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Born again to be wild
Glen Meadmore, gay Christian punk-country singer
By KIERAN GRANT
Toronto Sun
Glen Meadmore is looking for trouble -- the kind of trouble a country-pickin', Jesus-lovin', proudly gay cowboy should have no trouble finding in these controversy-soaked times.
So there are traces of both disappointment and hope in the singer's voice as he tells me over the phone: "I've had no problems so far. I'm hardly famous. This is just the very beginning, so we'll find out what happens."
Reared in Winnipeg, and based for the last 16 years in L.A., Meadmore leaves nary a taboo untouched on his new album, Hot Horny & Born Again, which he unsheaths at the El Mocambo tomorrow night.
Let's set the record, er, straight: That Meadmore is a gay man who celebrates his belief in God shouldn't be an issue here.
Besides, he's not the only guy to make a goofy perverse album (Blowfly, The Frogs, Insane Clown Posse and Eminem come to mind).
Aims at a lot of targets
But by splicing spiritual devotion with exuberant, cornball homoerotic horniness, and -- gasp! -- supercharged country-punk, he isn't just poised for flak from the usual crop of nasties, but from any number of religious types and politically-correctniks, not to mention country fans.
Add the fact that Meadmore's portrait on the cover of Hot Horny was painted by late sexual predator John Wayne Gacy, and the singer is perched on a customized powder-keg of outrage.
"There's so many things about me that would piss anybody off, I couldn't possibly even start to formulate it," says the soft-spoken Meadmore, who seems quite normal despite his efforts to tell me otherwise. "I would love some controversy at a show. That would be hot. To me, rock 'n' roll is about something daring and wild. People forget about that and we get lame bands.
"I don't go over well with traditional country audiences. But I think that country music could be on the same level as Motorhead as far as volume goes."
As for corresponding over the phone with Gacy, who killed dozens of young men and boys in the late '70s and was executed in 1994, Meadmore says it was "just a kick."
"I thought it would be something ridiculous to do -- and I'm always trying to do something ridiculous, keep that in perspective," he says. "So I wrote this serial killer and asked him to paint my portrait. I didn't realize how unoriginal the idea would actually turn out to be. But I knew it would always remind me of how demented I am.
"I thought he did a good likeness. There's kind of a demonic look, too."
Didn't talking to him creep you out?
"Not to any great level," says Meadmore. "I never felt I got to know him beyond the superficial. I totally believe he was always trying to pull one over on everybody."
Meadmore says his belief in a forgiving God supressed any of the usual animosity one might feel for a blight-on-society like Gacy.
That same weird sense of religion that shows up on Hot Horny, which is Meadmore's fourth album. With sincere gospel testimonies like Eternal Love, and Yonder Over There ("If God can save a nelly-assed queen like me think of what he can do for you!").
'A weird take on religion'
"I have a weird take on religion," he says. "It's kind of like a dilettante take. I hesitate to even call it Christianity, but I use the word for sensationalism. I do believe in a loving God. Christianity to me is movies like Ben Hur, and old-time churches in the country. I like those kind of images."
So, if getting people's backs up in jaded L.A. is tough work, how would the horny hick mystique go over in his hometown of The 'Peg?
"Probably better than it would anywhere else," says Meadmore with a laugh. "They're pretty quick to catch on to things."
Meadmore's album is available through San Francisco's Pervertidora Records. Labelmates The Whiskey Sour Notes open tomorrow's show.
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