MIKE JEKNAVORIAN National Interviews

PATRICK HAGGERTY – PART 2

In the second part of this two-part interview with Patrick Haggerty, the reissue of Lavender Country’s eponymous album is just the start of things, as there are plans to immortalize Haggerty’s life in more ways than one. 

PHOTOGRAPH BY MATTHEW WILSON

How did the resurgence of Lavender Country happen?  We were ostracized by everyone in music, for like 40 years.  And then, “boom,” Lavender Country blew up in 2014 when they reissued our music that year, and my life changed.  The very fucking thing that made me poison, now made me prominent.  And now they all want to play with me, so go figure.  How has your life changed since the resurgence?  We’ve done about 150 to 200 shows in the last five years.  There have been multiple documentaries.  They even turned Lavender Country into a fucking ballet for the San Francisco Ballet.  I sang live while they did the ballet—it was fabulous.  They’re even talking about doing a Broadway musical about me.  Also, someone in the industry is shopping around a screenplay that he wrote about my life and Lavender Country.

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2014 deluxe reissue of the 1973 album widely recognized as the first openly gay country music album-and cited as such even by Nashville institutions like the Country Music Hall of Fame and CMT-the landmark self-titled Lavender Country album stands as nothing less than an artifact of courage, a sonic political protest document of enormous power, clarity, and grace.

What are your thoughts on fame?  It’s getting to the point where I’m getting recognized by the scene.  Particularly, in the gay scene.  I get to be the activist that I always have been, and I get to get my message out to a much larger audience.  And who wouldn’t like that?  But I don’t like being idolized.  Certainly my husband and my children don’t idolize me.  What song or album would you like to be remembered for?  I guess, “I Can’t Shake the Stranger Out of You.”  The song is about the difference between hot sex and real intimacy.  What’s the last song that you wrote?  It’s a song called, “Sweet Shadow Man.”  It’s not about me.  The narrator of the song in a young white guy in Bogalusa, Louisiana, who’s on an adventure to have a secret affair with a black man.  The narrator has all this racist baggage, but he has the affair anyway, out of lust.  Are you working on a song now?  Yes, it’s called, “Big Silver Bird.”  It’s a song about my son, and it’s about my attitude about being white and gay, but raising a black child.  It’s about some of the inadequacies that I had in raising him.  The “big sliver bird” is the airplane.

Speaking of music, who’s the best male country singer?  Hank Williams, followed very closely by Johnny Cash.  Who’s the best female country singer?  Pasty, darling—that’s a given.  She’s from my generation, and I understand her story…  Her story is very poignant.  Who’s your favorite county artist of all-time?  Patsy’s my favorite.  I do like Dolly, too.  My dream is to get on Dolly’s radar and record a number with her.  I could just die after I do that.  Do you do any Patsy numbers live?  Yes.  I sing, “Walking After Midnight,” but I preface it with a little story.  I say, “Now Patsy.  What do you know about walking after midnight, trolling for men?  Sorry, darling, but let me handle this one.”  Who’s your favorite gay artist or activist?  Well, certainly Harvey Milk is an inspiration to us all.  I actually met him once.  If I had to pick a gay hero, it might be someone you never heard of.  His name is Faygele benMiriam.  He was the first person to apply for a marriage license for a gay marriage in 1971.

Which one of your old jobs least prepared you for what you do now?  Selling bibles in the San Francisco East Bay area.  I was desperate, man.  It was after I got kicked out of the Peace Corps.  I didn’t last too long at it.  Will you ever retire?  Probably not.  What’s the weirdest question that a fan’s asked you?  “Have you ever had sex with a woman?”  What other celebrity did you act like a “fan” around?  Darling, I don’t think that I acted like a fan around any of them.  The closest answer would probably be Joan Baez.  I admire her activism.  What’s the best place that you’ve ever visited?  It was called Press Valley, and it’s in the Olympic National Park.  It’s a rain forest, and it’s deep in the heart of the Olympics.  I took my brother there once, and we dropped acid before we got there.  But even if you’re not on acid, it looks like something out of a fairy tale.  What do you want to live long enough to see?  Revolution.  A transformation into international social revolution.  I want to see capitalism die.

What were you doing before we talked?  I was talking to a friend who was “boo-hoo” about not getting tenure.  She’s a professor.  She feels that she’s being discriminated against, so I walked her through it.  Either living or dead, who’s the greatest political figure in America?  Malcom X.  If you could bring one person back from the dead, who would it be?  Oh, my dad.  Oh, of course.  My dad, my dad, my dad.  And all of my girlfriends who died in the AIDS crisis, too.  Where would you go in a time machine? Back to a peep show.  Who are you closest with?  My children are way more important to me than anything else, including Lavender Country.  And my husband is second-important after them.  What’s your greatest regret in life?  I have a lot of regrets, but I don’t spend much time regretting.  One that comes to mind was that I met a very good looking man at a peep show, but I didn’t go home with him.  I regret not going home with him.  The sex that we had in the peep show was fabulous (laughs).  And finally, where can we see you?  Hopefully, on the road soon!

 

 

 

 

MIKE JEKNAVORIAN National Interviews

PATRICK HAGGERTY – PART 1

In the Pantheon of gay country music, Patrick Haggerty, and his band, Lavender Country, have no peer.  In the first part of this two-part interview, Haggerty reveals the impetus behind his groundbreaking band.

PHOTOGRAPH BY MATTHEW WILSON

By Mike Jeknavorian

You’ve lived in the Seattle area since the 1970s.  What’s unique about Seattle that isn’t common knowledge?  People think that San Francisco is the hub of gay land, and, in some ways, it is.  However, Seattle was ahead of San Francisco at every turn.  Seattle had the very first counseling service for homosexuals in the world.  It was also the first to pass a gay non-discrimination ordinance.  Again, for that one, we were ahead of San Francisco by a few years.  Where did you hang out in Seattle?  The Double Header I think was the prominent bar that comes to mind.  It was an old-time, near-the-water-front, big bar, with an actual dance floor.  The beer, and the dancing, was the draw there.  In its heyday, Seattle actually had about ten to 15 gay bars.  How did you enjoy spending your time when you lived in Seattle?  I enjoyed a lot of sexuality, I have to admit.  I stacked them up like corkwood.  I was the queen of the bathhouse (laughs).  But I regret the lack of intimacy with it all.

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2014 deluxe reissue of the 1973 album widely recognized as the first openly gay country music album-and cited as such even by Nashville institutions like the Country Music Hall of Fame and CMT-the landmark self-titled Lavender Country album stands as nothing less than an artifact of courage, a sonic political protest document of enormous power, clarity, and grace.

Where do you live now?  I now live in a town called Bremerton.  It’s about a half an hour ferry ride from Seattle.  It’s been a navy town for about the past 120 years, and I married a navy man.  But before that I lived in Seattle for almost 30 years.  In terms of natural beauty, the area is like a doubly-blessed place.  However, Seattle is pretty white.  But, having said that, it’s mitigated by the fact that the minorities permeate the larger population.  You mentioned that you’re married.  Do you have children?  My parents had ten children, so I grew up in a very robust family.  I grew up with a kid on my hip.  And when I came out as gay, and they said that if you’re gay you can’t have kids, that got me angry.  But I made very good friends with a lesbian woman, and she didn’t want to raise a kid on her own.  So, I screwed my courage to the sticking place, and I had sex with this woman—one time.  And she got pregnant the first time.  So I have a daughter, Robin.  And, believe it or not, she has a son.  So, I’m “Grandpa Patty.”  I also have an adopted son.  I adopted him when he was about eight.  I was in a platonic relationship with his mother for a decade, but she always had custody of her son.  We raised out children together, and she was a parent to my daughter as well.  So, yeah, I did the whole dad thing—twice.

What does you son do?  He works in the film industry—he’s a successful independent videographer.  He moved to Brooklyn for his career when he was about 23-years-old, and I bawled every morning for six months.  But he lives in Cuba now with his bride, who’s from there.  She’s a leading stage actor.  Raising a cis black man, as a white gay activist, had its challenges.  But we remain quite close.  He’s a disciplined and well-read Marxist, like me.  And how about your daughter?  My daughter’s also very successful. She’s a civil-service employee.  She approves grants for people doing medical research on human subjects.  She’s very busy now with all the Coronavirus studies coming through.  What’s the most special experience that you had when you were in the Peace Corps?  The one thing that stands out was when I got kicked out.  That was very painful, particularly, in the memory of my father’s eyes—he was five years in the grave at that point.  My father was just like Pa Kettle.  I was just a screaming sissy, and my father figured it out when I was five.  But he supported me, and he loved me in my sissiness.  But he went a step further, because he loved me more and better because I was a sissy.  It’s very hard to talk about him without getting emotional—I lost him when I was 17.  So when I got kicked out, it was a very rude awakening.  How dare you do this to me.  Fuck you…  It made me so angry.

HAGGERTY (HELD BY MOTHER) WITH FAMILY

Is Lavender Country the gay-rights achievement that’s the most special to you?  Not really.  I would say that Lavender County is a radical, socialist, political, homosexual band, and I put a lot of my ideas into it.  I mean, I call for revolution in the songs.  I’ve done it several times.  For example: “Rise up, and rip this goddamn system down. ‘Cause there ain’t no hope, until you tear it down.”  And I wrote that in 73’.  What gay-rights achievement is the most important to you then?  I might pick the two times that I ran for office in Seattle.  One time I ran for city council, and the other time I ran for state senate.  I ran both times with the backing of the National of Islam, if you could imagine.  We did it as a form of protest, but I still got almost 20 percent of the vote.  It was very challenging, but it was also rewarding and interesting.  How was Lavender Country formed?  I didn’t produce Lavender Country.  The collective Stonewall experience in Seattle is what created the idea.  The collective people gave the ideas for the songs, and they raised the money for both studio time and for publishing.  But when we did it, we knew that it was the world’s first gay country album.

HAGGERTY (LEFT) WITH HUSBAND

And then what happened after the first album?  From 73’ to 2000, we had no recognition whatsoever.  We ran around the country doing a few prides here and there.  But the band died, and we went on with our lives.  I mean, there wasn’t a market for radial queer country music.  I had a family to raise and money to earn.  The band wasn’t even on my mind; it was dead.  I was actually living with my husband for, like, three years before he even knew I was in a band before.  Speaking of your husband, how’s the Coronavirus affecting both of you?  The Corona is driving me crazy, and it’s not like I don’t have an underlying condition or two.  And my husband is black, and near 80, so we’re scared shitless.  But if I do get it, hey, I had a great run (laughs).  I had a really interesting… really engaging… really hot… life—the whole way.  I’m very happy with the life that I’ve led.  So if I go, I go.  But once this is all over, I intend to get out on the road and do some more Lavender Country shows.