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AE: Are the callers and their questions screened before they go out live on the air? If not, do you get some negative/hate calls from anti-gay sources? Can you relate some especially memorable and/or outrageous phone-ins?
JH: I do screen the calls. For the most part, people call up just to make requests of their favorite GLBT musicians whom I write down and play. I always get their name and where they are calling from. People like to hear their name called out over the air. It makes them feel part of the show, which they are.

I do get the negative calls every now and then. Most of the time they are kids who are up too late with no parental supervision and just want to prank the gay DJ. I take that in stride. I also get the drunks who have just come home from a night of partying. I also take that in stride.

The most memorable phone-ins are people who call in to tell me how disgusting Sirius OutQ is because of the gay content. I don’t understand why people think they feel the need to do that but they do. I know there are a lot of listeners who don’t condone a “homosexual lifestyle” that use that censor device called the dial and turn the station…and I am sure most of them never call in to tell us we are disgusting, perverted and going to hell. It’s the ones that feel compelled to do that leave me scratching my head. Oh well.

I think the worst scenario that happened was when an independent musician contacted me (after seeing my contact info in an indie-music magazine) and asked me why we were a gay station and why I was gay. I simply replied to tell him that I only focus on GLBT artists or bands with at least one openly queer member since this is a gay channel on Sirius Satellite Radio. I thought it was someone who wanted to inquire about music submission and was just seeing if the music I played was 100% gay artists. It turned out he wanted to give me a sermon on the evils of homosexuality and that Sirius OutQ was an evil entity. Well that worked a nerve. I thought this was about music submission, not a moral/religious debate. My response to him was quite professional, but I did ask why is it that people who hate the “homosexual lifestyle” think about gay sex much more than I, a gay person, does. But most of the time when I get the call and someone yells “FAG!” into the phone I just hang up, shrug my shoulders and say “whatever.” It comes with the territory.

AE: In the world of gay-male pop music, there've always been plenty of front-men/singer-songwriters/divas, but a lack of instrumentalists like bassists, drummers, electric guitarists, etc. Can you share your thoughts on this? Do you see a change in this trend? Are there more all-gay-member bands now than in previous years?
JH: I think that has more to do with the gay mainstream. That’s the beauty of my show. I don’t focus on just the gay mainstream. It’s everything from that to independent self-produced gay artists. The gay mainstream seems to focus on the divas or the “sexy” front men. I try to enlighten everyone that not only are there sexy front men but bands with other gay members that might be anything other than front-men or divas. They don’t have to be the lead male singer. They can be the transgendered drummer, which I do have in my collection of GLBT artists.

I haven’t seen more all-gay-members as I have the mix of gay and straight. A great example is the band Placebo: the lead vocalist/guitarist is bisexual, the bassist is gay, and the drummer is straight. All they need is a tranny and a lesbian and they’ll have the entire queer rainbow.

AE: You have such a huge collection of queer music, plus you are a great supporter of live GLBT music. I see you at lots of live-in-concert shows. NYC is the mecca for queer musicians, be it rock, folk, jazz, chorus, classical, etc. So how much fun is it for you being here in the midst of all this?
JH: I think it’s great, but I don’t think it’s the only mecca for queer musicians. Even when I was living in Seattle, WA, there were loads of queer musicians, whether they were based there or touring through the city. I couldn’t keep up with all the acts coming through. But in NYC, it’s even more so. So many queers, so little time!

Last Call with Jeremy Hovies airs Tuesday to Saturday 1 am to 7 am ET.
Get more info at SiriusOutQ.com.

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