This post was submitted by Zack Rosen

What do The Gossip, Grizzly Bear and now Vampire Weekend have in common? Well, yeah, since the latter’s keyboardist Rostam Batmanglij came out you would be correct if you said “they are all bands with out, gay members.” But the real answer I was looking for is that they are some of the highest-profile and most-loved indie bands playing in America today. And unless I am sorely out of the loop, they have hardly been greeted with a loss of fans, dropped sponsorships or boycotts by the religious right. The earth beneath your local record store did not open and swallow passerbies with an assortment of writhing, pink tentacles. In fact, it would be pretty safe to say that no one really fucking cares.

Gay fans care, of course. And I care.  I think there are very few things better for us than an out, public figure. Say what you want about Ellen, Adam Lambert or Will and Grace, but the fact is that gay people in the living room every week will do a lot to inure straight people to our presence. And for a guy like me, an out indie musician just provides a solid, talented role model to show that there are a lot of different ways to be successful while still being honest about who you are.

But gay fans don’t always factor into the careers that bands’ managers and record labels have laid out for them. Fear of being labelled “a gay band, ” and thus being forever relegated to the dusty bargain bins of the world’s gay bookstores and Universal Gears, usually leads to a fair amount of trepidation in stepping out of the public closet.

So it makes me quite happy that Batmanglij has came out, in a pretty low-key way, at the height of his career. Besides the fact that his Discovery side project was a fairly unavoidable last summer, Vampire Weekend are about to tour behind their highly anticipated, and favorably reviewed, sophomore album. In DC they are playing a massive venue that has recently hosted such mega acts as Kathy Griffin and The Pixies. So Rostam’s declaration is not a late career publicity stunt or a Presets-style ambiguous  flirtation. It’s just a well-known musician telling people he’s gay.

I am not going to be so naive as to assume that there was no label or managerial input given in this matter, but the fact that it was done at all should bode well for gay acts in the future. The logic is pretty simple. Being gay is normal. Forcing acts to to hide their sexuality just reinforces the idea that it is not normal. More out musicians equals more examples that dick-sucking doesn’t equal career-killing (as long as it’s not done in a public park, Mr. Michaels) and then this leads to more gay public figures and the cycle repeats.

I also enjoy that Batmanglij has not launched into any heavy duty “I’m Gay, Bitches!” fan pandering. Instead, he’s just integrated his existing career into being gay. He wore a rainbow guitar strap on Saturday Night Live and has told Out Magazine that the VW song “Diplomat’s Son” and Discovery’s “I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend” (though sung by Angel Deradoorian) were attempted gay anthems.

Of course, I have previously taken Grizzly Bear’s Ed Droste to task for similar actions. I still believe that the reach of musicians should be used to further “the cause” (whatever you think that it) but the more I encounter bands with confirmed gay members that are not allowed to talk about it, the more I appreciate the simple advancements of someone who is just out. Culture can be a powerful form of activism. So Ed, I owe you an apology.  If you and Batmanglij decided to have a bed-in for ENDA I’d be psyched, but if you didn’t I’d probably understand. For now, at least.

But there is one thing that Batmanglij could do do forever ingratiate himself to me, the TNG readership and the indie fag population at large: He could guest DJ our Homo/Sonic dance party on April 3rd. Rostam, I know you’re in town that day. What else do you have to do after your show? Ok, a lot of things, probably. But none of them will be as fun.

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