that within a minute they mention Bernadette Peters. But not to be outdone we also get Better Midler, Katherine Hepburn and Moss Hart in there too!

Brandon talks about the creatively restrictive living of smalltown Murfreesboro, TN. But despite this, his parents and grandfolks managed to fill the family home with REO Speedwagon, the Eagles, Eighties Pop, Glenn Miller and Billie Holiday. With such a gorgeous mix of inspiring music is it any surprise that their boy headed to the bright lights of New York and the dreams of Broadway!

Despite a modest schooling, talented Brandon beat all the odds and made it into NYU training to write for musical theatre. He's a real-life Gabe! Of course, by this point, we've discovered a shared love for the movie Trick and hope that the COVID-delayed sequel will still materialize.

He talks about connecting with Trixie Mattel, and how touring together inspired his Bullit album. And how he's learned to lean on good chums in times of depression. Or to put it better he quotes the great Bette herself!

Episode highlights:

• Brandon's links: homepage, Insta, YouTube, Apple Music, Spotify
• Gateway song: Bullit
• I totally love this video for Cristal Conners possibly because Brandon looks such a dish in it.

If you enjoyed this episode, I suggest taking a listen to Matthew Presidente.

In the Key of Q is a weekly podcast featuring inspiring Queer musicians from around the world as they share stories, inspirations and of course their music.

Theme tune is by Paul Leonidou and many thanks to Moray for his continued support.

The podcast can be reached on email with the main website here. Would you like to appear on the show? Or have an artist you'd like to recommend, please tell them to get in touch via email.

Presenter and Producer Dan Hall is a documentary producer / director, and his showreel can be found here.

In the Key of Q is a weekly podcast featuring Queer musicians from around the world as they share stories, inspirations and of course their music.

This week's guest is QBoy. Born Marcos Brito he is a DJ, music artist, producer, rapper, and dancer. He was raised in Basildon, Essex and La Gomera, Canary Islands, being of half-British, half-Gomeran descent. 

He has five independent releases under his belt, he has helped lead the way for diversity and inclusion within the LGBTQ community and hip-hop. At present, he is co-promoter and DJ at popular club night 'R & She: The Queens Of Hip-Hop' which now in its 8th year has featured sets by DJ Spinderella of Salt-N-Pepa and Mel Blatt of All Saints.

QBoy also has a weekly residency at London's megaclub Heaven and also plays regularly for The Ned and Ace Hotel London.

In the episode, QBoy chats about his love of rapping, how he loves that it carries the visceral energy of youth. We touch on Section 28 and the negative impact it had on his schooling as he experienced the dark cloud of classroom homophobic bullying.

Passions for music and dancing carried him through those tough times, as did indeed a love of Five Star and the wonderful Victoria Wood.

Launching himself into the hip hop scene of the early 2000s, QBoy chats about joining gayhiphop.com and finding himself at the centre of a Queer hip hop collective with the likes of DJ Mister Maker. He was part of that first generation of MySpace musicians, able to use the then-new technology of the internet to connect to audiences. QBoy was self-producing and self-releasing content at a time when it was an unusual thing to do.

Because he's a sexy-looking pup, QBoy managed to get hip hop onto the world's pride stages. They were happy to hire a cute white boy, but not his Queer black counterparts. QBoy talks about his frustration on this and his attempts to redress the balance pushing artists like the Deep Dick Collective and Tori Fixx.

As with so many of the Queer generation, QBoy's life was touched by HIV and for years he battled with the stigma and shame around his status. He speaks passionately about positive shaming on Grindr and Scruff, and his irritation behind people crowing on apps about their negative status.

Additional Material

• Basildon - BBC rebranding, New Town Utopia (Trailer)
• Assistance for people with HIV: Positively UK (standing up for the dignity and rights for people with HIV); National AIDS Trust (securing rights and stopping HIV); NHS Advice on Living with HIV (UK health service); Terrence Higgins Trust (landmark UK-based HIV charity).
• Gateway Song: Q.B.O.Y. (Is Just So Fly)

If you enjoyed this episode, I suggest taking a listen to The IZM.

In the Key of Q is a weekly podcast featuring inspiring Queer musicians from around the world as they share stories, inspirations and of course their music.

Theme tune is by Paul Leonidou and many thanks to Moray for his continued support.

The podcast can be reached on email with the main website here. Would you like to appear on the show? Or have an artist you'd like to recommend, please tell them to get in touch via email.

Presenter and Producer Dan Hall is a documentary producer / director, and his showreel can be found here.

In the Key of Q is a weekly podcast featuring Queer musicians from around the world as they share stories, inspirations and of course their music.

This week we're taken over by the Song Surfing podcast! It's a music discovery podcast showcasing the best indie music from around the world!  Hear an eclectic mix of music spanning many genres and discover your next favorite artist.

In the Key of Q is a weekly podcast featuring inspiring Queer musicians from around the world as they share stories, inspirations and of course their music.

Theme tune is by Paul Leonidou and many thanks to Moray for his continued support.

The podcast can be reached on email with the main website here. Would you like to appear on the show? Or have an artist you'd like to recommend, please tell them to get in touch via email.

Presenter and Producer Dan Hall is a documentary producer / director, and his showreel can be found here.

In the Key of Q is a weekly podcast featuring Queer musicians from around the world as they share stories, inspirations and of course their music.

Featuring new material made public for the first time, LGBTQ singer Paul Andrews discusses his five favourite songs plus the one track that he'd chosen as a gateway song into his catalogue.

Series 2 of In the Key of Q is scheduled to appear on 15 March 2022. Please click here for more information regarding the delay.

• Paul on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram
• Paul's homepage

In the Key of Q is a weekly podcast featuring inspiring Queer musicians from around the world as they share stories, inspirations and of course their music.

Theme tune is by Paul Leonidou and many thanks to Moray for his continued support.

The podcast can be reached on email with the main website here. Would you like to appear on the show? Or have an artist you'd like to recommend, please tell them to get in touch via email.

Presenter and Producer Dan Hall is a documentary producer / director, and his showreel can be found here.

A message from presenter and producer Dan Hall about series 2.

In the Key of Q is a weekly podcast featuring Queer musicians from around the world as they share stories, inspirations and of course their music.

Just one week until the launch of Season 2 with QBoy!

But until then pull up a chair and listen in on TyMcKinnie and I talking gentrification, COVID and dating, not dating, dating, not dating, definitely not dating, but sort of dating... :-)

• Hear Ty's original episode here!
• Ty guests on the pod's two Black Queer America specials: Part 1 & Part 2.
• Ty on Spotify, Apple Music, Bandcamp, YouTube, TIDAL
• Ty on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok
• Ty's homepage

Ty mentions queer artists in this episode. Take a listen to their episodes - The IZM and FURILLOSTAR.

In the Key of Q is a weekly podcast featuring inspiring Queer musicians from around the world as they share stories, inspirations and of course their music.

Theme tune is by Paul Leonidou and many thanks to Moray for his continued support.

The podcast can be reached on email with the main website here. Would you like to appear on the show? Or have an artist you'd like to recommend, please tell them to get in touch via email.

Presenter and Producer Dan Hall is a documentary producer / director, and his showreel can be found here.