Caleb has newly spoken at length about his lifelong struggles with his sexuality and the decision to now live life as a proud gay man.
The post Beartooth’s Caleb Shomo On Coming Out In The Metal Scene: “We Have Rob Halford, And That Was In The ’90s” appeared first on Theprp.com.
Interview by Ali Williams Spanish melodic death metal force BLOODHUNTER returns on June 12 with their new album, Sons Of The Abandoned. It has been both a long wait and a very deliberate one for the band. Four years have passed since the band’s previous album, and while fans have been understandably circling the release […]
Having just announced his second solo tour of Australia in twelve months, The Best of INXS 2026 Tour. We sat down with JD Fortune to talk all things INXS, his favourite INXS tunes and shared stories of his journey and time on the show and in INXS. Fortune is one of the most enjoyable chats I have had in some time, genuine, honest and The 2025 run of shows gained rave reviews for not only his performance but the connection he has with the music and fans.
This run of shows will ones not to miss. My chat with JD Fortune is one of the most enjoyable one I have had in some time. Fortune is the real deal, honest, open and charming. Somehow thirty minutes with him just wasn’t enough. Be sure to catch JD Fortune doing his thing this October all across the country and be prepared to be blown away.
A huge thanks to John Howarth, Metropolis Touring and of course JD himself for the chat.
The post INTERVIEW: JD FORTUNE talks about the “Best of INXS” tour and more appeared first on The Rockpit.
Jimi Hendrix grew up in Seattle and broke through in London, but before and after finding fame, he made New York City’s Greenwich Village his home base. That’s where Hendrix set up Electric Lady, his personal recording studio, which remains a fixture of the neighborhood today. And as of today it’s where you can walk down Jimi Hendrix Way.
The post Jimi Hendrix Way Unveiled In NYC appeared first on Stereogum.
The heavy music community is rallying behind one of its most prominent contemporary standard-bearers after a deeply vulnerable look into the severe psychological trauma of the closet. Just weeks after dropping a massive personal announcement that shook the alternative rock scene, Beartooth visionary Caleb Shomo has chosen to shed light on the structural roadblocks, religious dogma, and toxic industry settings that systematically delayed his ability to live authentically.
Appearing as a special guest on the Disrespectfully podcast hosted by long-time close friends Katie Maloney and Dayna Kathan, the 33-year-old tracking mastermind went completely unfiltered—revealing how a childhood isolated inside hyper-evangelical spaces forced him to view his natural sexuality as a demonic form of sickness. While the modern iteration of Beartooth is internationally revered for its high-contrast anthems of mental health resilience and self-love, Shomo’s path to personal clarity was severely stunted by his family lineage.
Describing himself as the “son of a preacher who is the son of a preacher,” the vocalist unpacked the terrifying emotional isolation of growing up in Ohio without a shred of self-worth. As the band prepares to unleash their highly anticipated sixth studio album, Pure Ecstasy, this August via Fearless Records, Shomo is finally using his raw lyrical power to dismantle decades of internal shame, offering full, heartbreaking details on his battle with suicidal ideation and substance dependency.
For Shomo, the foundational concepts of identity were skewed from infancy by the strict theological structures of regional Southern Christianity. Rather than learning to foster internal validation or self-care, the singer admitted he was conditioned to view his entire existence solely as a utility to serve the religious collective—a framework that proved toxic when his natural orientation began to manifest.
“Essentially, with Christianity, you devote your life to Jesus and then in the more Southern side of Christianity where I come from, it’s more serving people,” Shomo shared openly during the broadcast. “And to me, well I have no self worth, no self love, no reason for being here other than serving other people and loving other people and following the playbook. So that’s a tough place to start, especially being gay.”
The psychological weight intensified as the institutional church spaces he inhabited explicitly framed alternative sexualities not as a natural human variance, but as a spiritual deficit that could be actively prayed away.
“And then probably even more damaging than that upbringing was being involved in a music scene in that really wild Christian era of the mid-late 2000s that I came up in, adjacent to, like, Underoath and stuff, that at the time was very Christian and very evangelical and intense and I was involved in this music scene where I was 14 when I got into the scene, hanging out with a lot of older people who are very evangelical devout Christians and I was a Christian myself,” Shomo explained, mapping out his early career trajectory.
LIVE & LOUD: Stream the World’s Hardest Radio Station 24/7During the extensive timeline conversation, Shomo recalled the precise moment his internal survival mechanisms kicked in to violently suppress his authentic self. He pinpointed a specific, haunting childhood memory around the age of six or seven that served as a cruel introduction to societal policing.
“My first core memory of what I recognize is that was when I was probably six or seven and my mom and my older brother … we were at some department store and there were these cheap rings and we though they were really cool,” the singer recalled. “And my mom was like, ‘Okay, you guys can get one.’ And he picked a guy’s ring and I picked a girl’s ring. And he’s like, ‘You know that’s a girl’s ring.’ And I was like, ‘Oh, I don’t know. I just love it.’”
“It was half silver, half gold and had a diamond in the middle. I just loved it and I loved the way it made me feel. And I wore it all day and then I remember the next day on the bus just getting ridiculed by the kids … I just freaked out and didn’t know what was going on and threw it out the window. It was like, ‘F***, don’t do that. Whatever that is, let’s keep that away.’”
That sudden, reactive act of throwing the jewelry away became the permanent operational blueprint for how Shomo handled his evolving identity throughout his adolescence and twenties while navigating the conservative landscapes of Ohio.
“To me what that was was this very strong feminine side that I have, but it’s just not the vibe in Ohio in the Christian world,” Shomo stated. “And then growing up, the older you get and then hanging out with a lot of older people and just conversations constantly reminding you how fing weird it is to be gay if you do anything remotely gay or feminine. So that feeling that I had, which I now understand was my sexuality, I just viewed and compartmentalized as just self-hatred. It’s this thing that’s evil in me and okay, you fight this with all of your might. And that’s the right thing to do. You fing pray about it.”
The long-term consequences of maintaining that high-pressure emotional containment were nearly fatal. Shomo confessed that whenever natural feelings or attractions surfaced that threatened the religious walls he built, his brain automatically defaulted to self-destruction. The singer revealed he was plagued by persistent suicidal thoughts throughout his youth, eventually leaning heavily on severe alcohol dependency throughout his twenties to completely numb the internal war.
“I was just hiding from myself,” Shomo admitted, noting that his public battles with severe depression and anxiety—which heavily fueled Beartooth’s early classic tracking records like Disgusting and Aggressive—were actually the direct, structural side-effects of a man terrified of his own truth.
Looking strictly toward the future, Shomo is channeling this massive personal breakthrough directly into the sonic architecture of Beartooth’s sixth studio masterpiece, Pure Ecstasy, slated for a global street-date drop on August 28, 2026, via Fearless Records.
Following the chart-topping success of 2023’s The Surface, the new 11-track record represents the absolute first time Shomo has written music from a place of uncompromised personal honesty. To ensure he didn’t retreat into his typical habits of shielding his pain behind metaphorical or vague lyricism, Shomo credited ex-Bring Me The Horizon tracking architect and elite producer Jordan Fish with aggressively pushing him to the emotional brink.
Fish, who co-produced the highly anticipated record alongside songwriting contributions from Periphery’s Misha Mansoor, forced Shomo to strip away the industry-standard generalities and state his reality explicitly. The result is what Shomo defines as the most terrifyingly honest and uncompromisingly heavy tracking array of his entire existence, teased heavily by the massive, down-tuned breakdown velocity of the new title track single.
Caleb Shomo publicly came out as a gay man via his official social media platforms in May 2026, followed by his first comprehensive broadcast interview on the June 10, 2026 episode of the Disrespectfully podcast.
Beartooth’s sixth studio album, Pure Ecstasy, is scheduled for a worldwide release on August 28, 2026, marking the band’s official full-length debut with independent label giants Fearless Records.
The album features heavy production and co-writing contributions from legendary alternative producer Jordan Fish (ex-Bring Me The Horizon) alongside dynamic guitar tracking assistance from Periphery’s Misha Mansoor.
The mid-to-late 2000s marked a highly unique, unprecedented cultural phenomenon in alternative music: the explosion of Christian evangelical metalcore into mainstream commercial visibility. Spearheaded by gold-certified Billboard titans like Underoath, As I Lay Dying, and August Burns Red, the heavy music scene became heavily dominated by labels like Solid State and Tooth & Nail. This ecosystem required young artists to maintain strict religious standards to preserve their distribution networks and festival slots.
Entering this intense, high-pressure environment at the tender age of 14 as an electronic tracking technician and eventual frontman for electronic-core breakout outfit Attack Attack!, Caleb Shomo was exposed to adult evangelical expectations before his own identity could even form. By breaking his silence on the deep emotional toll of this specific era, Shomo is delivering crucial historical context to alternative music culture, illuminating the hidden human cost behind one of the scene’s most profitable historical movements.
Now that Caleb Shomo has laid bare the intense personal history and religious conditioning that shaped his path, the floor belongs to the Loaded Radio global family. Are you ready to hear the raw, unfiltered emotional weight of Pure Ecstasy when it drops this August, or are you tracking their upcoming autumn stadium dates? Drop your thoughts, messages of support, and live tour expectations in the comments section below!
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The post Beartooth’s Caleb Shomo Says a Strict Religious Upbringing and 2000s Christian Metal Scene Forced Him to View His Sexuality as Evil appeared first on Loaded Radio.
In April we heard “Geneva,” the debut single from Morgan Noise, and we learned that Morgan Noise is the band led by Fat Dog’s Morgan Wallace. Now, according to the sacred customs of the record business, she’s followed up that song by sharing another one and announcing her debut LP.
The post Morgan Noise Announce Debut Album <em>Something Built, Something Remembered</em>: Hear “Silly Me” appeared first on Stereogum.