“Most reviewers I talk to think the record is a downer. They say it’s heavy, and it is,” Tim Cain tells CL about a new album that chronicles the emotional toll of loss. “But tragedy is the currency of opera, and I think that’s always been the case.”
The 60-year-old songwriter is responding to critical assessments of Tunnelvision, a new rock opera from his band Boy’s Entrance. The group formed in ‘91 after Cain placed an ad looking for gay musicians in a Chicago paper. Boy’s Entrance made its live debut in ‘93 and spent the following years being a loud, proud and out gay American rock band — one of the first of its kind. When we catch up with him, Cain is loading equipment into St. Pete’s Studio@620, where he’ll turn Tunnelvision (essentially a concept album about sexual obsession) into a stage production. He is a little winded from load-in, but it’s a wonder he’s not winded from the life he lived in the course of writing, recording and releasing Tunnelvision.
DO THIS: TUNNELVISION AT STUDIO@620 [OPENS JUNE 9]
The album — 17 tracks that bounce around glam-rock, new wave, quiet ballads and even lounge-ready jazz — took a decade to complete, and Cain (living in Illinois at the time) was in a very bad relationship that stunted Tunnelvision’s development. His father — a gifted pianist in his own right — passed away at one point in the process, and Cain underestimated the effect that death would have on him. At times he even felt suicidal.
“It lasted a long time. Things went south and my then partner threatened me with a gun,” he says reluctantly. “I was already depressed and didn’t want it around, but he kept it out in clear view. It felt like an effort to get me to take myself out.” Cain says the universe was telling him that he was in the wrong place and asking, “Why aren’t you listening to me? I’m getting louder and louder.”
It took convincing from Cain’s sister and brother-in-law to eventually get him to Florida, where he pieced himself back together. Cain married Bay area musician Bill Ramsey and then met guitarist Jaybo Key after local record store employees advised him to find Key (a descendant of Francis Scott Key) at St. Pete guitar store Mad Music. It was Key’s musical muscle that would help Cain complete Tunnelvision.
“When I got down here the universe just started flowing again. Jaybo is a fantastic lead player, kind of in the Jimmy Page mold — he really gave this record the texture it needed,” Cain explains, adding that he’d been looking for someone like Key since the death his original guitar player, Cie Fletcher, in 1995. Cain and Fletcher — who’d worked on demos for unrelated bands in years prior to forming Boy’s Entrance — had a contentious relationship in which they’d wrestle over power of the band. Fletcher was also fighting AIDS, but told nobody.
“He hid it from the band. I had no idea,” Cain says, adding Fletcher’s death made the purpose of the already political Boy’s Entrance crystal clear.
“The music is delicious, and the themes — gay men, gay sex, HIV, all of that — are very challenging. The collaborative process has brought me way out of the comfort zone.” — director Bob Devin Jones
Tunnelvision — set in San Francisco during the ‘80s AIDS crisis — finds Tampa actor and pop singer Jimmy Dudding playing an out, gay male rock star who begins a tumultuous relationship with a closeted straight man, Troy. While Cain insists that it is not an autobiographical musical, Tunnelvision does have several parallels to his own life.
“He’s as out of the closet as I am,” Cain says about Dudding’s character, who is also named Tim. “But there’s not one particular Troy character that is part of my idea for this production.”
Instead, Cain says Troy embodies an element of the gay community that likes to go out with men who are straight acting and appearing, but not necessarily so. Troy grapples with self-hate during the course of the play, for which songs lay the drama (and sexuality) on thick. At one point in the musical (“The 13th Step”), Troy and Tim are actually having a conversation with each other during a sexual compulsives anonymous meeting. The entire production — much like the Tunnelvision album itself — is a roller coaster. Cain says the production process with Studio@620 artistic director Bob Devin Jones has been a fun ride, too. Jones, 63, really wanted the production to be a part of Pride Month. He also wanted to learn something new himself and hadn’t directed many musicals from start to finish.
“I’ve definitely never done a queer rock opera,” Jones tells CL, while adding that Cain is a lovely collaborator. “The music is delicious, and the themes — gay men, gay sex, HIV, all of that — are very challenging. The collaborative process has brought me way out of the comfort zone.”
And that’s apropos, since Cain really came out of his comfort zone to create the music, dialogue and vibe of Tunnelvision. “The whole thing is a tug-of-war between the characters. They find each other fascinating, but it’s a tough fit. They come in and out of love, and come back together again,” Cain says. “They ultimately part, but hopefully wiser and more hopeful about everything. I hope the audience can feel the toll of the journey.”
If it’s anything like this our conversation with Cain, then the audience certainly will. They’ll probably be much wiser and hopeful for the tragedy, too.
Listen to Tunnelvision below, and get more information on the production via local.cltampa.com. A full schedule is available via Studio@620.
More info: local.cltampa.com
