"With all the anti-LGBTQ legislation and particularly the anti-trans legislation, I feel like a lot of the space that we have to take up as queer people is devoted to just continuing to fight for our humanity, our equality, our rights, things that should be givens. And obviously those things are hugely important and we don't have the luxury of not doing that. But I think Pride is the opportunity to lean into celebrating each other purely for our specialness and humanity and complexity and joy, and bragging about the things that are cool and special about being queer people. I think giving yourself sort of the 'day off,' metaphorically, and just reveling in your identity, rather than having to prove why it's worthy, is such an important thing. And I hope that my album can be a nice soundtrack for that."
So states actor and singer-songwriter Ben Platt, whose exuberant, loved-up third album, Honeymind, just dropped the day before Pride Month and a few months ahead of his fall wedding to longtime boyfriend and fellow Dear Evan Hansen actor Noah Galvin. The Americana LP — a collaboration with Nashville hitmakers like Brandy Clark, Natalie Hemby, Hilary Lindsey, Alex Hope, Michael Pollack, and producer Dave Cobb — was written from a "more settled place," spurred by the now 30-year-old's deeply fulfilling romance with the love of his life and his desire tell love stories from a "super-expressly queer perspective." As Platt amusingly states in the album's press release, he "tried to imagine what 'Graceland' or 'Bridge Over Troubled Water' might have sounded like if Paul Simon was a fellow homo." And he has succeeded.
In the video above and Q&A below, Platt, who is currently playing a concert residency at New York's Palace Theater joined by special guests like Kacey Musgraves, Kristen Chenoweth, Leslie Odom Jr., and Galvin, opens up about the making of Honeymind (including the mushroom trip that inspired its title); turning 30; how he finally "came to his senses" and realized Galvin was The One after years of on/off dating; why it's so important to him present queer narratives in his music; why playing Evan Hansen was a sometimes traumatic experience; and why he feels "happy and lucky" to be gay.
MUSIC TIMES: Honeymind is a gorgeous record. You've worked with a lot of country people on this one, like Dave Cobb and Brandy Clark. Is this sort of your country record, or your Americana record?
When I started writing for this cycle, it was like spring of '22, so it's been a little while, and when I start down the path of a new record I try to not necessarily come in with a stylistic plan and just sort of see what comes out. I think because I'm writing from a slightly more settled place — I turned 30 while I was writing this record, and I'm engaged to be married — just what naturally was sort of emerging was a little bit more plaintive and unadorned and narrative and sort of folk-sounding and warm and Americana. I loved that direction, and once I had a few songs I really loved, I then in a much more focused manner sought out a lot of great writers in Nashville that I've always wanted to work with, who live a lot in that space, like Hillary Lindsey and Natalie Hemby and Brandy Clark. It just seemed to really fit the energy and the emotions that I was living in. I was listening to a lot of Fleetwood Mac and Paul Simon and James Taylor and just loving the kind of crossroads of that sort of sound and era — with a super expressly queer perspective. I think that was a really exciting little combination to me.
How did turning 30 affect you, in good and/or bad ways? It's a milestone birthday.
I felt really prepared for it, I think because I'm lucky enough to be in a relationship that is really healthy and happy, and because I had this album to sort of process that transition. I felt emotionally, physically ready for it. I also started working as an actor when I was 9 years old, so I've sort of been a little bit ahead of my age group in terms of priorities for a long time. I sort of felt like I was already in this zone for quite some time. So, it feels correct to be properly in this zone.
Your fiancé Noah succeeded you in playing the title role Dear Evan Hansen on Broadway, right?
Yeah, but we met several years before that. We were friends doing comedy and stuff together, and then just by the universe he ended up playing the role after me. ... It's sort of a trauma bond because that role is really, really a handful! So, to know that we both had that experience is a beautiful thing to connect on.
What do you mean by trauma bond?
[The Evan character] is filled with self-hatred and anxiety and physically he's very tight and bent over. And he sings an inordinate amount of music and he has a catharsis. It's just like it's a tall order, and it's not necessarily the most joyful thing to perform, but it's so obviously fulfilling and a wonderful role. But it definitely takes over your life.
So, in that regard, when you make your own music as under your own name, do you want to swing to the opposite end the spectrum and do something more light and joyful?
I think I tend to really just let whatever's actually happening to me in my life and my experiences lead the way. And thanks to Noah, a lot of that is living in a really joyful, celebratory, loving place. A lot of Honeymind definitely lives there, but in the past there's been more kind of melancholy stuff or rageful stuff. But I do tend to love the sort of soft, introspective, romantic zone.
Your press release for this record says you had a goal of depicting loving queer relationships when you were making this record. Why that was important to you, especially you're released this album literally the day before Pride Month kicked off.
I know! What a coincidence! [laughs]
Was it a coincidence, or was that the plan?
It was one of those universe things where it really aligned with the run I'm doing right now at the Palace on Broadway and the album release. It kind of all crossroaded in the right way. I wouldn't say sort of at the outset of writing that it was a goal, but I think since writing my first record, my materials both in terms of the visuals and also the songwriting itself has been pretty inherently queer, because just that's my specific experience. And I think things need to be as specific as possible to be universal. It never occurred to me to edit that back. When I first started releasing music, I didn't necessarily think about how people would react to that or how that might be a powerful representative thing for young queer people or for myself. We like to think we're quite far along, which of course we are, but I think it still goes a long way to really express and name those things, especially without the context of trauma or oppression or otherness and just have it be about the humanity and the complexity and the joy. So, I think once I saw that this album was going to be largely about Noah, that's sort of what I was inspired to write about. The idea of reclaiming super-traditional American images and sounds and tropes and doing them in a very expressly queer way felt like something I'm really proud to do, and it was very much an inspiring element of putting the record together.
Didn't this album sort of get sparked by some kind of loved-up mushroom trip?
The title did! Yeah, I was already working on the record, but [Noah and I] were taking a lovely hike with the help of mushrooms and talking about anxiety and the ways that love allays those anxieties. I started to talk about the images of what I would imagine the inside of my mind looks — like you do when you're taking mushrooms! And I just thought about this image of everything difficult and sharp and getting in each other's way, like stress and anxiety, blah, blah, blah, being sort of just coated and made a little softer, warmer, more golden. "Honey" came to mind, and I started saying, "Honeymind." I love the phrase and the feeling of it. ... It just seemed like a really nice kind of tone poem that summed up the whole thing.
Let's talk about some other tracks on the album. "All American Queen," about a queer, effeminate boy living in "the sticks," definitely stood out to me. I know some of these songs are about you, but some seem more like story songs.
Totally, yeah — this was definitely more of a story, anthemic kind of thing. I wrote it with Alex Hope. They're also queer and amazing writer, and we were really excited and inspired by the idea of these songs like "Sweet Child O' Mine" and "Born to Run" and really origin-story, American, anthemic songs, and having one that was just very particularly about, as you said, a super-queer, effeminate, young kid growing up in the middle of America — the idea of that being such an inherent part of the tapestry of being an American and how that makes you, if anything, more American. Certainly no less. That was really fun and exciting and not something I'd heard expressed. I love the idea of giving that kind of a kid an anthem and allowing him to sort of embrace a sort of patriotism ,but turned on its head in a super-gay way.
Tell me about the track "Andrew." I don't know if Andrew's a real person, or a composite of people, or if he's you.
He is definitely a composite of an amalgam of experiences. I think when you're queer... I mean, everybody experiences unrequited love, but I think particularly when you're a young queer kid and you have friendships with wonderful straight people who treat you well and with respect and they're friends, there's just a tendency to develop feelings that you don't know what to do with or where to put them. Once again with Alex Hope, I wrote that song and was really inspired by that very particular kind of melancholy, where no one has done anything wrong and there's no one to blame and it's just a chemical misfire. It's like a genetic disconnection. And when you're a kid you just don't know where to put those feelings. I love the idea of putting a song out in the world where those feelings could go.
And then there's a song called "Shoe to Drop" that mentions two other people, Sammy and Marty. Again, same question: What's the story, or who are those people?
I wanted them to sort of be universal kind of gender-neutral characters that anyone can put their relationship on, but it's certainly inspired by Noah and I, Noah's really a very helpful agent in bringing me back to Earth and calming me in terms of my own anxiety, and I think on the flipside, I'm able to put things into perspective for him. I just was really inspired by the kind give-and-take of what we can do for each other and when it's someone's turn to take hold the wheel, it's all about sharing their responsibility. I was listening to a lot of, as I said, Paul Simon and "Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard" and "Cecilia," and I wanted to write a song that felt kind of hanging out around the campfire, jamming, super-warm and just free and organic.
The last specific song I want to ask about is "Boy Who Hung the Moon." It has a lot of really sweet lyrics, like, "The boy who kissed me first and loved me from the start." It sounds like it could be you and Noah's wedding song.
"Before I Knew You" and "Boy Who Hung the Moon" are definitely wedding vibes! But yeah, that song is very much about Noah and our relationship. We're both artists, and I'm sure this applies to relationships with people who are not, but as an artist you very often lose your way in terms of self-esteem and you start to doubt yourself. It is very common to get down on yourself, I think for anyone, but particularly if you're consistently having to put yourself out there. It's happened to me, it's happened to Noah, and one of my favorite things about our relationship and one of the things I'm most grateful for is that we can help each other to see one another through our eyes. When he's feeling low or not having faith in his abilities and in his specialness, I can remind him the way that I see him and all he does for me, and try to get him to see what I see. And vice versa, when I'm scared of going onstage or doubting my music or whatever it may be. He can remind me the way that it hits him and the way that he sees it. I just wanted to write a song about the ability to lift your partner up.
You mentioned you and Noah were friends for a long time before getting together. How long have you guys been an official couple?
We met when we were like 20, so it's been about a decade of knowing each other. And we sort of dabbled in dating every so often, for the first five or six years, but we've been together properly since January of 2020.
Oh, wow. That was interesting timing.
Yeah, I know. It was a very universe intervention. It was make-or-break for everyone, I think, that time. For us, it was exactly what we needed, in the sense that we had nowhere to hide and we had no excuse but to focus on each other. It really put us under the microscope to see, "Is this really it, or should we just resign to being friends?" And it turns out that this was really it.
Did you go into lockdown together at that time?
We spent the first couple of month long-distance, and then he came to L.A. to live with me and my family for what was supposed to be a few weeks and ended up being three or four months. He really did dive right in with all my siblings and my parents and living in a really intense and intimate kind of situation, which all of us obviously were experiencing for the first time. And that was the time where I fell most deeply in love with him, just seeing him acclimate so easily and embrace everybody. I was like, "Hopefully, God willing, the pandemic's going to end, but I would not mind continuing to be locked away with you."
Before that, you'd dated off and on. Why didn't you get serious sooner? Was it just an age thing, and timing thing, where you were at in your lives?
I think all the above. I think it was largely me that needed to come to my senses. I think when I was young I had a very particular idea of what I was looking for romantically. I thought that friendship and romantic connection really existed in two totally different planes and that when I was going to be attracted to someone or want to be with them romantically, it was going to be this volatile, ineffable, sparky thing. I think you do in your early twenties, that trial-and-error, just wanting to see what was out there, and then sort of realize that the main purpose of being with someone or spending your life with someone is because they are your best friend. You want to experience things with them and you actually enjoy the same things and spending time together and you want their opinion. For me when things happen, they don't really feel like they've happened unless Noah's experienced them or he's weighed in on them. I didn't know that this love and that spark and that attraction and romance could grow on top of this foundation of friendship. I was just so pleasantly surprised, and it wasn't anything I thought it was going to be — in the best way. ... It was very lucky that we went and took our time to sow our oats, and then when we were semi-adult, we came back together and were ready to do it.
I've read that you were middle-school-aged when you came out to family and friends, but weren't publicly till around age 19, not long before you met Noah. Is that correct?
I guess what's perceived as my "coming out" really wasn't until I put out my first album, so that was when I was 23 or 24, when I did visuals that involved queer relationships and stuff. That was in some regards received as a coming-out. But I always thought that was strange, because like you said, I came out when I was 12, and anyone I've ever worked with or known or had any kind of personal relationship with longer than 10 minutes has known that [I am gay]. I don't ever really think there was a "coming out. "
It seems like it was important to you from the start to lead with queer narratives in your music.
Totally. ... I only really want to write music when there's something that feels either complex or emotional or intense to the point where I don't want to just talk about it and I want to musicalize it. And for me personally, just a lot of that is relationships. And so naturally those are going to be queer experiences, and I don't see any need to shift them or edit them back from the specific experiences that they are.
You're at least a triple-threat. You do film as well. I have to ask about this movie you're doing, Merrily We Roll Along, which is literally being filmed over 20 years. Similar to Boyhood...
Yeah, same director. It's Richard Linklater. Ke loved the process of that. And Merrily We Roll Along is a Sondheim musical and it's about the disillusionment of a friendship over the course of 20 or so years and it's told in reverse. So, you meet the characters at their oldest and most jaded, and some of them don't speak anymore, and you go backwards a couple years at a time and the story ends with them in college, meeting each other at their most naive and loving. We're shooting it obviously in the correct order and then it will be edited backwards. ... I think we have 16 years left to see this group of friends actually devolve in real time, and it's an unbelievable treat. I mean, my best friend Beanie Feldstein is in it, and Sondheim is the greatest composer of all time, and Linklater is a great director and Paul Mescal, who's one of our greatest actors, is in it as well. It's sort of like this beautiful little short film I get to check in with every couple of years and, knock on wood, it's a good motivation to stay well and take my vitamins.
Patricia Arquette won an Oscar for her performance in Boyhood. So, is this how you're going to get your EGOT? I mean, you'll have to wait at least 16 years maybe to get it, but you're just an "O" away from an EGOT.
I'll take any kind of O that comes my way!
Is that a goal? There aren't that many people from the pop music world who have won an EGOT.
Not so much an active goal in terms of seeking out projects for that purpose, but it would of course be such a cool, wonderful thing someday. So, I'm keeping my ear open for it, I guess.
What other goals do you have? You've been working since ager 9 and by age 30 have already accomplished so much. Like, have you thought about doing a musical where you write the book for it?
A hundred percent. One of my bucket-list goals has always been to write a musical. I am undecided in terms of would I use a songbook — would it be something I've already written, would I write something new? I think I'm sort of waiting for inspiration to strike in terms of writing an original musical and having a story that's worthy of being musicalized. I would really love to not adapt a film or a book and try to make something from scratch.
You have enough songs at this point, that you could almost have your own jukebox musical! What else is on your bucket list?
I'd love to continue to write with Noah. Noah and I wrote this film Theater Camp together with some of our other friends and loved the experience of making a film together. We'd love to do that more. I'd love to be in some more films. I've done a lot of film that exists in a slightly heightened universe or a musical universe and there's always a bit of an archness to it, so I would love to tell a couple stories that are super-grounded and live a little more in an organic reality. I'm trying to think if there's anything else... oh, there's this musical called Sunday in the Park with George, which is another Stephen Sondheim musical. My ultimate dream role has always been to play George in that. So, in the next five, six, seven years O would love to do that. But I'm open to the universe presenting me with things I'm not even thinking of.
Finally, to bring it back to Honeymind, we were talking about the expressions and depictions of queer love and queer relationships in a joyful way. We're obviously in some very fraught times right now, so what is the significance of telling those stories in a way that isn't tense and traumatic, and is just plain happy?
Well, with all the anti-LGBTQ legislation and particularly the anti-trans legislation, I feel like a lot of the space that we have to take up as queer people is devoted to just continuing to fight for our humanity, our equality, our rights, things that should be givens. And obviously those things are hugely important and we don't have the luxury of not doing that. But I think Pride is the opportunity to lean into celebrating each other purely for our specialness and humanity and complexity and joy, and bragging about the things that are cool and special about being queer people. I think giving yourself sort of the "day off," metaphorically, and just reveling in your identity, rather than having to prove why it's worthy, is such an important thing. And I hope that the album can be a nice soundtrack for that. That's how I feel about being queer: I'm really happy and lucky to be queer and love being part of the community and love how it informs my life and worldview and sense of humor. And I wouldn't trade it.
This Q&A has been edited for brevity and clarity. Watch Ben Platt's full conversation with Music Times in the split-screen video above.
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