By: Daniel P’Lopez
There’s a new growing trend in queer artists coming out in the music industry these days, and singer/songwriter Tom Goss is among them. Tom has been making music for years and it has been a long slow ride that he is still on. Unlike many other new queer artists, his success didn’t happen as easy as it sounds, it wasn’t with a song or video that just went viral overnight like many artist these days.
Tom was born in Kenosha, Wisconsin and grew up in the Midwest. He went to school in Missouri, and grew up as an athlete attending college on a wrestling scholarship. He then moved out to Washington DC to attend a Catholic seminary to become a priest. When that didn’t work out, Tom stayed in Washington DC and got into making music instead. He wanted to do something not super intense, because singing was more fun, so he focused on singing and writing music during college.
Tom’s intention was to make a record and after he made his first one, he wanted to make another and another, and he wanted to play live and it just snowballed from there. Tom’s family was supportive of him and thought being a singer was less weird than becoming a priest. Tom has always been out and says being in the seminary was a horrible experience but then he met someone, his future husband and falling in love with him was an amazing experience for him. Tom couldn’t pretend that he wasn’t gay and his husband became the most important thing to him, he was the single greatest healing force he ever had and he always wanted to honor that with music.
Tom’s new single, not my problem, is based on an ex of Tom’s who is currently in prison. Tom did what he could do to help his ex as much as he could, by being a loving and supporting partner, “when someone you love has problems, you do what you have to do to solve these problems.” Says Tom. But then there came a point in Tom’s life when he finally realized that his ex was causing all the problems and one day said, “It’s not my problem anymore, hence the song, “Not my problem.”
Tom has nine studio albums and says every album is different from the first to the last. Primarily he writes acoustic set positive power pop, but sometimes it changes, to an up-tempo fun type of thing. Tom is working on his tenth album, more of an Americana vein, really leaning into the queer story telling as he loves his community. “Telling stories told the way they should be told”, he had explained to me.
Tom released his first album in 2006 and admits he is not a trained singer, and says he was really bad at singing on his first album but something interesting was there. People enjoyed it. He toured nationally and singing for him was the joy to do something and he just did it because he wanted to. A Midwesterner who is a hard worker, nobody is ever going to tell him he can’t do a thing; he just goes ahead and does it.
Tom has spent almost two decades really learning and owning the craft of music and singing. Tom has been doing music independently for so long, that he would love to collaborate with other artists from indie artist, to mainstream ones like, Beyonce and Taylor Swift, the list goes on and on. He would also love to write for other artists as well and would love to collaborate with other artist and to make something that is much bigger than himself. That is Tom’s dream.
Tom hustled and did the driving, the promotion, the booking, the setting up and tearing down, even merchandising, he did everything himself. He started touring fulltime making a loop around the country meeting so many amazing people along this grassroot ride. Tom carved his career out of nothing and started from the bottom. He has always been authentic to himself, his voice and his fans that he says are, “his friends”. He has a studio and has been producing other artist as well.
Making music videos also helped his career and got him recognition. It was a different world say twenty, to fifteen years ago and there wasn’t really any out queer artist and music videos. It wasn’t until there was queer indie blogs that really carved this genre and when queer artist really took off. Tom has evolved and grown so much from his first album to his last and he never wants to continue to make the same record twice. He wants to grow and evolve and experiment with new sounds and new writing techniques and with new collaborators. Every single record is an evolution for Tom and totally different from the last.
Tom currently lives in Los Angeles, and when he is not making music, he is running around, riding his bicycle and playing soccer. He’s a man who is always seeking joy wherever he can find it, that’s his favorite thing in the world.
Tom got married in 2010 and has been with his husband for nineteen years. His husband is very supportive of Tom and his career but is not in the music industry. Tom is continuing to make music and videos.
You can follow him on social media platforms @Tomgossmusic