First Discord, Then Harmony

Written by Brian Patrick Thornton

Tuesday, 12 August 2008 00:55

Tom Goss was on his way to becoming a priest. Instead, he became a singer-songwriter.

Unsurprisingly, that's not a straight-forward journey. But surprisingly, Goss’ current entertainment path has the same mission as his religious road not taken: reconciliation.

The 26-year-old Wisconsin-via-Washington, D.C., native stops at Cleveland’s Barking Spider Thursday evening for the first time in support of his second album, Rise.

But don’t expect the bland strains of Christian rock from the out, gay musician.

“Not at all,” he says. “It’s just acoustic pop that has more substance.”

“I know that the Christian rock community would never play my music right now,” he adds.

Goss arrived at seminary with a goal of making change.

“I think the Catholic church has made a lot of mistakes over the years; I think anyone can come to that conclusion,” he says. “I wanted to do my best to try to reconcile those mistakes. I thought to do that, it would be most effective for me to be in the Catholic church in a leadership position.”

But trouble in his personal life ended those plans early. He says a series of friends and acquaintances professed their love for him, seeking a “different relationship with me than I wanted to have with them … and then you combine that with the fact that maybe these people weren’t stable to begin with.”

It came to a head when he awoke one morning to find one of his suitors at the foot of his bed, having broken into his room. The stress drove him from his priestly path.

Goss had a less-literal awakening when he developed feelings that helped him discover he wasn’t asexual, but gay. When he fell in love with a man, he realized, “Maybe that’s why I wasn’t interested in all those women I was dating.”

In figuring out he was gay, “I was actually more relieved than anything,” Goss says. “I was kind of excited to discover I did have sexual emotions.”

The former college wrestler had taken up guitar at age 18, and was writing songs. As he developed his talent, he began exploring the idea that “I could still continue to do what I was aiming to do in the seminary experience, but just do it in a different way.”

Thematically, he says, his music is about hope, love and reconciliation.

“It’s upbeat; it’s poppy,” he says. “But at the same time the lyrics are thought-out. For me the music is an opportunity to convey a message, and without lyrics you can’t do that.”

His tunes, which he calls a coupling of Dave Matthews and Jack Johnson, also speak to his queer audience.

“I think being gay can sometimes be hard,” he says. “I think it can be hard to find people speaking in a way that connects with you.”

And even in 2008, being out in the music industry has its positives and negatives. But Goss is focusing on the mission.

“I’m trying to write powerful music, good music,” he says. “I write from my experiences … I can’t change who I am.”