takin' a walk"Finding Faith and Harmony with Singer-Songwriter David Archuleta"
Join us with singer, songwriter David Archuleta as your host @thebuzzknight delves into the journey from American Idol, to becoming a versatile artist known for his heartfelt music and inspiring growth. In this intimate conversation, David shares the importance of his latest project, which is a tribute to the late George Michael, his sexuality and the process that set him free from the complexities of the Mormon Church. Tune in as David walks us through the path to self-discovery and artistic expression.
If you have questions or suggestions, write buzz@buzzknightmedia.com
If you like this podcast, please share with your friends and also check out our companion podcast called Music Saved Me hosted by Lynn Hoffman. Listen here
Taking a walk.
It was learning to love myself, something that I thought I already knew, something I thought Mormonism already gave me a good grasp of.
And it wasn't until mormon Ism.
It wasn't until leaving Mormonism that I finally understood what it meant to love yourself.
Welcome to another episode of one of the top music podcasts in this country and in others. We're Taking a Walk podcast hosted by Buzznight. Buzz talks with musicians covering all genres. Today he speaks with David Archiletta, singer songwriter, from his success with American Idol to his new music honoring the work of George Michael. David takes us behind the scenes to an accomplished career that's just beginning. Here's Buzznight with David Archiletta on Taking a Walk.
Hey David, welcome to Taking a Walk. I appreciate it.
Thank you, Buzz good to be here with you.
So, since the podcast is called taking a Walk, if you could take a walk with someone living or dead, they don't have to be involved with music, but they could be. Who would it be and where would you like to take a walk with them?
Oh gosh, Well, since I released my cover of Freedom recently, it would be fun to take a walk with George Michael and maybe just go around Echo Park or something. Would be nice somewhere chill but kind of close to where the action is and see what things we could relate with on as people who are performers and had to come out in front of our audience, you know, with our sexuality and our queer journeys.
Sure, yeah, it would be an amazing walk for sure.
How about you?
How about me?
Yeah?
The first stab that comes into my head and think about a walk in New York City with John Lennon.
Ooh wow.
He was so ingrained in New York and never had the opportunity, and I would just love to hear what he's thinking about the way things are in today's times, you know.
Oh yeah, gosh, imagine the music he would have released.
Oh my goodness. Yeah.
I think he would have been still doing amazing things. And I think he wouldn't let his opinions, He wouldn't keep his opinions to himself.
You know.
Do you feel like there's an equivalent of that today?
Well, I think, meaning a person such as John.
Yeah, like a musician with like human activists in their music.
Well, I think there are, but I think a lot of people aren't brave enough. They're sort of holding back right now. I mean, what you're doing is incredibly brave, and I think there's a lot of people who are sort of just you know, just just holding back right now.
Don't you think.
It's Yeah, it's kind of like holding your breath kind of a moment because you're not sure.
What will come, will take power and take the lead with.
Everything and influence what's okay to say and what's not okay to say?
Yeah, I mean, I'm sure there's people who whose opinions are you know, bubbling up and I may not be as familiar with, but I think the activism time, you know, when we when we think of it was so critical through the sixties and the seventies. Activism needs to needs to stay, you know, we need it more than ever.
I think Kendrick Lamar is kind of that. Like he always he's always going to have a message. So when when he releases a song, he's I mean, he's his main message as like that people been watching is his beef with Drake. But aside from that, like a lot of his other songs talk about preserving his culture and making sure that I feel like he's definitely about like human rights activity. Who else I can't think of anything right right now, but that's just the one that I know everyone. If he has something to say, people are going to tune in and listen to it because he's got a strong opinion and it's not always the politically correct thing that he says, but I think that's what people want. They don't want everything to always be politically correct and proper, and sometimes you got to say things how you see them, even if you see them differently than how someone else may see it, which is why they get offended.
Yeah, And I think as we have this conversation, I promise you both of us are going to come back to that, and we can't because we're going to think of some people that come to our head who need to be sort of positively called out there.
You know.
Congratulations on freedom. When I think of the times, and I think of your tribute to the song done so brilliantly, thank you, and I think of the importance of the times, do you sort of you know, ruminate on that and think of it in today's times, not only as a tribute to George Michael, but also what's going on in the world today.
Yeah, he wrote the song and it came out thirty five years ago, and he came out at a time when it was you know, the aid's, the HIV AIDS panemonium was about at its height at that time, and so many stigmas and misconceptions with the gay community and religion, thinking like this is God's way of punishing them for being who they are and doing what they do. And to now be in a time where it's like, okay, people understand the science behind things. There's been medications like prep that prevent HIV and AIDS for the most part, you know, ninety nine percent being gone and one hundred you know, completely manageable. And to be at a time where at least for the time being, you know, same sex marriage is now legal. You know, it was not a thing back when George Michael had come out in thirty five years. The progress that society has made for the LGBTQ plus community and making space for them, like we've made progress and then there's pushback, and it does make me wonder, Okay, what is a pushback coming from? And I think a lot of it is just simply that I think it's instinctual for them to want something to come back. They want to have a foe and enemy to go against, and it's easier to target people who who aren't like you. I mean, just like Kendrick Lamar's song, he has this big song is not like us.
They're not like us anyway.
It's not that that song is related to what I'm talking about, but I just always think of songs when I think of when I say words and phrases. But seeing how politics, it reminds me of Wicked. Have you seen the musical Wicked?
I haven't seen it, but obviously you know know the story, right, you know?
My goodness it is. Yeah, it's a great story, and I think it's Oh, I guess I don't want to blow it for people who haven't seen it, especially since AC two hasn't come out. But basically, how in order to get that group of people together, you have to give them a common enemy to go against, and unfortunately a lot of people who are misunderstood are targeted because like, well, they're different enough, Let's make them the villain so that I can control my group of people.
That I want to control.
And I feel like, unfortunately, you know that happens in religious communities. They're used to feeling like Satan is their enemy, but it's like you can't see him, he's not around. So how do we put a visual to Satan? And so they pick people who are the most foreign to that community, in that group, the least common denominator. Okay, most people are straight, we have families, maybe most of them be Caucasian, or maybe if you're you know, if you're in another country, they say South America, most of your Hispanics. So then the common enemy becomes anyone who's queer. You know, they're different. So let's we need to put a face to what we think Satan is. So we're going to choose this community and be like, okay, let's fight. And unfortunately, the LGBT community has been picked on time and time again, and now they are again, especially with the trans community. I think it's just fear mongering because you know, to distract the people from the bigger issues, like people who are have a lot of money and taking advantage of the rest of the population, taking more and more wealth and while leaving the rest of the people struggling to distract people from what's actually causing them the hardship that they try to point in, like, look, don't let trans people go into the bathrooms. They might rape your women. If it's a trans woman entering a women's bathroom. It's like, that is not the issues that's not happening. You know, that's not the issue happening, and it's not the concern we should have. But you know, I think we're just an easy target. It's easy to misunderstand the queer community, especially trans, so they get weaponized and it sucks. So I think you have to be even more vocal, even more just yourself in a time when people don't want to see you, they're uncomfortable because they don't know. It's you have to expose them to say, hey, I'm not as scary as you thought I was. And even in my journey, I've had a lot of people from the Mormon community or the Christian community I grew up with, saying why don't you just keep it to yourself, Like I don't care if you're like that, but I don't want to see it. And it's like, well, guess what you have to because you have to see it's not what you think it is. You think I'm trying to like have sex in front of you and your family, and it's like, no, I'm just I have to openly be myself. So you see, I'm not much different from you.
This is interesting, well, incredibly astute and spot on everything you're saying. And can you describe what it was like, you know, finding your spirit, you know, leaving the Mormon Church.
Oh well, I feel like I was still in the Mormon Church when I came out, and for me, like the experience. Now, you know, I don't know. I consider myself agnostic now, but at the time, what I understood and interpreted as the spirit and like the voice of God speaking to me, I just kind of consider it my higher self. Because so many people from that community who believe in God and this this whole God identity according to society, It's like, well, God wouldn't tell you that, you know, that's the Devil's that's a satan appearance.
To you, as an angel, just deceiving you. And it's like, how.
Would you know, who are you to tell me what my moments of peace, my moments of light, are, my moments of feeling the great like love and that I have a purpose like you, who are you to tell me what that experience is and what God has told me. It's like, if that's what you call God, then you know what, I don't want to believe in that because it sounds like a very fearful, fear based, hate based, very judgmental, and self righteous approach to what this spiritual universal connection that we're all supposed to have. It's like, it seems like you sure want to do a lot of cutting off for something that's supposed to be all encompassing, all loving, all knowing, all creating.
So for me, I'm okay, I.
Don't want to call I don't want to if that's what God is, then I'm not going to call this God because I don't want you to twist it. But you know, my experience was I was praying and this feeling of God said, you know what, David stopped asking me to change who you are because you're You're how I created you to be. And you keep trying to run away from what that is when there's no reason to. And a lot of well meaning people out there may claim that this is what I think and this is what I say, and that I, as God, think that this is wrong, but I'm the one who created this and there's beauty in it and I need you.
To see it.
And when I started sharing that, I like a lot of people agreed, but I think the majority of religious people disagreed, almost like they had an entitlement to know what the queer experience was when they are so unwilling to listen to what it is and what queer people go through. So I thought that was interesting that they thought they have all the answers when it's like, you know, God is God is the only one who has all the answers. Just because you believe in God does not mean you have all the answers, you know, and perhaps you should be open to learning more of what there is, for example, like what queer people are. Like one of my friends, Charlie Bird, he's Mormon who got married, was still going to church with his husband, trying to kind of change the expectations in the Mormon community.
About what it means to be gay.
And I book is what helped me come to terms with my sexuality being queer, because he said, because before that, I had never seen someone who was Mormon and willfully call themselves gay because we were always discouraged to use that word to identify with gay, to the point where there is an even one of the leader worldwide leaders of the Church of the Mormon Church, David A. Bednar, he was an apostle, and he said in a talk when people are asking him, like, what do you think about gay people in the church, and his response was there are no gay people. He's like, there, it is not a matter, like there's no gay people. He's like, they're only children of God. And while the intent may have been okay, like okay, like he's trying to say, regardless of if you're gay or straight, like we are all really children of God, at the same time, I think he was passively trying to disregard the fact fact that gay people it's not just like a moment of their life. It is something that they experience their whole entire lifetime, and you're trying to take away from that and disregard that's that that's their experience. I don't know what what was your question, my bad.
Finding your spirit?
You know at that way, spirit you know which which I think, in my opinion, you tell me as you ultimately made that decision to leave the Mormon Church. That was an awakening of sorts that really helped you find or further find your spirit of who you who you are.
Yeah, it was learning to love myself, something that I thought I already knew, something I thought Mormonism already gave me a good grasp of. And it wasn't until Mormonism. It wasn't until leaving Mormonism that I finally understood what it and to love yourself, because it was clear how much I hated myself. Once I was able to look back. Even though I wasn't told it was self hatred, it was. And you're almost like praised for hating yourself and thinking that you're like dirt and lower than dirt, that you are unworthy and good for nothing, and that you need this religion to be something. They may not have phrased it that way, but that is what you end up feeling about yourself. I don't think they realize it, perhaps necessarily, but I feel like in the end, all religion needs you to It needs a condition and kind of hack your mindset in order to have control and have you work in the way that they want you to for them. I think they think it is you know, they really believe like this is what's going to help you be a good person. So I wouldn't say it's like this evil scheme and plot in the end. I think they just some things are misinformed, especially with the queer community and some interesting teachings that they teach about. How you know, Caucasian people, most of them being like the tribe of Ephraim, were called of God, like America was divinely called by God and to have the Mormon Church be restored by Joseph Smith.
Joseph Smith taught he was the founder of the Mormon Church.
He he went and taught everyone like the Native Americans and indigenous people of Americas are people who've been cursed who need to be brought back to God and re enlightened, which I think a lot of people from a few hundred years ago believed. You know, Joseph Smith taught a lot of people that if you had dark skin, it was because it was cursed. It was cursed by God, to show that white people are blessed and they're clean, whereas dark skinned people are, which is why black people weren't allowed to have full participation in the Mormon Church until nineteen seventy eight. Those are a few examples how the Mormon Church were misinformed, greatly misinformed, and most of the people following it, I don't think have evil intentions, but you have to take a look and say, like, you know what, hey, a lot of these things aren't okay, and sometimes you're steered the wrong way, whether it's the color, why someone's color of skin is different, or why someone's sexuality is different. You're the church does not have all the answers that it claims to have. The church changes its mind and then forgets, oh, we've never said any of that. You know, we changed our minds or or you know, God changed his mind. So that's how it's framed a lot of times like well, God changed his mind, He's now given us more. When it's like, you know, I think sometimes you're just droft your feet with how you know, culture progresses and we learn more. Need to not drag your feet so much because it's affecting a lot of people in a negative way.
Can you take us inside the process that you had creatively around creating the George Michael tribute.
Da Yeah.
I worked with an arranger, producer Phil Lawrence. His right hand Guy Davy as well.
And Phil.
He's part of Bruno Mars's band. He was part of their producer and arranger for Bruno's twenty four Caret Magic album, which was amazing, and someone I work with connected me with him, and Phil is great to work with. He he gets the soul that needed to go into the song. Phil's siblings, his brothers and sisters even saying the background vocals on the track because they all grew up in church singing. He's like, I'm gonna ask my siblings to sing on this, and they sound incredible. They sound amazing and I at first the song was going to be like a dance like almost like disco or something like just faster tempo, and it was going to be to be played at clubs. But then we decided to take a step back and say, you know what, let's just keep it more organic, and so we did. And I really liked an MTV Unplugged performance that George Michael did with a choir. They were in a circle performing around like a microphone or something or a few microphones. It was just George vibing and like guiding the circle in the song, and I thought that is so cool. I want that energy in my version. So just paying tribute to George with one of with a stellar a live performance that he did of this song.
It's awesome.
That's great in closing your American Idol experience, obviously it was a you know, critical part of your life. And with that came your connection with Paula Abdul and she was a great friend and an ally talk about what Paula means to you, how special she is, and and also maybe shout out some of your other allies that have really been in your corner.
David, Yeah, Paula.
I mean she received a straight up Ally Award last year, which is which I presented to her and got to do a tribute to her.
I did a medley of her songs.
They asked me to do one song, and I was like, you know, Paula, I need she deserves more than just one song. I want to I want to pay tribute for the legacy that she's left. She's She's had multiple number one hits, she sold tens of millions of albums, and is one of the most legen and dairy choreographers there are, choreographing some of the most epic Janet dances, who's another person known for dancing, but like Paula, choreographed a lot of those epic moves.
That Janet did.
And Paula speaking out for the queer community during the time when everyone was afraid, you know, around that time that freedom came out. You know, Paula was an ally spoke in support for AIDS victims and for the queer community in a time when people were afraid to even talk about it and mention it. To then have her as one of my judges during my season of American Idol. Simon and Randy and Paula, you know, they're all special in their own way, but Paula was the one who had come up after nearly every week after the performances and come and connect with us, give us a hug, let us know that she understood the pressure we were under, that we were doing a good job and that we could get through it. You know, Simon definitely wasn't doing that. It was Paula who always has always always been compassionate reaching out. You know, she's been supportive both before I came out and since I've come out, So it was it was really special to get to kind of thank her in return last year to the other allies. Yeah, there have been some great allies. You know my fellow American IDOL alumni, you know David Cook, Brooke White, who she's you know, she's Mormon and she grew up Mormon, but she's always been more progressive in the way she looks at things. She's always said, you know, I don't know why. You know, she's like, I want to challenge these things and how queer people are perceived and stuff. And she's always been in my corner. Jordan Sparks, Rameo Malubai, Adore de Lano have all been amazing people who've It's been really nice to know. I've had people who supported me even when I was a Mormon and who now support me after my journey being a Mormon and after coming out as queer, and some of my fellow queer friends who've taught me that it's okay. Because I thought if I come out as queer, I'm going to be this dangerous person.
I don't know, I didn't know how.
I just that's what I was told, So that's what I believed. So my friends like Scott Hoying from Pentatonics and his husband Mark have been great, my friend Kevin McHale as well, just people to get to talk to and realize, oh, you can still be good. Yeah, I don't know what I perceived before, but it's just you know, you're.
Not around it.
You're told to stay away from it, so you have no real idea of what queer people actually are like because you're always encouraged. You're always encouraged to stay away from them. At least I was so to not be afraid of them anymore, to have friends just connect with them, and you know, we have a shared lived experience where we were afraid of ourselves when we were kids, and then we have to reach a point where it's like, you know, I can't be afraid of myself anymore.
I have to just accept who I am.
And the process of recreating your identity and yourself and getting to know who you really are after hiding from it yourself has been an interesting process. But I'm grateful for my friends who've been there with me, and my fans who've supported me both as a super Mormon and as after that life. It's like two lives, and people are supporting both of my lives.
And you know what, you're just beginning. Thank you, you're just beginning.
And I salute you with your tribute to George and freedom, and I salute you for your bravery.
Thank you. I appreciate it.
Buzz, thanks for being on Taking a Walk, David, Thanks for having me.
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