I feel like it was no big secret that Cynic founders and former Death members Paul Masvidal and Sean Reinart are gay. Masvidal never hid the fact, being very open with when a fan once asked him about his sexuality on Facebook. The two were open about their sexuality to friends and associates but have decided to go public with the news for the first time in a very insightful piece in the Los Angeles Times.
"I see all those old dudes out there just banging their heads to our records," Reinert said, wearing an imposing goatee and extra-large Miami Dolphins jersey. "And I have to think — 'That stuff you're banging your head to? That is some gay, gay metal, man.'"
The article goes on to say that the two struggled with their identities, but Paul was the first to come out, in 1991. While on tour, he began exploring drag bars and gay nightclubs. Reinert wanted to join him but was not comfortable with it yet saying:
"I knew that, secretly, I wanted to go to those clubs too," Reinert, 42, said. "But back then, my stereotype of how to be gay was wearing dresses and tank tops. I didn't have any masculine, metal role models who were gay."
Being out on the road opening for Cannibal Corpse was not making their coming out process any easier, with the audience not exactly embracing their "anti-macho stage presence."
"That tour was really traumatic for us," Masvidal said, recalling anti-gay epithets being yelled at them. "We were wearing Indian garb and we had a girl keyboardist, and we were playing to this Paleolithic crowd throwing bottles and yelling 'Get off the stage…' It was our first big tour and all we could think was, 'We don't belong here.'"
I can't even imagine how rough that must've been for two people still trying to discover themselves. I'm sure it was part of the reason they decided to stop doing Cynic in 1994 and move on to other projects. Matters were made worse when a guy who went on a date with Reinert decided to go online and blog about it:
"I went on a date with this one awful guy who blogged about it on his website," Reinert said. "So for years, if you typed my name into Google, the second thing that came up, after 'Sean Reinert Drummer,' was 'Sean Reinert Gay.'"
Now in their mid-40s, they are ready to be public about it, to show the world that gay men can play metal and I couldn't be more happy for the two of them to find the peace of mind to deal with the onslaught of attention they will surly get from this announcement. The article states that Reinart is currently living with his longtime boyfriend. They are living their lives the way they want to, and if you don't like it, listen to something else:
"It's one thing to make out with your bandmates and just 'play gay' because it's edgy," Masvidal said. "It's another thing to actually live it."
"Gay people are everywhere, doing every job, playing every kind of music and we always have been," Reinert said. "It's taken me years to finally be brave enough to say, 'If you have a problem with that, then throw out our records. That's your problem, not mine.'"
Check out the whole LA Times piece here.
Meanwhile, a Japanese bonus track from their album Kindly Bent to Free Us has surfaced online, and it's a killer track:
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E3FyPpszTws[/youtube]
