Evangeline Gentle: Navigating Queerness, Isolation, and Growth
Photo courtesy of Evangeline Gentle
Evangeline Gentle is a 24-year-old musician from Hamilton, Ontario. In their interview with Love to All Project, Gentle discusses their self-titled debut album and the experience leading up to and after its release. We invite you to listen to Gentle and follow their musical and queer journey with us.
Could you introduce yourself and explain what you do?
My name is Evangeline Gentle and I’m a 24-year old, queer musician currently living in Hamilton, Ontario. I just put out my first record in September, which I'm really excited about!
When did you start singing and songwriting?
I started getting into music when I was really young. I come from a really musical family and I have four sisters - two of them are also musicians. There were always guitars around my house and stuff like that. I think I was about 11 when I started to teach myself how to play guitar. I had just watched this documentary by The Chicks, formerly known as The Dixie Chicks, and that was sort of like the energizing moment in my childhood that made me really want to start writing my own songs. Right after that, I wrote my first song and then I started playing shows in all ages venues and cafes when I was in high school. So around 14, I think, was when I played my first show. I'm 24 now, so it's been 10 years of doing this, which is awesome.
How did music play a role in helping you to explore and process your queer identity while growing up?
I was really into the band The Chicks. I watched a documentary about their experience speaking out against the war in Iraq in 2003. And, I think, as an 11 year old, I didn't quite understand that part of things. But, what I did understand was that these were three really strong and empowered women who were facing a lot of backlash and resistance for speaking their truth.
They were able to overcome that, come out on the other side, and still put out an amazing record. That was around the time that I was realizing that I was queer as well, like 12 or 13, and I was going to a Catholic school at the time. So, I was receiving a lot of anti-queer messaging from that.
I knew that I was going to experience that kind of resistance in my life. Even just from myself and my own internalized homophobia, I was having that constant internal conflict. I needed to have those types of role models to make me realize that I could overcome whatever was ahead, in both my personal life and in my professional life as a musician. I have been so fortunate in my life to be able to connect with lots of other queer musicians. I went to a really amazing arts high school, and basically all my friends were queer and/or artists or musicians of some kind. And so, it was this beautiful way that we connected with each other and got to feel empowered. Now in adulthood, my music is reaching queer audiences that are across Canada, and in the UK, and in the States now. For me, it helps me unlearn all of those kinds of internalized homophobia that I had as a kid, if that makes sense. Like, that kind of community that I'm finding. Music is hugely related in that way.
I understand that you were born in Scotland and then moved to Canada at age 11. What was it like to navigate your identity while also adjusting to a new country?
When I was living in Scotland, I wasn't going to a religious school. My family is very left wing, open about everything, and super supportive. I am so fortunate to have those kinds of relationships with my family.
But then, when I came here, I went into a Catholic school. Not only was it such a culture shock in that I was in a new country, but also I was being thrust into a new religious upbringing. That was at a very, fairly impressionable time in my life too.
But, I really feel so fortunate to be in a place like Canada. It’s beautiful. The town that I moved to is called Peterborough, which is in Ontario and is absolutely beautiful. I'm really glad that I got to come to Canada, for sure.
So, your debut album was released in September of this year. Congratulations!
Thank you!
What was it like emotionally to write this record and what do you want listeners to take away from it?
I started writing the record when I was about 19, and it took me four years to put it out. It came out last year in Canada, and then in September it came out outside of Canada. So, it's taken me a really long time, like, a total of five years, to get it to you. Through the process of writing it, I had major coming of age experiences, as you do in those years. Those are pivotal years of growth, becoming your own person, and figuring out who you are. Going through things like your first breakup - the coming of age experiences. People would ask me, “Since you started writing it when you were 19, do you feel that some of the songs that you wrote back then aren't going to make sense on the record anymore?”
I don't really feel like that, because it ended up becoming this landmark. All the songs were landmarks on this big journey of self-discovery and self-acceptance. Emotionally, when I was writing it, I was struggling to figure out whether or not there was a place for me in the music industry and I was experiencing a lot of self-doubt about that. When I got to the finish line of actually putting it out, it felt like a moment of victory for me.
What has it been like to release an album in the midst of a global pandemic, in a state of global unrest? How do you envision your music or music in general playing a role in creating a space for comfort and or empowerment in, like, this time?
Well, it's funny because in June, I released an acapella EP that was just two songs. The first song is called “You and I,” and it's about human connection and how we share these same fundamental experiences in life despite the things that are different about us. I always sing that song as the opening song in my live show, acapella, as an attempt to make a very vulnerable introduction and to say, “Hey, I am the same as you though I am different.” When I recorded that song, it was just bare vocals in a studio. The video is of me with a black background, just dead on, and it's super isolated. Then, at the end of the week, Canada went into lockdown. So all of a sudden, there were these major feelings of isolation.
I didn't realize how much that song would end up making sense for the time. But, it just totally did and that was really powerful. But then, in releasing my record, people have been coming to me and saying, “I really needed this right now,” because so many of the songs are about wanting to go forward and live your life in a heart-forward way connected with each other, which is a good commentary on everything that's going on right now. As far as putting out music in a pandemic, I think there have been some hidden blessings in there for me. There's been a lot less traffic as far as releases. Because I'm just starting out in my career and starting to build my profile, the lesser traffic made room for me to be able to reach new audiences a little bit better than I would in a space that had as much release traffic as usual.
And then on the other side of that, I had a lot of plans to be on tour.
I had to really come to terms with the fact that that's not happening. When you spend so much time planning these things and getting really excited and you've got festivals outside of the country booked….and it was going to be my first real summer of touring. I definitely had to go through a grieving process of accepting that that wasn't what's happening. I think that is the case for every musician right now who had touring plans. With the pandemic affecting so many people's lives and having taken so many lives, it's a period of grief for everybody because we're all having to come to terms with the fact that our lives don't look the way that we had anticipated or hoped they would right now.
I also know that a lot of musicians and also just artists in general, like in theater, are using virtual ways in order to connect with people and to perform.
Totally.
I feel it's really revolutionary and also creates means for more accessible shows because they can be expensive.
Absolutely, I totally agree with you on that. I've been doing live streams and I often wonder to myself, “How many people are benefiting from the fact that they can watch the show at home if they can't, for whatever reason, come to a show?” and “If they experienced barriers in coming to a live show, how amazing is it that they actually get to experience this?”
I played a show here in Hamilton a few weeks ago and, fortunately, our numbers were low enough here that we could do an outdoor show where everything was socially distanced and the artist is on stage with plexiglass. That worked out really well. It was super weird adjusting to the fact that there is plexiglass and that no one could hang out. Everyone had to be separate, but I really appreciated that there was a live audience. What I also really appreciated was that the show was live streamed too. Maybe this is the new way of shows where there's a live stream available all the time. I think it's kind of cool and it does really address issues of accessibility.
If you could talk to your younger self from when you were first discovering your passion for music, as well as your queer identity, what advice would you give them?
That is such a good question. Honestly, I have been thinking about that a lot recently. I would just tell myself to not feel threatened by my own confidence and power. The issue for young people who are read as female in a world is that you see the ways people are threatened by your power and confidence, and you internalize those voices and you speak to yourself in that way. Then, when you feel that drive or that ambition, it's almost like you take yourself down a level and you never want to get too ambitious. And I wish that I could go back and say, “No, like, don't be that voice just because that's, you know, what the outside world wants you to think.” Just not to doubt myself.
What advice do you have for queer youth who are struggling with their gender identity now?
I would say that there are so many people like you in the world. That there are so many people out there in the world who would love to be your friend and family when you're maybe experiencing rejection from family or other people. And that their identity is valid and real, that their truth is beautiful, and that they shouldn't be made to feel like they have to hide.
That's really good advice. How would you like to see the LGBTQ+ community move forward or improve?
That's a really good question and I also think about that a lot. I think we're really divided right now in lots of different ways and it's not very conducive to achieving the things that we want to achieve together, which is a just world - a just and fair, equal world for all people, and to end the marginalization of oppressed people. I feel like the division that we're experiencing within our own community is also violent. I really want us to come together a little bit more.
Written by: Alisha Simmons