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by Dennis Hensley
Just because Jennifer Love Hewitt and William Shatner have
both done it doesn't mean making an album when you're already gainfully employed
in another field is a piece of cake. Just
ask actor Anthony Rapp and writer Dennis Hensley, for both of these out artists
have recently recorded independent CDs of their own music and lived to tell
about it. Rapp, star of the hit
musical Rent as well as films like Dazed and Confused, Adventures in
Babysitting, Six Degrees of Separation, Road Trip and the Oscar-winning drama
A
Beautiful Mind, recently released his disc of original alternapop tunes, Look
Around, available via his website, www.anthonyrapp.com.
Meanwhile,
Hensley, who is the author of the comic novels Misadventures in the (213) and
Screening Party, recently saw his first single "Shotgun" from his
debut disc The Water's Fine, named as the #1 song on GayBC.com radio for the
first quarter of 2001. (It's
available at www.dennishensley.com)
He's co-written with David Moreton (director of The Edge of Seventeen)
two screenplays: Tom Foolery and CleanCut, the latter of which goes into
production in the fall of 2002.
Over
coffee at the Virgin Megastore in New York's Union Square, Advocate.com brought
the musical multitaskers together to discuss the highs, lows and in-betweens of
setting their lives to music.
HENSLEY:
You had a gig last night, right?
RAPP:
Yeah. It was at a college in
New Jersey. We sold 26 CDs.
HENSLEY:
Oh, kiss my ass. I've probably sold 26 CDs since the beginning of my recording
career. (Laughs)
Have you had any rude awakenings since you embarked on this project?
RAPP:
Yeah. I guess it's that even
though I have some small degree of fame in certain circles, it's been hard to
get anybody to review the CD because some outlets don't review independent CDs.
I was spoiled by the fact that Rent got so much attention so easily.
We didn't have to do anything. People were just interested.
HENSLEY:
I had a similar experience. I've
kept a really good database of people who liked my book and I sent them a flyer
about the CD. Not one of them came
back. What I realized is people
need to hear music to respond to it.
RAPP:
It's also hard for people to find the CD.
We're getting a little distribution in stores but most of our sales have
been though the Internet.
HENSLEY:
The Internet's made a huge difference for independent musicians.
A lot of the exposure that I've gotten has been from websites like
Outvoice, The Stonewall Society and GayBC.
I was talking to another gay artist with a CD recently and he was feeling
defeated and I asked him how his internet sales were and he said he doesn't even
have a computer. I was shocked.
RAPP:
When did you start writing songs?
HENSLEY:
In like '91. I was singing and dancing on cruise ships, and I would go up
in the lounge and write songs after doing some lame show like "That's
Broadway!"
RAPP:
(Laughs) I bet you have great stories.
HENSLEY:
It's all going in a future novel. Suffice
it to say, there were a lot of jazz squares being done on shaky floors.
RAPP:
What about jazz singers being done on shaky floors?
HENSLEY:
Well, now that you mention it, one or two.
Actually, the guy who played keyboards on my record, Tom Gire, I met
working on the ships ten years ago. So
after my last contract, I came home with all these songs I'd written and a few
days later, I was at a Gloria Estefan concert and I met this guy backstage,
Norman Arnold, who was just starting to produce music.
So we started working together and ten years later we have a CD.
I listen to that early stuff now and I cringe.
But I think it's important to be a little deluded about what you're
doing, because if you really knew how shitty some of that stuff was...
RAPP:
...You'd be defeated.
HENSLEY:
Do you look at some of your earlier work and cringe and think, 'Thank God
I didn't give up?'
RAPP:
Oh yeah, more at things I've written than I do at the acting.
HENSLEY:
When did you decide you were going to make a record?
RAPP:
I had written songs a few years ago with a friend and then I got Rent and
I sort of got that feeling of being in a rock band out of my system.
But then having been out of the show for a couple of years, I started to
get the itch again. So a friend of
a friend hooked me up with this singer-songwriter in Nashville named Joe Pisapia.
We were just hanging out and he started playing some guitar licks and
this song sort of appeared, like magic, in the air between us.
HENSLEY:
I sort of believe that about songs; that they exist apart from you and
you just kind of find them.
RAPP:
It's interesting. Some of my favorite stuff is indie rock that's a little bit
out there. But my music is not that way. It's other things.
HENSLEY:
I think it's important to accept who you are and what comes out of you,
like I'm never gonna sound like Bono. I'm just not.
I listened to too much Manilow and did too many musicals in college.
So Nashville...
RAPP:
...so we did a four-song demo and we were really happy with it.
Then we thought, 'Do we want to try to go to a major label?'
Three of my friends from Rent had had major label nightmares so we
decided to just do it on our own and create a label.
HENSLEY:
You also did a kick-ass CD-ROM music video on your disc.
I so missed the boat on that.
RAPP:
It just happened because my friend Danny, who has a nice digital video
camera, heard it and he was like, "Dude, I love this song. I wanna do a
video." It cost about two
thousand dollars. I'm really happy
with it.
HENSLEY:
So what's Nashville like? Did you
go to the Blue Bird Café and try out your songs?
RAPP:
No. We were in the studio
for hours and hours every day. I got a little stir crazy because things close
early and there's only one really good restaurant. I'm a little bit of a New
York snob that way. (Laughs) What
was it like recording in L.A.?
HENSLEY:
It was all about take-out Thai food from Toi on Sunset.
I got a deal on a really great studio but only on Sundays so recording
was spread out for over a year. Then,
after I had recorded nine of the twelve songs, I decided to pay my vocal coach,
Ken Stacey, to come in while I recorded the last three and it made such a huge
difference...
RAPP:
You had to go back and do the rest of them.
HENSLEY:
Exactly. It's strange the
way projects evolve. You start out
thinking, 'We'll just do it as cheaply as possible,' then elements start coming
together and make it better and you realize you can't compromise anymore.
I just shifted into this Zen space of like, 'How much does it cost? Fine,
I'll write the check.' And
everything takes longer and costs more than you think it's going to.
You just have to accept that and have faith that you won't regret it.
What are you most proud about with your CD?
RAPP:
I'm proud that there's a boy-boy love song on it.
HENSLEY:
"Just Some Guy," which is my favorite.
RAPP:
My collaborator, Joe, is straight, but he was so cool and willing to help
me write that song. I was nervous to present it to him because it's very
intimate.
HENSLEY:
The guy that you wrote it about, does he know about it?
RAPP:
Yeah. He really likes it.
HENSLEY:
I think that song would be a great gay prom theme.
RAPP:
Thank you. It's funny.
At last night's gig, there were a lot of female fans.
I'm very out, but they don't hesitate to be supportive which I'm really
happy about.
HENSLEY:
I think part of it is that women can relate to the way you sing about
love and men. I really dig chick
singers for the same reason. I'm
much more "You're So Vain" than I am "I wish I had Jesse's
Girl." Women seem to get that, when it comes to relationships, the
bottom could drop out at any moment.
RAPP:
What song are you most proud of?
HENSLEY:
Probably "Shotgun." I
wanted to write a song that could be like a theme song for my book, so if there
were ever a TV show or movie, I'd have something to put up for consideration.
I'm such a multi-media tie-in whore.
So normally, I just write what comes out, but this time I had an idea of
what I wanted it to be like and it was really cool that it came alive in the way
I wanted it to.
RAPP:
Your novel, Misadventures in the (213), is very funny and arch, and your
songs are really open and vulnerable. That
was surprising.
HENSLEY:
I think people that know the book expect my music to be like novelty, smart-ass
songs, and they're not really. I
guess music is the place I go where I can express romanticism and disappointment
in an honest way without having to tweak it with a joke. Who would you like to do a duet with if you could sing with
anybody?
RAPP:
Sinead O'Connor. I remember being in a record store and hearing this voice,
her voice, and I thought, 'Who is that?' She's actually one of my heroes, even
though she seems crazy. Who would
you like to duet with?
HENSLEY:
My favorite is this Canadian singer, Jann Arden, who had that song
"Insensitive." When she's
not breaking your heart with her music, she is stand-up comedy funny, just
hilarious, which I love.
RAPP:
Who were some of your influences?
HENSLEY:
Growing up, I inherited a bunch of 45s from my older brothers and sisters
so I was always into pop singles. You
know when you see people's list of their Desert Island Disks and they always say
like Jimi Hendrix and the Beatles and Bob Dylan.
My list would be Olivia Newton John, Herman's Hermits and Barry Manilow. If I went on that show The List and really told the truth, I
would be laughed out of the studio. One
of my friends says my CD "makes Wilson Phillips sound like Hole."
And it's true. What was the
first record you ever bought?
RAPP:
"Flashdance."
HENSLEY:
Attaboy!
RAPP:
Soon after I got "Footloose" and Cyndi Lauper's "She's So
Unusual." Fourteen was a very
pivotal year for me because then I discovered, U2, Kate Bush, Peter Gabriel,
Simple Minds, The Smiths, The Cure.
HENSLEY:
I was very into Spandau Ballet and Wham at that point. I admit it.
RAPP:
Wham was the first concert I ever went to.
HENSLEY:
Did you think George Michael was gay then?
RAPP:
I didn't think anything. I didn't have awareness.
HENSLEY:
I was in college and I didn't have any awareness.
My first album was Elton John's Greatest Hits, and I played it on my
little blue record player. The cool
thing was I went into Book Soup, this book store in L.A., a few years ago and
the girl at the counter said, "Guess who was just in here and bought three
copies of your book?"
RAPP:
Elton John?
HENSLEY:
Elton John. I was so excited
about that. I like to pretend that
one was for him and one was for Donatella Versace, and one was for George
Michael because, at the time, they all could have used a few laughs.
RAPP:
I met Tori Amos when I was doing Rent. She's
one of the people that I've gotten really star-struck by.
I've just begun to think recently, 'Should I try to send her a CD?'
HENSLEY:
You have to.
RAPP:
I want to make sure that --
HENSLEY:
Anthony, put it in the mail!
RAPP:
But I want her to get it and listen to it, and I've no guarantee of that,
and that would be depressing.
HENSLEY:
What have you got to lose? While
I was working on my CD, I got to interview a few music people, like Emilio
Estefan and Glen Ballard, who produced Alanis. I sent them the CD but I never
heard anything back but at least I tried. I
got some great advice from Glen, though, during the interview.
He said, "The most important thing is that your music communicates.
It's not about how big is your voice, how loud, how strong.
Does it communicate?" That
was a great lesson to me because it's so easy to feel like you're a lightweight,
that you have no right to be doing this. What's
it like for you to go back and listen to your CD? Because sometimes I really love it and other times I just
think it's unlistenable.
RAPP:
I had one listen like that, where I thought, 'This sucks.'
And then got that out of my system, and then it's just like anything
else. Some people will like it and some people won't.
HENSLEY:
I think what you hope for is that the people that would like it are able
to find it.
RAPP:
Did you find that you learned a lot about the creative process, in
general, by making a CD?
HENSLEY:
Oh yeah. I discovered that if you take that leap of faith and commit to a
project, other people will rally for you in a way that is so inspiring.
RAPP:
Right. Commitment calls
people. I just found some New York
musicians to play with and I sent the bass player a CD to listen to, and he
called me and he was like, "I really like this."
That guy's life is music and he was into it.
That's really gratifying.
HENSLEY:
When you're in the middle of it, you just think it's never gonna be done.
At one point, I told my roommate, who's also a singer, "If I die in
a plane crash, you're gonna finish this record," because it took years.
But now that it's done, I actually miss the process so I'm started to
work on some new stuff. Music has been such a good friend in my life.
Like last spring was really hard; my mother was diagnosed with cancer,
and there were some other dramas and it was just rough. And in May, I remember
going to see Trisha Yearwood in concert and I could literally feel the music
healing me. I thought, 'I'm so glad I lived through that to be here for this.'
RAPP:
Being in Rent was like that for me. My
mom became ill right after we did the workshop of Rent and then she was ill for
a long time before she died. Singing
those songs helped me deal with all those feelings.
HENSLEY:
Have you thought about writing your own musical?
RAPP:
I'd like to try it at some point. Actually, I'm about to do a workshop of
a musical based on the movie Mask where I play Eric Stoltz's character.
HENSLEY:
You gotta get Cher to be Cher. (Laughs) Were you ever involved in the GLAMAs,
the Gay and Lesbian American Music Awards?
RAPP:
Yeah. I won a GLAMA for Rent.
It was really nice.
HENSLEY:
They're not doing it anymore, which is too bad.
I got in on the last year. I
got nominated in the Country category for my song "The Water's Fine."
The coolest part was when they read your name and your album cover slide
across on the big screen. That was
worth the plane ticket to New York right there. Did you ever in your career consider not being out?
RAPP:
No.
HENSLEY:
When I first started performing, I'd have these talk show fantasies and I
would craft these Michael Stipe, Ricky Martin kind of vague answers but as I got
older I just thought, 'What a crock. Just
be who you are.' The difference
between me and my actor friends, is that I think acting is about creating
somebody other than yourself, an illusion, and writing, at least the kind I hope
to do, is telling the truth.
RAPP:
But I think acting is telling the truth.
You're finding the truth of the story.
Ian McKellan said that he feels like he's become a better actor since he
came out publicly because there was no longer anything that he was having to
compensate for or hide. Now for
some actors, being closeted may make them more interesting because that might
create some sort of tension in their work.
HENSLEY:
That makes me think of (a certain leading man) in (a certain
award-winning film.)
RAPP:
It's hard for me to evaluate his acting because I'm so angry at him.
I met him when I was fourteen because we were both in plays and he
invited me to a party at his house. I
was bored so I was in his bedroom watching TV, and didn't know everybody had
left and he came to the bedroom and he picked me up and laid down on top of me.
HENSLEY:
Oh my God. What did you do?
RAPP:
I squirmed away and went into the bathroom.
I came out and I excused myself, and he's like "You sure you wanna
go?" I always wonder if he
remembers it because he was pretty drunk. And
he's had so many.
HENSLEY:
Have any of your representatives
every pressured you to stay in the closet?
RAPP:
No, but there's an out young singer/songwriter that I've become
acquainted with who was being courted briefly to be in a boy-band and the record
executive said to him, "We will concoct a girlfriend for you."
He was like, "No, thank you."
HENSLEY:
You always hear stuff like that happens but then you wonder how it actually
plays out, like does she come out of a box marked 'Girlfriend?'
RAPP:
I guess she gets paid.
HENSLEY:
What's a good beard go for these days, I wonder?
RAPP:
Have you ever heard one of your songs unexpectedly, like on the radio or
something?
HENSLEY:
Well, yesterday, I took my friend's spinning class and he played one of my songs
without telling me he was going to. That
was cool but then you're nervous someone in the class is going to go, "Turn
that shit off!"
RAPP:
I tried spinning once but I didn't know anything about the tension knob.
I almost killed myself.
HENSLEY:
Yeah, you really gotta know your knob. I
think that should be the theme of this whole conversation.
RAPP:
(Laughs) I read that Moby likes to play this game called "Knob
Touch." He'll be in a crowded
room, so crowded that you can only see the tops of people, and he'll whip out
his dick and see how many people he can rub it on.
HENSLEY:
(Laughing) That's our Moby! So,
do you want to make another CD?
RAPP:
Yeah. I've written one song
since the record, a stalker song, told from the point of view of a stalker.
HENSLEY:
Good because I think stalking really gets a bad rap.
RAPP:
Do you want to make another CD?
HENSLEY:
Yeah. But I'm going to try and get
another novel done first. Sometimes
it's hard to balance it, but it's nice to have other things going on so your
happiness isn't tied to how well the CD does.
RAPP:
I think I'd go insane if it was my only thing, but I still believe that I
can find my little niche. I don't
think I'll ever lose that faith.
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