Rachel: All right! We are here with Adeem the Artist out of Knoxville, Kentucky. There is construction in the background where I am, and we are recording this on May 13th and you are going to be listening to it in June. So I guess we’ll see what happens between then and now. How are you doing, Adeem?
Adeem: I am fantastic! How are you doing?
Rachel: I’m good! I guess by way of introduction, we know each other through writing for Country Queer and Adeem has their finger on the pulse of queer country music because you do the Buried Treasure column, which is sort of like a weekly playlist on Country Queer.
Adeem: Yeah that’s it! Finger on the pulse!
Rachel: And then you also recently came out with an incredible album, Cast Iron Pansexual.
Adeem: That’s the one!
Rachel: And that was the first song I wanted to play for our pride edition of Adobe and Teardrops. So before we listen to “I Never Came Out,” would you like to talk about it and talk a little bit more about yourself?
Adeem: My name is Adeem, and that is my toddler slamming a door in the background. I actually live in Tennessee but I’m very close to Kentucky. I was born in Charlotte, North Carolina which is just kind of just to the east of us. And then I went to high school and dabbled in college briefly in upstate New York
Rachel: Oh!
Adeem: I’ve been down here for about a decade.
Rachel: And then I know you have also lived and worked on cruise ships.
Adeem: Yeah. For better or worse I have done that!
Rachel: How did that happen?
Adeem: I had a bit of a mental breakdown in New York and I got kind of stuck. I was like just smoking weed all the time and my in the basement at my parents’ house. And I needed to get out of there and I was kind of paralyzed by depression and anxiety and I was really not doing well. And I took mushrooms and it reset my brain or something. It was July 4th. I had like a really profound experience on mushrooms — I had a bad trip, actually — but it was like really good for me and like the next week I started looking on Craigslist for musician jobs. Because that’s how scuzzy I am. I was just like “I’ll find something!”
And my parents had moved to Florida so I was like “Well, if I go down to Florida, then I can like stay with my parents until I get on my feet.” And I found a listing for cruise ships so I just kind of like wrote them just the most redneck email. And they were like “Yeah cool — put together a video of you singing or something.” So I sent it and then they were like “Oh shit! Yeah, this is this is what you have to do.” So they walk me through the steps of like creating a music resume. And they said at least 150 cover songs. And I knew, like, six probably. So I just made up like 150 songs that I thought I could probably learn if I needed to and sent that over. And then I got the job! So I had a big ass three and a half inch binder of chord charts for these songs I told them I could play and I learned how to play them all.
Rachel: Did you have a favorite and least favorite request?
Adeem: It’s tough to think about it now. Well especially after the year we’ve had it’s like, “oh man — I would give anything to play ‘Brown Eyed Girl’ to a bunch of entitled assholes. That would be great. But ‘Brown Eyed Girl’ was one that really I don’t know. It’s like I have this distinct memory of someone asking me to play ‘Brown Eyed Girl’ and then someone else said “now do “Brown Eyed Girl!.” And I laughed. And they were like “no I love that song!” And I was like “I just I literally just played that song!”
That just like kind of lives on my brain forever. If I want to torture myself I have I have highlight memories to revisit.
I had like 15 Mountain Goats songs that I was playing in heavy rotation. I learned from the piano guy to put out a song list when I was playing in the bar. It’s a great way to make people feel like they should give you cash. My song list had like, you know, Top 40 stuff like white boy attempts at rap covers that people just obsess over, and then like 20 Mountain Goats songs. And so every once in a while I’d get like a crew of like eight people who were like big Mountain Goats fans. And it was like “that’s what we’re doing for the next few days! We’re going to get weird! You guys like the Magnetic Fields too, I bet, don’t you? Let’s do that now!”
Rachel: Well, let’s talk about your music! I picked “I Never Came Out.” I have that song from Cast Iron Pansexual as our first song for the podcast. Could you tell us a little bit more about it before we get into it?
Adeem: There’s a few songs on the album that are older that kinda got revisited with some newer ideas but this was kind of the first one that was written as part of what became me doing a lot of like inner work to process a lot of the shame that I experienced and a lot of the hesitance to talk about my sexuality in a public way. Because I never did come out.
I got on cruise ships and I had my first same-sex experience probably six months before I got on ships and so I like I shaved my legs for the first time and like got on cruise ships and was starting to experiment with just saying I’m not straight, which was really hard for me to say after I’ve been sexual with another man. I met my wife when I was on ships and then we were falling in love. She comes from a really conservative Christian family .They’re really lovely people. I love them so much I’m really glad to be part of their family. But especially when we were first getting to know each other it seemed like a weird thing to throw in the mix for no reason. So I just didn’t come out. And then I kind of felt like I don’t know if I’m even allowed to talk about not being straight because I’m married to a woman.
Working on these songs really brought me to come around about gender and really examine my own relationship with gender. But prior to doing that work I still identified as a cishet man. And so being in like basically a heterosexual relationship but just kind of seeing that to talk about my sexuality was distracting from people who might actually suffer consequences for being queer so to kind of like posture from a position of privilege, rather. The song was just like me saying like “Outside of all of that structural concern, at the heart of this, like, who am I? What do I want? And what is my identity?” And just like allowing myself space to, without concern for how it would be perceived or interpreted, just chase after my bliss.
Rachel: I feel like it’s a liberatory song.
Adeem: Yeah.
Rachel: When I listen to it.
Adeem: It felt that way. It felt very jubilant .
Rachel: Yeah That’s the that’s the word I was looking for! My brain is pudding right now. As is everybody else’s.
- Adeem the Artist — “I Never Came Out” (Cast Iron Pansexual) (8:23)
So that was Chris Housman’s “Blue Beck,” which I believe is a single and there are things I really liked about the song but first, Adeem, why did you pick this one?
Adeem: I adore Chris Housman. I first discovered him with a single out last year called “Tomorrow Tonight.” Do you know the song?
Rachel: No, I don’t think so.
Adeem: It’s like “let’s not worry about tomorrow.” It’s a really catchy country pop song and he also has really good Twitter jokes sometimes. But yeah, this song is great. The song is anthemic for like everything we’re all kind of noodling around with. I mean, it’s right in the pocket of like great pop country stuff. It’s hitting all the marks of what it means to be a “woke white person” living in the rural South. I think it’s great. We talk a lot about the signifiers of country music. This is great at reclaiming that.
Rachel: I think the song is very sneaky on two different levels. So the first one is that if you’re not listening too close it sounds like a typical bro country song. So then you kind of have to listen to the lyrics but then also the lyrics use a lot of, to me, cliches — like “y’all means all.” But then he like goes deeper and like takes these liberal statements, and then gives them a little more teeth by saying here’s what “y’all means all” actually means. And it’s very non-confrontational in this very like peppy song and I think it’s really cool.
Adeem: Yeah. I agree. Everything you said is dead on.
Rachel: Is he the person that kept coming up when we were discussing the queer country people Tik Tok article?
Adeem: Yeah. I think he’s like pretty viral on Tik Tok. Actually I every time I open Tik Tok I forget to look him up. So I don’t know how much so but we’ve talked about him on Country Queer.
Rachel: So you also are very savvy with social media, though. ‘Cause you’ve done like a lot of pranks like with that Toby Keith video.
Adeem: Yeah. The Toby Keith video didn’t perform very well. When I did it I was like “oh this is going to really ruffle some folks up!”
Rachel: Yeah. I think people thought it was real. I did for a couple minutes and then somebody was like “oh I see he’s doing Cameos now.”
Adeem: Amazing. Yeah.
Rachel: So if you don’t know, Adeem also has a song called “You Should’ve Been a Cowboy” about Toby Keith and how he sort of peddles this very toxic image of male white masculinity in the South. And so Adeem then had a cameo of Toby Keith like basically cursing them out.
Adeem: Yeah. It’s not even Toby Keith. It’s a guy who looks like him.
Rachel: Oh! Even better!
Adeem: So…
Rachel: This prank has so many layers.
Adeem: I did the weird Joe Biden thing which… that got out of hand on Facebook. And I had to kind of renounce that. I had a long thing planned for that. People thought that Joe Biden had actually written me that letter. It was a tough time for me to confront the level of trauma response that we’re all operating at all the time right now, like, culturally.
My friend William Wright is a composer in town here in Knoxville. He’s fantastic. He used to rap about Harry Potter before Harry Potter became taboo. And he sent me the link to this Tik Tok and he was like “you know what you have to do.”
No further context. Like, “you know what to do with this.”
Rachel: Yeah I feel like these pranks take a lot of planning on your part. Or do they just kind of like come to you in a flash of inspiration?
Adeem: It’s maybe a bit of both. This one was definitely just, like I said, like my friend just sent me this thing. I was kind of brainstorming. I was like “Should I make him be, like, really sincere and tell me he loves the song?” You know, there was a lot of angles that I could have taken it at and he’s like, man, like I think you should really tie in the Joe Biden thing just because it upset people so much. So yeah he was Mike is Toby Keith on Cameo. He was a really good sport about it. So if I can drum up some more work for Mike is Toby Keith I’d be happy to do that.
Rachel: Well, you all heard it here first if you need a video from someone who seems to be Toby Keith .
Adeem: He looks a lot like Toby Keith! And you know, if you’ve ever like just wanted to hear Toby Keith say he’s sorry for all the harm that he’s done to your culture, like Mike’s your guy. I think that I think he’d be willing to play dice!
Rachel: my next song is from McKain Lakey.
Adeem: The song is called “Queer AF?”
Rachel: This album I think is really beautiful and I think you’re going to love it when you listen to it, Adeem. She like does a lot of very traditional bluegrass and folk music and then has these really incisive lyrics. But then also there is a little bit of experimentalism in there.
And I know that like my description is not really adequate enough ‘cause there are a lot of people who are doing the same thing as what I’m describing right now, but McCain has like this very traditional sound does such a good job of modernizing it. So I had a really hard time choosing between this one, “Queer AF” which is sort of about the anxiety of a new relationship, and then another song about cicadas that is just gorgeous and about how like there’ve always been people who have sat under the trees and enjoyed nature and there always will be, so maybe don’t take things so seriously right now. And it has like this two minute solo instrumental break in there that’s so peaceful.l So I’m actually gonna throw that one in for the Patreon subscribers. The rest of you are going to have to hunt it down or subscribe to the Patreon. So let’s listen to —
Adeem: Teaser!
Rachel: Ha! So that’s listen to those and then we’ll talk about Jessye DeSilva.
I also loved “Queen of the Backyard” from Jesse’s album hover. What about the song appealed to you, Adeem?
Adeem: It’s just – oh, there’s so many great lyrics. It’s just — by itself, it’s so beautiful. But there are so many great one-liners that creep out of the song for me. There’s one about the witch in the piano strings. It’s just like the first time I heard it I was like —
Rachel: My mind went to that line!
Adeem: It’s so good. It’s so good. And they played my CD release show in March. I was just like sitting there like just sobbing because they’re just such an inspired artist and that that song specifically really, really hits to that like unfettered joy of just like being a child spinning in a dress. It really does. “Queen of the Backyard” is such a beautiful way of playing with that.
Rachel: Yeah. They’re actually friends with one of Rosa’s friends, and I forget how we all figured that out but Jessye and I ended up talking quite a bit even about like non-music things.
Adeem: How funny.
Rachel: We keep showing up this mutual friend’s Facebook.
Adeem: Amazing.
Rachel: The queer world is a small one and Jessye’s out of Boston, so I think it makes this sort of East Coast thing a little more statistically likely, shall we say.
Adeem: For sure.
Rachel: Yeah. And have you had a chance to listen to the Sam Armstrong’s album? I’m going to pronounce it “Zika Foose” because that sounds more fun but it’s probably as “Zick Foose.”
Adeem: Zickefoose…No. I’m totally unfamiliar.
Rachel: This album is another one that’s a little bluegrassy but then goes in some new directions with it. Sam has experience playing Balkan music, traditional Ugandan music, and even went on tour with a band called Voice of Uganda that showcases that tradition. So he knows a lot of different kinds of music in addition to the bluegrass that he grew up with and “Heart of Mine” is the first song on the album. But I think it kind of showcases everything that happens in the rest of it. It’s a gorgeous album. It’s definitely one of my favorites so far this year. So if you want to read my review on No Depression, I will link to that in the show notes but I think just listening to it will be enough enticement for you to go and seek out the rest of it.
- Sam Armstrong Zickefoose — “Heart of Mine” (Spark In Your Smile) (34:01)
- Cidny Bullens — “Walkin’ Through This World” (Walkin’ Through This World) (37:19)
And then let’s talk about Cidny Bullens’ “Walking Through This World,” which is the title track from his album. I actually have not had much of a chance to listen to Cidny’s music, so I’m glad that this gave me the excuse to do so. And before I ask you about it Adeem, I did put these two songs together because “Heart of Mine” is about coming out and trying to decide which of the stereotypes of being a queer person you want to incorporate into your life, which ones were already there, and which ones you actually have to push away in order to be true to yourself, which is a real thing. But also, I’m into baseball and a lot of other sports now. So as a sports lesbian and a Butch lesbian, I feel like I ended up fulfilling some of those prophecies even though I didn’t at the beginning my coming out journey.
Adeem: Amazing. I haven’t heard people talk about this very much and that’s so so really
(pause)
I just I just downloaded this album so I can really jam all these songs I’m very excited about it!
Rachel: Oh yeah. I think you’re going to love it. I’d love to hear the two of you together at some point. I think you’d fit really well.
So what made you pick Cidny’s song?
Adeem: Well, a lot of reasons. For one, Cidny’s was my first review that I did for Country Queer. I kind of responded to Dale’s call for action looking for writers. Dale I think sent me like a few different things that were going on and I like skimmed the Cidny Bullens album and I was like “oh shit this is really cool!” and it was very taxing.
Cidny’s like a bit older and from a different generation of queer folks, and number two he achieved such a significant level of success before like coming out as trans. And so it’s like any PR release had to address this in like a really demonstrative way. But because of that the press release was like a fucking nightmare of like gender switching back and forth. And it was a really solid primer. Maybe the reason I’m non binary now is because of all the reading I had to do to make sure I nailed that article without doing something offensive to Cid because I was really worried about it!
But that album is it’s fucking great. And I had never heard of his stuff before. So like you know I did like a deep dive because at the time it was the only article I had to write and I didn’t have a lot else going on because of the pandemic. So it was like I listened to like I don’t know 15, 20 records of his and he has this one where — oh it’s just gutting. His daughter passed away and this album is like him addressing all that and like what it means to be a parent and lose your child.
I just have such an intimate relationship with like Cidny Bullens as an artist and his body of work. And when I first heard the gender line it was like, so full of pain. I liked the way that he like plays with gender. Like there’s one song where like they’re describing a student and then Cidny like changes the gender from the perspective of people talking about the student to the student’s preferred pronouns. And that’s like just like really hit me in the heart you know?
He has a one man show that he’s been doing for the past four years. So I was able to find like a lot of information and get really connected with his story and like the trajectory of his story. And so this song “Walking Through this World” like after learning everything that I learned about him to write that piece like it was such an inspirational and like warm moment where it just — this song just felt like him being like “fuck it. This is who I am. This is my life. I’m going to do what I what I know is true for me.”
Rachel: Cidny, before he transitioned, went by Cindy Bullens and was in the movie Grease wellas as having a pop career of his own. And I think is this the first album he made after transitioning.
Adeem: I think so. I think this was like the first album is Cidny Bullens.
Rachel: And then if you’re looking up his music online he spells it with a “C,” which I think is a pretty clever subverting of the name he had been given at birth.
Adeem: It also made it very difficult to bounce back and forth!
Rachel: Let’s both talk about our final songs for this episode, but before we do that, Adeem, how can people find you and your music out in the world and on the Internets?
Adeem: Yeah I’m on the Internets. Adeemtheartist.com. There was already somebody doing this as just Adeem. So you know slim pickings for old Deemy here. And on social media I’m @adeemtheartist.
Rachel: Subscribe, tell your friends to subscribe, find me on all the social medias that are not Tik Tok! That’s all in the linktree in my show notes. You can support the podcast by signing up to the Patreon which I mentioned, and get a little extra music. And there’s also a Kofi If you want to do a one-time donation. And if you want to wear your Adobe and Teardrops pride on your sleeves, you can do that by buying some t-shirts or hats or a tank tops ‘cause it’s getting hot.
Oh and I guess one thing we should mention ‘cause it’ll probably be happening by the time we are recording this, is that Country Queer is having a fundraiser to become sustainable and pay all the people who put so much love and work into contributing to the site because as much of a juggernaut as it’s become, everyone’s working for free and it would be awesome if that wasn’t the case anymore. I’ll put a link in the show notes so that you can help Adeem, me, and a bunch of other amazing people get paid for bringing you music like this.
So that being said, here’s a song I’ve found out about through Country Queer, but have not had a chance to dig more into her story. And maybe you’ve heard of Harper Grae? She was on my list that I keep of queer artists I want to check out and this is just a good pop country kind of nineties country, almost, song, “Caviar and Bars,” which is a single. And then Adeem, you picked for your last song “Drive” by Austin Lucas, or maybe I pitched “Drive” for you.
Adeem: I’m pretty new to Austin Lucas. We kind of discovered each other on Twitter and he’s coming to play in Knoxville. I’m going to see him in a few weeks.
Rachel: Awesome!
Adeem: It’s going to be my first time sitting inside of a —
Rachel: And Matt Woods, right?
Adeem: I don’t know Matt Woods but we played together like 10 years ago at this shitty little dive bar downtown and he was super generous and super cool so I’m really excited about reconnecting with him, too.
I haven’t talked to him in a long time but he’s basically a famous person now, I think, right?
Rachel: I think so! In the same way that Austin’s famous.
Adeem: Yeah, yeah.
Rachel: I think this song is also a little bit about dealing with parents who don’t accept you. Well, I guess we’re out! In music we trust, in music we believe. We’re going to listen to some Harper Grae and Austin Lucas. Thanks for coming Adeem.
Adeem: Heck yeah! Thank you so much for having me, Rachel! I am so grateful to be sitting here hanging out with you and just to have time to kick it. So any old any old excuse to hang out on Zoom, I can.
Rachel: Right. As long as it’s not work on Zoom.
Adeem: Yeah no kidding!
- Harper Grae — “Caviar and Bars” (Single) (51:08)
- Austin Lucas — “Drive” (Alive in the Hot Zone) (54:23)