Death metal icons Sean Reinert and Paul Masvidal come out as gay

by Tyler Munro

May 8, 2014

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As a forward thinking and progressive community, metal doesn’t always get the credit it deserves. While bands like Ghost B.C. are embracing Satanism as a facet of feminism and Protest the Hero are decrying rape culture in “Plato’s Triparte,” it’s easier to focus on the genre’s lowest common denominator: violence, gore, destruction and, in most cases, an underlying sense of masculinity.

In their 20-plus years together, two decades separated by spiritual journeys and musical hiatuses, Cynic have always done things their own way—Paul Masvidal is a heavy metal philosopher who dabbles in naturalism, yoga and buddhism. And today he’s taken one next step at owning who he is, coming out alongside drummer Sean Reinert as openly gay to the LA Times.

If you’ve followed either musician closely, this might not surprise you. Neither Masvidal nor Reinert have ever hid their sexuality; the former was open about being gay on popular Q&A site Formspring, while Reinert’s sexuality was put online after a bad date with a blogger. But that it may have been an “open secret” in metal’s tight-knit community cannot detract the cultural significance of this.

Of course they’re not the first metal stars to come out. Judas Priest’s Rob Halford was the first headbanger to shout loud and proud about his sexuality, but with his songs of leather and whips it immediately became a new way to interpret his caricatured musical character.

Here, Masvidal and Reinert are coming out separate from theirs.

Then there’s Gaahl, the Satanic former frontman of Norway’s Gorgoroth. Before opening up about his relationship with fashion designer Dan De Vero’s, Gaahl was known as much for his music as for allegations that he’d tortured a man for six hours and forced him to drink his own blood. Years later, after apparent taunts backstage at Wacken Open Air, Gaahl reportedly beat a man within an inch of his life, ultimately hospitalizing him.

In talking to the Times, Reinert and Masvidal tell a different story. They are the everyman. Masvidal remembers being taunted with anti-gay epithets on Cynic’s “traumatizing” 1991 national tour with Cannibal Corpse.

“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…’,” said Masvidal. “It was our first big tour and all we could think was, ‘We don’t belong here.'”

And through Focus and forward, that attitude came to define their music. They were the death metal band that played by its own rules and, at time, took flack for it. But they believed in their sound and have continually evolved it since, regardless of what the chest-beating minority thinks about it.

“I see all those old dudes out there just banging their heads to our records,” said Reinert. “And I have to think — ‘That stuff you’re banging your head to? That is some gay, gay metal, man.'”

Cynic have long been about challenging the status quo, and in coming out, they’ve extended that perhaps in the hopes that some of their fans can find comfort in their own selves.

While it’s still nobody’s business, Masvidal and Reinert say they’ve never been attracted to each other; Reinert currently lives with his partner. And while their bandmates have always known about their sexuality, they’ve been quick to speak out in public support of both.

“What I’m proud of is that Paul and Sean know that this isn’t really about them — it’s about the kid out there who is struggling and suffering in silence,” said Cynic bassist Sean Malone. “And that for him or her, this conversation might be a source of encouragement.”

“Gay people are everywhere, doing every job, playing every kind of music and we always have been,” Reinert continued. “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.'”

CORRECTION: A previous version of this story misstated in its headline that Sean Malone, not Reinert had opened up about his sexuality. We apologize for the error.

Tags: Music, News, Death Metal

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