Let’s Hear It for the Boys: Singer-songwriter Levi Kreis comes out (literally) with a new disc dedicated to former flirts and flings.
By Brandon Voss
As a teenage Christian musician in a Footloose-y Tennessee town, Levi Kreis secretly checked himself into Exodus International, which “heals” homosexuals. Thankfully, it didn’t work. Still hot from his recent one-episode exposure on NBC’s The Apprentice, in which he led his team to a songwriting challenge victory, the 26-year-old L.A.-based heartthrob rebels against childhood repression — and major record label oppression — with his latest independent release, One of the Ones, an extremely personal soul-pop collection that’ll have quite a few fellas’ ears burning.
HX: Tell me about your decision to come out professionally.
Levi Kreis: I’ve been thrown around from label to label, and you find yourself lying about your life for the sake of being the next big MTV baby. I realized that I had worked way too hard to own who I was. I was like, Look, man, my music is viable, everyone can relate to it — why do I give a fuck anymore? So this project is my heart and soul, just me and a piano, completely untouched by anyone, with lyrics that are very honest and universal. I feel like I’m getting away with murder!
Some of your lyrics are refreshingly gender specific. In “Love in Another Light” you even describe “back rooms with boys that don’t have a name.”
When you’re forced into one extreme, you often explore the other extreme before finding a balance. I went through a rowdy stage. Bring me the checklist of anything you can imagine, I’ve probably done it all!
How autobiographical is this album?
All of the songs are about a different guy that I’ve either crushed on, dated, or have loved with all my heart. Even “Just as Good,” which was featured on The Apprentice, is about a couple that I was briefly involved with. “I Should Go,” which Days of Our Lives is going to be using for their long-awaited reuniting of Austin and Carrie, was actually written about a straight guy that I developed a crush on. There hasn’t been a guy who’s gotten my attention that I haven’t written a song about.
I kind of want to sleep with you just to get a song.
[Laughs] Too bad I’m not in New York City anymore!
Now that you’re formally out, are you more focused on appealing to gay fans with your looks?
I’ve always been very aware of that. Gay press has been looking for the shirtless pictures, but that’s not what this album is about. I wanted people to be drawn to the substance not the eye-candy. But the next album is going to be about the darker side of sex, which I’ve explored. So when that comes out, it’s going to be all about the fuckin’ hot-ass shots!
HX, December 2005.
Kreis Almighty: Former preacher Levi Kreis challenges the church on his sophomore CD.
By Brandon Voss
“These days I’m taking my last name seriously,” says Levi Kreis, a former Christian musician from Tennessee who spent six years in reparative therapy before finally embracing his homosexuality. He’s joking, of course, but the ex-preacher has become a savior of sorts for conflicted gay Christians all over the country by being a voice of rhyme and reason. Hot off of last year’s Gay.com tour, during which he opened for Cyndi Lauper at the closing ceremonies of Chicago’s Gay Games, Kreis gave us the good word on his button-pushing new album, The Gospel According to Levi.
HX: With song titles like “In the Name of God,” “Bittersweet Salvation,” and “The Reckoning,” some might confuse Gospel for a Christian album.
Levi Kreis: It’s funny, because there was a paper that wouldn’t do a story on it because they believed it to be too Christian, and another paper wouldn’t do a story on it because they felt it was blasphemous. So I’m loving it, because it’s like, Okay, people, which one is it? But all you have to do is look at the lyrics to find out that I’m just confronting Christian theology.
Why tackle those demons now?
I’ve always wanted to make a project that was a series of snapshots of my 10-year journey with the church — to have my say so that I could finally put all that to bed. A lot of the lyrics have been in the making for a while. I wrote “Bittersweet Salvation” four years ago, but I never knew what to do with it musically. If I would’ve taken more of a Tori Amos approach, it would have been too painful to listen to — and pretty masturbatory. So I tried to make everything very lighthearted, hooky, and appeal to a pop sensibility to counteract the heaviness of the lyrics.
Writing this must’ve been very therapeutic.
It was, and I’m already getting some great feedback from people who have gone through the same thing but haven’t had someone articulate their experience before.
Is there any bitterness here?
No, not at all. In fact, I wanted to make sure I balanced the confrontation with love, which is why I included the hymn “All Is Well With My Soul.” It’s my way of saying, “Look, I don’t necessarily adhere to the theology anymore, but the church is still a part of me and always will be.”
Do you have a boyfriend?
I’m actually married to a wonderful guy. We had a ceremony and signed out domestic partnership December 19.
Does that mean we can’t make out when you come to New York?
Well, if I’m bucking the system of Christianity, perhaps I’m also bucking the idea of a Judeo-Christian monogamous relationship!
DRAWN TO HIM: The cover art for Kreis’ The Gospel According to Levi could have only been created by well-known gay illustrator Joe Phillips, who has done ads for everything from Bud Light to ID Lube — and who has previously drawn queer crooner Ari Gold. “I just thought it would be more tongue-in-cheek to do an animated version as opposed to me really posing as Jesus Christ,” Kreis says. “It gives the album a lightheartedness that it needs.”
HX, February 2007.