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TYLER GLENNExcommunication Looks A Lot Like Freedom
by joel martens
one man’s journey with Glenn’s new album, aptly titled, Excommunication. Due to release onFriday, October 14, it’s like listening to the seven stages of the grieving process: Shock/disbelief, denial, bargaining, guilt, anger, depres- sion and acceptance/hope. It’s all there, inviting us to take what we need from it and move forward, just as he did.
Tyler Glenn, reborn: Since we talked last, back in 2014, you have gone through some pretty big changes. Can you talk about that process a little bit? I don’t even feel sometimes like I recognize that person.
With great pain comes great revelation. It’s the adage
that kept creeping into my head during this interview with Tyler Glenn. I’ve talked with him a couple times now and it’s always a conversation filled with insightful revelations and deeply personal stories about his process. He has an ability to communicate his emotions that is rare, something you hear as he speaks and certainly through the music that he writes and sings. Pain, passion, growth and love, it’s an ongoing process and it’s represented in everything he does. Our last conversation was back in 2014, at the moment
just after he walked through the door of the closet that had held him so tightly within. “It was a process,” he told me tentatively, still learning to adjust to the light and the newness of it all. Like for so many of us, coming out was complicated by his religious upbringing within the Church of Latter-Day Saints, an organization he cared for deeply. One whose recent policy barring children of LGBT parents from baptism until 18, would end up hurting him deeply, forcing him to examine the entirety of that belief system. Another process, that would eventually close another door to a piece of his life as he walked even further into the light. Change is inevitable, it is the one thing in life that is guaranteed and we have the privilege of bearing witness to
I don’t mean that in a dark way, it’s just I’ve been through a lot of growth. It’s weird because I thought that when I came out of the closet, whenever I was ready to do that, it was the point at which I could say, “Alright, that’s all the stuff that I have to get through and now I can start living my life.” This last year was one of more self-discovery and just learning more about what I believe in and the church that I was a part of. I think that any sort of spiritual awakening or paradigm shift can cause even more change and that’s been really exciting. It’s been really scary and it’s also been really great for art and creativity, so that’s a good thing for sure. Isn’t that the whole point of spiritual awakenings? It’s about shifting your perspective, which can change, well, everything. Is that “awakening” part of what motivated you to put this album together? When the Mormon church put out the policy last November that essentially condemned and further boxed in LGBTQ people, making it really clear that there isn’t a healthy space for them within the church, it kind of drew a line in the sand. It was really painful and there was a lot of discovery in that. Within that change, it pointed out that a lot of the stuff I had believed in, wasn’t true and it inspired me to start writing. I had also just gone through a breakup with someone. It was my first public, gay relationship and there was a lot of toxicity, stress and sadness in my life, so I thought, “I have to turn to music to get all of this out because otherwise I’m going to bottle it all up and be a shell of a person.” It’s really only been since last November since I started writing for this record.
36 RAGE monthly | OCTOBER 2016
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