Pride walk: Ben Platt takes The Post on a tour of the NYC spots that made him loud and proud
For Ben Platt, his coming-out party as a pop artist on “Sing to Me Instead,” his 2018 debut studio LP, was no big queer reveal.“When I made my first album, it was sort of received as, like, a ‘coming out’ — and it’s not even something that I anticipated,” Platt, 30, said in The Post’s exclusive video series, “Music to My Years.”In fact, for Platt, it was all a matter of fact: The Tony-winning star of “Dear Evan Hansen” had come out as gay long before that — “when I was 12 or 13,” he said.“If I’m going to write about my relationship or I’m going to depict it in a music video, it’s a queer relationship,” said Platt of openly expressing his sexuality. “So it was kind of a no-brainer to me.
And then I didn’t really realize till after the fact that it was, like, still somewhat radical.”And just as Pride Month begins, “Honeymind” — Platt’s third studio album that arrived on Friday, three days after the beginning of his 18-show residency at Broadway’s historic Palace Theatre — is a sweet reminder that queer love has always been here.Get used to it.It’s a rainbow flag that Platt is proud to wave all year round. “Having a lot of queer fans who feel like their relationships and the specific complexities and experiences of being in a queer relationship are reflected in my music … is something I love to see in my audience,” he said. “Queerness has just always been an intrinsic part of my art.”There is an easy openness about the queer experience on “Honeymind” — with Grammy-winning producer Dave Cobb (Chris Stapleton, Brandi Carlile) behind the boards — but the album harks back to another time when the LGBTQ community didn’t live so out loud in the music world.In fact, it’s ’70s singer-songwriters such as James Taylor, Cat Stevens and Paul Simon (with and without Art Garfunkel) who are the touchstone troubadours.But right after the airy acoustic-guitar balladry of opener “Right Kind of Reckless,” you realize that we’re not in Kansas anymore.
