I met Tom Goss two years ago at a Bear Run in Rehoboth Beach, DE. He is as genuine a person as you could meet and despite being a celebrity, he is incredibly personable and friendly. Saturday Tom is performing at The Space for a one-night-only show. It’s been a long while since Tom has performed in Las Vegas and hopefully, this will be a regular stop on his tours in the future.
Why music?
I don’t really have a choice. It’s the thing that’s flowing through me. I owe my life to Music. I owe the completeness of my soul to this thing that has helped heal me.
Who inspires you?
People inspire me. My husband inspires me. I see amazing people do amazing things every single day. It makes me believe in hope. It makes me believe in my ability to make this world a better place. I want to be a conduit for change. We’re so indoctrinated with negative images, fear, distrust, war, and tragedy but if we look and see the people in the world around us, I mean physically around us, you see an entirely different picture. We see people helping each other, looking out for each other, and healing each other. And we see all sorts of communities working together. And that’s really where I try to focus the energy in my life and those are the people that inspire me the most. I always see the good in people. Sometimes it gets me in trouble, but I would much rather live that way than the alternative.
What projects do you have in the works?
I’m in the process or recording a song called ‘Round in all the right places’. This release will more or less be a sequel to Bears. I’m currently in the process of recording it and putting together a video. I really wanted to create a super straight-forward, honest portrayal of how I see beauty, and I really want to do it in a way that is without all the camp. I get frustrated that you can’t portray men of a certain size, and how you find them beautiful and sexy, without also poking fun at them or making it super campy or super colorful. So for me, I want to write this song and I want to make a video that, frankly, just purely objectifies men of a certain size, because I find it just super sexy.
If you could give 13-year-old Tom advice what would it be?
Oh My God. 13-year-old Tom was a F---ing mess. 13-year-old Tom was getting arrested all the time and fighting with everybody. 13-year-old Tom was sad. I don’t think 13-year-old Tom was listening. So, maybe I’d tell him to start listening, stop fighting, but I don’t think it would have done anything. He wouldn’t listen anyway.
When did you start playing guitar?
I got a guitar for my high school graduation present from my mother. I was obsessed with Dave Matthews at the time. And so, all I really wanted to do was learn every single song that Dave Matthews ever wrote, and I pretty much did that. And that’s how I learned the guitar.
What are the songs you have you written that mean the most to you?
It’s really hard to say. They’re all pieces of a tapestry. Most of my songs are these emotional experiences that need to come out. That’s why, when you asked why Music, I said because I don’t have much of a choice. It is me. It is who I am. It is my authenticity. It is the truest form of myself, revealing itself not only to the world, and the people who listen to my music, but also revealing itself to me. There are things that I don’t fully understand until I have written them in a song. I often times write things in songs and I say, “Oh I didn’t realize that I felt that way.” But that is exactly how I feel. I’m surely not that articulate or well thought out in person. There’s something about music and being able to get to the heart of your emotions and your feelings that transcends our humanness, our walls. So for me, the majority of my songs have transcended my walls and are revealing of me in a way that I couldn’t have been otherwise. So. It’s hard for me to say that one of my songs is more important than another. Because all of my songs are so innately me. They all are just a piece of the puzzle. Songs for me are about communication and connecting.
But are there songs you have spent years writing? Songs that you are really happy with after finally finishing?
There are definitely songs that I have struggled with lyrically or musically, but I don’t spend a lot of time writing and re-writing songs. For me, sometimes I feel like if editing and holding on to a song for a long period of time, you’re not actually making it better. You’re just editing to reflect your changing perspective. Our person is always changing, and our perspective is always in flux. To me, a song is a snapshot of a period of life. All my songs are a snapshot of me at that very moment. That doesn’t mean that’s how I am always going to feel, but that is me in my most honest and raw at that very moment. If I go back and I edit the song later, if I write that song on April 1st and go back on April 15th and edit it, well then that’s a snapshot me at April 15th. None of these snapshots are perfect. If I revisit this song in two weeks, my perspective is going to change again and, as a result, my idea of the song is going to change. So I’m much of the camp that you just are honest to that moment and then you release the song, stay true to the moment, and then you move on to the next one.
If you could perform with anyone in the industry today, who would be?
You mean as an opening act or to perform with? To perform with, I mean I love Childish Gambino. He fascinated me as an Artist. So maybe Childish Gambino. Maybe Brandi Carlile too. Her voice is amazing and I just think she’s f----ing awesome. Of course, the child in me would say Dave Matthews or David Gray or Ben Folds, but probably Childish Gambino because of what would come out of it. It seems the most likely to create something that wouldn’t exist in the world otherwise.
So you do the Traveling Tom videos on YouTube. They a lot of fun, informative and educational. Where is Traveling Tom off to next?
Well, there are so many Traveling Tom Video’s that I haven’t edited. There’s one more from Kyoto, Japan another from Angkor Wat, Cambodia and southern Laos that I need to edit together. Then I have a couple national parks videos from Kings Canyon and Sequoia that I have never edited either. I don’t know where I’m going to next!
Is there any song that you like to perform more than any other?
I really like playing “Wait”. It’s just so fun to play. I like playing “Bears” because it makes people happy. I like playing you know slower songs like “Breath and Sound”, “Illuminate the Dark,” and “Mama” just because you can feel the connective energy in the room. We all have these really deep experiences in our life and they make up the journey that we are on. Still, we’re told that those are the things that we don’t talk about. I think there are certain songs that I have written that tap into this thing that we, as humans, don’t understand and are told to keep hidden. Hiding these feeling and experiences can be damaging because it causes people to feel isolated in their experience when in fact we’re all in this human experience together and it makes it much easier if we don’t feel alone. The songs don’t deny the hardships of life, but they also say, man, there is always a silver lining, there’s always a point for growth. And together, if we’re honest and authentic and we’re good to one another, we’re going to come out the other side really strong. I love playing those songs because you can feel that happening. You can see that happening. I’m very honored to be a facilitator for that.
Where are you off to next?
I have a show in Dallas, and then up the west coast then I head out east. So I’m excited. I’m also in the middle of making a new record which f---ing sounds super duper amazing and it’s going to blow people’s minds, both sonically and topically. And so I’m finishing up the vocal recording and the drum recording in June. And I’m really stoked about that. I’ll be in P-town for Bear week and I’m adding east coast dates in a couple of weeks as well.
What made you choose ‘Son of a Preacher Man’? The video is very powerful and quite emotional.
SOPM was a collaboration between my director Michael Serrato and I. Really that was his idea. We had created “illuminate the Dark” and “Breath and Sound” already together. And so, he had talked to me about his idea for Son of a Preacher Man. I wasn’t really sure. I thought it sounded interesting, but it’s really hard to tackle such an iconic song like that. So, I really wanted to make sure that what was presented was different and original in and of itself, in the way it was sonically presented. I actually arranged it on a piano. I was on tour and I was just playing a lot with the song and I found these really gorgeous minor cords that I thought made the song different and more interesting. I recorded it and sent it off to Michael and I said, “This is great. I love it”. However, when we went to the studio to record it, Nicholas who arranged the strings, was concerned it sounded a little boring. So I transposed it over to a guitar and it really came to life.
We chose SOPM because we wanted to tell a compelling story. LGBT people have been silenced their whole life. They’ve always had to look to people living lives that weren’t their lives. Up until recently, only heterosexual relationships and experiences have been portrayed in the media. That doesn’t tell the whole story. Many people’s stories aren’t being told. We wanted to create an honest portrayal of something that happens in real life, and nobody is talking about. Frankly, people are afraid to tell this story.
We pulled that sermon from a megachurch that had used it a couple weeks prior. We don’t just make this stuff up. These are people’s honest experiences you can’t deny them. And for people who have had those traumatic experiences in their life, it’s saying, “hey, you are not alone in this experience, we recognize what you’ve been through and we’re proud that you’ve come out the other side.”.
Photos: Daren Cornell
