Neon Trees lead singer Tyler Glenn comes out as gay in a recent issue of Rolling Stone:
Glenn says he's known he was gay since he was a young child, but kept his sexuality a secret — until now. "I had my crushes on guys throughout high school, but it was never an overwhelming thing until my twenties," he admits. "Then I'd be dating girls and in love with my straight friend and it was the worst feeling in the world."
"We were always taught, and I hate this word, 'tolerance,'" he says, regarding his church's stance on homosexuality, which is notoriously fraught. "The only time that felt different was when the Prop 8 thing came up," he says, referring to when the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints spent an estimated $22 million fighting same-sex marriage in California in 2008.
"Yes. I am a happy and healthy Mormon gay pop star. I don't know what it all means, but I'm ok with it. "
Pop Psychology’s first single, the chiming "Sleeping With a Friend," is indeed about getting with a straight man. The doo-wop-flavored "Teenager in Love" was inspired by the guy Glenn pined after for three years, while maintaining a two-year relationship with a woman he'd resolved to marry. "She broke up with me in a half-page note that was like, 'I love you, but you'll never love me the way I need to be loved,'" Glenn says, taking a breath at the memory. "At the time, I was really crushed, but it was a relief. The last thing I want to do is be that guy that gets married and lives the double life. There's so many of those people in Utah."
Glenn says that he has not told the man alluded to in “Sleeping With A Friend” that he’s gay: “We're not really as close as we used to be, so I don't know if I'll hear from him." The song itself does not mention any specific gender, although the video shows Glenn sleeping with a woman.
