Metal Anarchy

As previously reported, Beartooth’s Caleb Shomo recently came out as “a proudly gay man” following a 14-year marriage. Now, during a recent appearance on the “Disrespectfully” podcast, the singer further discussed his sexuality and the past suppression he dealt with due to his Christian upbringing.

Shomo, who is actually the son of a preacher man, says when he was young he was taught that gayness was “a sickness you can cure with prayer.” He went on to say this mentality and his time in the Christian music scene were “damaging”:

“Probably even more damaging than that [religious] upbringing was being involved in a music scene, in that really wild Christian era of the mid-late 2000s that I came up in. You know, like adjacent to Underoath and all that stuff, that at the time was very, very Christian and very evangelical, and very intense. And I was involved in this music scene, where I was the youngest. And I was, you know, 14 when I got into this scene, hanging out with a lot of older people, who are very evangelical devout Christians.

And I was a Christian myself, but that just in hindsight leads to some crazy sh*t. Like literally being 16-years-old on a ‘Warped Tour‘ being outside of our bus while this group of people is trying to pray the gay out of one of our crew members, while I’m like there, just like, ‘Okay this is it. This is what is true, this is what we do.’ And it was so f*cking traumatizing and terrifying.”

He continued:

“And also the way you’re raised is you don’t really have any platonic relationships with women. It’s like there are men’s groups, there are girls groups, you grow up in your thing. And the way the community interacts in general, as well being like these horny repressed Christians, is well, you can’t have sex before you’re married and you’ll go to hell for that. So, you know, people are courting each other very young without much understanding of themselves and you just follow the model.

And I never had any relationships with women really, at all. So that was also very confusing, and kind of you know, I just was really trying my best, and just trying to follow the path, and yeah, there’s just so much I didn’t understand about myself. I mean going from being this young Christian kid to being in the music scene at 14 and on the road full-time at 15. I mean I went to my freshman year of high school and then got my GED and I’ve just been touring ever since. You don’t really process things.

I saw this clip of Hayley Williams talking that hit me like a truck, where she’s like, basically in some way, she’s talking about realizing she’s dealing now with some arrested development from just being 14 as well and being full-time in the music scene.

And I was like ‘holy sh*t!’ Yeah!’ I missed so much and had such a different path and so much of that was self-exloration and sexuality and who I am at all. And then you throw all that in the cloak of Christianity, and like devout evangelical Christianity, We’re talking f*cking laying hands, speaking in tongues, and like all this heavy sh*t, It’s intense.”

He went on to say he questioned his sexuality “all the time, but didn’t understand what it was”:

“So, my first core memory of what I recognize is that was when I was probably six or seven and my mom [and my older brother…] we were at some department store, like Kohl’s, and there were these cheap rings, and we thought they were really cool. And my mom was like, ‘Okay, you guys can get one.’ And [my brother] picked a guy’s ring and I picked a girl’s ring. And he’s like, ‘You know that’s a girl’s ring.’ And I was like, ‘Oh, I don’t know. I just love it,’

And I remember It was half-silver, half-gold and had a diamond in the middle. I just loved it and I loved the way it made me feel. And I wore it all day and then the next morning on the bus I remember just getting ridiculed by the kids, like ‘That’s a girls ring!’ I just freaked out and didn’t know what was going on and f*cking threw it out the window.” It was like, ‘F*ck, don’t do that. Whatever that is, let’s keep that away.’”

“To me, what that was, was this very strong feminine side that I have, but that’s just not the vibe in Ohio in the Christian world. And then growing up, the older you get, and then hanging out with a lot of older people, and just conversations constantly reminding you how f*cking weird it is to be gay, or to do anything remotely gay or feminine, or anything like that.

So that feeling that I had, which I now understand was my sexuality, I just viewed and compartmentalized as just self-hatred. It’s just this thing that’s evil in me and okay, you fight this with all of your might. And that’s the right thing to do. You f*cking pray about it. And I came up with methods to keep it at bay that are so f*cked now thinking about it.”

He also discussed how he developed suicidal ideation and substance abuse issues, before adding:

“I think so many straight Christian men are queer, and you can not explore that, so you find ways to fight that sh*t.”

He also opened up about being “terrified” to come out and how doing so felt freeing:

“I basically was able to verbalize that like, ‘No, I think the way that I feel about girls, I feel about guys.’ I do. And there’s something there that I’ve been running from for a long f*cking time. And I don’t think I want to run anymore. And then after that the f*cking hinges got ripped off. Like it just was so fast, so fast. And then everything starts to make sense. And then I was able to stop hating myself so much — at least in some ways — and start to unpack everything. And immediately, you know, I got into therapy.

And you know, I have very severe ADHD. And I understand, after a lot of life, that if I’m not doing very certain things in my daily routine to keep that at bay, it’s easy for me to kind of like spiral out and go back into a hole and then just bury everything back down. So I was like, I’m going to take this really f*cking seriously. And therapy, exercise, eating good, sunshine, good sleep, like being creative, these are all really important things.

And I was really proud of myself and I was taking it really seriously and putting in so much of the work and then it just unfolded so fast. Like the depth of it, And me understanding, ‘Oh this is all you’ve ever craved out of women, is like you just want to be seen, and be one of them in a way, and have that part of you be empowered. And this is what you really wanted from men.’ And yeah, you know, very quickly after that, there was no other truth other than to say I was gay.

I couldn’t say I was bi — which I said for a while, because it felt right and it felt safe. And I had a lot of processing to do about my journey and my relationship with women, and sexuality with women, and sexuality with men, and like everything just made sense so fast. And I think it was, I don’t know, probably within a month, maybe two, is when I was like ready to be like. ‘No I’m gay.’”

He also talked about the lack of openly gay men within the metal scene:

“Within our music scene, you know to be gay in any public forum is very scary, especially in the United States, and especially in our music scene. I mean, we have Rob Halford, and that was in the ’90s. You know, that’s a different time, different world, different scene, but I’m sure I’m not the only one.”

[via The PRP]