REALIZING GOD DIDN’T WANT ME IN THE CLOSET

by Tory Silver

I’ve been writing music since college, when I was deeply in the closet.

I attended a school where being gay wasn’t allowed – like, you could actually be kicked out if the administration found out. My religion was such a central part of who I was back then, I genuinely loved it, and even though I didn’t agree with the school’s stance on homosexuality, I looked past it because I wanted to be surrounded by people who mostly thought like me. The first song I ever wrote was for a girl I developed a crush on there, so so gay. I performed it at an open mic, got a ton of support, and somewhere in that moment I thought, hey, maybe I actually am a songwriter.

Fast forward a few years, I’m living in Boston, working at the headquarters of that same religion, still in the closet, still writing songs. I started going to open mics and house shows and slowly getting to know the community. The people I was meeting probably wouldn’t have cared if I came out – they would have been so supportive – but I still didn’t feel comfortable being who I was. I should say, the church I was part of wasn’t necessarily against homosexuality, but it wasn’t exactly for it either. It felt like people were probably split right down the middle. I wouldn’t have been fired or anything, I just didn’t want people thinking of me a certain way, a way they might not like. I’m a people pleaser, after all.

I was in my early 20s, anxious, stressed out at my job, but I felt so at home writing music and dragging myself to open mics at 10pm on a Tuesday. Music was giving me purpose and honestly just a place where I felt like I belonged. I didn’t know anything about the industry when I started in late 2016, but someone told me I should have music out so that when I reached out to bookers, they could actually hear what I sounded like, and at that point, I had an album’s worth of music I could record. I posted in a Facebook group looking for a bassist and drummer, ran a GoFundMe, and recorded at this awesome studio in Boston called The Record Co. That album – Observere, which means “to observe” in Norwegian – really does capture how I felt at the time. Just stressed, trying to find my place in the world, and sad in this quiet way because I was still so in the closet. My song “Human Hopes” is all about wanting to find love while also feeling so unlovable, lonely, so far from where I was supposed to be. The whole album just feels like what it’s like to be in the closet, with a little churchiness woven through, if that makes sense. It still finds the bright side somehow, which I think was very me at the time.

Somehow, I started dating someone I met through the church. She grew up in the religion but wasn’t nearly as pious as what I was used to, and honestly that was really good for me. She helped me come out to my parents and my sister. They weren’t that surprised, honestly. I eventually came out fully, about six months into our relationship, in a Facebook post. It felt freeing in a way I genuinely didn’t expect. I felt so loved and taken care of. People were proud of me. This thing I had been so scared of for so long, and when it finally happened, people just saw me for me. I know this isn’t everyone’s experience, and I’m still so grateful for all of the support I had then, and to this day.

These days, I’m married to the love of my life.

We’ve adopted three dogs, bought a cool old house we’re slowly fixing up together. I’m not really part of the church anymore, but I still carry the parts of it that meant the most to me – that God is love, that we’re all connected, that we’re all loved no matter what.

I just put out my latest album, In Through the Front with Lasers, and it feels so much more mature than Observere. It’s all about taking life head on despite it being hard, and recognizing that it is hard, which is just such a different way of thinking than Observere. I think a lot of that comes down to the fact that I made it without fear, as fully myself as I’ve ever been. And honestly, that feels like everything. – Tory Silver