Singer Ari Gold has become one of today’s hottest openly gay singers. His lyrics not only reflect happenings in his life but also the GLBT community - a rarity in such a heterosexually oriented industry. In a world where celebrity is becoming more and more blurred and role models are harder to find, we are happy to have Ari Gold in our community. I caught with Ari earlier this month as he released his latest album “Transport Systems”, what follows is some of my interview with this Out & Proud Recording Artist.

Olivera: I talked to you back in 2005 and I know that a lot has changed with you. I want to talk about the difference between then and now. Since you have really blown up since then. Have you learned any life lessons from then and now?

Gold: Well yes I have learned a lot since then. I learn life lessons every day. I think that since I put out my last record in 2004, one thing that I am learning is to own my own power in a way and give myself the license to do it. I have always been out and explicit in my lyrics, but with this new record I really went there. I took the risks of laying it out there and sing about all the things that I wanted to sing about.

How has it changed you in terms of you personally? I am sure that the fame has had to change you in some way.

Gold: For me its not like I have the paparazzi following me around. I have been in show business since I was 6 years old. In that sense not that much has changed, I see the growth and the recognition that I get and I think that more fans are coming on board and I am getting more fan mail and people are stopping me on the street, but I love that stuff. You want to effect people. I live a pretty normal life, I go out and I don’t have a big entourage with me, I’m just a regular guy in a lot of ways.

I want to talk about the album, “Transport Systems”, on your previous albums you have always been very personal with them, but for some reason, this one felt more emotional, more raw, and more personal than you have ever gone before.

Definitely. You said that I have gone a step further and that is what the album is about. The concept is about movement and progression, so I think that my own artistic journey of moving forward. I like to write stuff that is pretty straight forward. I love music that is more poetic and I also appreciate people saying what they mean. Especially R&B like Mary J. Blige, she always says what she wants to say and never worries about being too flowery about it. I also like the idea that maybe someone looks at the lyrics or reads the lyrics saying, damn, I didn’t know you were talking about that!

The whole album has this message of transforming and looking at things differently, and the track “Transport Me” seems to be the theme of the album. How did that song come to be?

That song is really personal and is about my personal journey and wanting to move forward in my life past some of the pain from growing up and I think that it is a song that people can relate to, especially gay people. That feeling that something was not right or being different and wanting to have a place where it was ok to be different. I thought that it was really relevant to gay people because we have this greater visibility now, but how can we move forward and be seen in a more complex and multidimensional way and not just as a two-dimensional people who are here to make straight people look better. How do we move forward to achieving our own basic human rights because we are not there yet. Most importantly how can move past all of this shame that most of us felt as kids? I think that we take that with us and we should learn how to treat ourselves and each other better.

Let’s talk about a few of the collaborations that you have done on this album. The most notable was the remake of “Human” with Mr. Man. How did that come to be?

I have always wanted to do that song and I have always been a big fan of Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, they are my favorite producers of all time and they wrote and produced the original version. The original song was about a guy cheating on his girlfriend. The core of the song was even more powerful than that, almost applied to the fight for human rights and who we are as gay people. I re-worked the verses and the bridge and then I called Mr. Man, he came in and wrote the rap really quickly, he got into my head and wrote down everything that I wanted to say. I think that is came out really good.

The other was “Love Wasn’t Built In A Day”, with Dave Koz, a very beautiful song. From what I have read it almost didn’t come to be. It took a journey get that one recorded. How did that one actually happen?
I met Dave Koz after I saw his Advocate” story after he came out and I had such respect for his talent, he has been signed on with Capital Records for 20 years and has been doing what he has been doing for such a long time. We met at this gay wedding and we emailed back and forth for a while and he was on tour and didn’t think that it was going to happen. The next time I was out in L.A. and he said that he had his saxophone in the trunk of his car and was going to come over and just bang it out and he did. He told me that he was glad, I didn’t give up on that because he had a great time doing it. I cried some real man tears when he did it.

Now The Video for “Where The Music Takes You” is out, and surprising it is all video is out and its animated and done by famed artist Joe Philips, I know you have worked with him in the past, but how did the video come about and why choose animation?

Probably because we didn’t have the budget to do live action and animation. Just kidding. I always wanted to be a cartoon character when I was growing up. I am a huge fan of animation and Joe and his animation work. He is the most incredible guy and so freaking talented. We talked about doing this and the animation is totally cool.

What do we have to look forward to? Are you doing a tour?

Absolutely. We are in the midst of putting that together. We just had the CD release concert in New York so I am psyched to go out there and see the fans in different cities.

Tags:ari gold, Music, Transport Me, Transport Systems

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Russel Olivera Jr. is the Founder, Executive Director , & Editor In Chief of QBliss. www.qbliss.net, you can contact him at QBliss or his personal site, www.rolivera.com.
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