An Interview with Award-Winning Composer Blake Allen

As an award-winning composer, musician, orchestrator, and educator, Blake Allen is known for his innovative bridging of contemporary music and theatre through composition, performance, and storytelling.

Heavily influenced by his Mormon upbringing and the vast, cultural landscapes of his hometown of El Paso, Texas, Allen made his professional debut at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 2016 and instantly became a rising New York artist. Although he has dipped his toes in several music projects and theatrical productions, nothing can compare to his autobiographical album that was released in September, The Shards of an Honor Code Junkie. Touching on Allen’s Mormon faith and personal life experiences such as sexual assault and losing a close friend to suicide, Shards has received critical acclaim and has over two million streams on Spotify.

Additionally, the album is being considered for a Grammy Award and has started conversations about LGBTQ student treatments at universities, as well as suicide, trauma, and self-love.

OFM caught up with Allen to talk more about Shards and some of his other projects, which include writing the score for an upcoming documentary about conversion therapy survivors and being the official music director for drag icons Doris Dear, Tina Burner, and Marti G. Cummings, whom Allen is married to.

I would like to begin by talking about Shards, your autobiographical album that came out this past September. How does it feel that it’s being considered for a Grammy Award?
It’s pretty exciting and wild. Growing up, that’s something that you think is never going to happen to you, but even being on the ballot was such a nice surprise.

What inspired you to create an album detailing your experience growing up as a closeted gay Mormon, and is this your first time doing a project like this?
I’ve released albums before, but this is the first time maybe in this scope. What inspired me to do this album was that it came from a place of me still not dealing with my trauma. I’ve been in the city for about 10 to 11 years, and about five years into living in the city, I was like, I’m still struggling with this trauma. My therapist at the time was like, why don’t you start writing through that trauma to understand what’s going on? It’s easier to place things artistically, so that’s where the idea for this project started.

And it became a therapeutic outlet for you? I mean, the album touches on some heavy subjects such as your own sexual assault and the suicide of a close friend.
Yes, and it also turned out to be therapeutic for my familiar relationships and other people in the community. I get messages all the time from people thanking me for writing this and how it has been comforting for them.

Ultimately, what do you hope listeners take away from Shards?
That there’s always hope and to lead your life loving yourself. I know it’s so cliché, but you have one life to live, and if you’re living it for other people, then you’re not really living your life. So, it’s about loving yourself and not putting the expectations on how other people love you back.

The album gained over one million streams in less than a month and debuted number 1 on Amazon, number 2 on iTunes, and number 12 on the Billboard charts. Were you surprised by how well it was being received?
I really was because it’s hard to tell something so personal, and I think it’s so intense because not only are you wondering if people are going to receive the album and enjoy it, but how are people going to receive your own personal story?  We actually hit two million streams on Spotify last month. It’s been a wild journey, and I’m just grateful that people care enough and are listening.

Did you find it at all challenging to be vulnerable?
Absolutely. It is challenging to be vulnerable. I think that us, as queer people, we come out of the womb queer, so we’re trying to navigate the world. Talking about sexual assault, I’m able to talk about it all the time now because I’ve gone through therapy, and it happened so long ago, but I think it’s always so intense being so vulnerable because you don’t know how people are going to judge you. It’s like watching shows like The Morning Show; you tell a personal story to hopefully enact change in someone else. Hopefully the suicide of my friend, my own sexual assault, and my family now accepting me can help someone realize they don’t have to worry about the shackles that their life has given them.

Speaking of family, did you have a falling out after you came out?
Oh, yes. I came out at the Thanksgiving table, which in my head seemed like a great idea (laughs). We went around the table one by one, I’m the youngest, and we said what we’re grateful for. I said, I’m grateful for a family who doesn’t care that I’m gay, which probably was not the smartest thing to do, but I got the courage to do that. My family loves me, and they loved me through all this, but it has been a rocky road for about 15 years.

I was putting such pressure on them. Like, you have to love me this way, but I was able to zoom out and go, oh, my parents do love me, but I was alive for 18 years and expecting them to instantly come onboard with something that they had not heard about yet. It took time, and I’m married to a drag queen, which I think helps. It’s just changing my expectation about how they love me.

How would you say your Mormon upbringing influences your work as a composer and musician?
I think it has a direct influence. I’m so influenced by hymnal chords, and the Mormon Church is so American. If you go to the Catholic Church, it’s very established overseas, but all the hymns at the Mormon Church are very Americanized chord progressions.

Has music always been a passion of yours and a career you wanted to pursue?
Yes. My mother majored in piano pedagogy, so I started piano when I was three and she taught me. I don’t really have memories without music in some aspect, and some of my favorite memories have music attached to them. Even if it’s just, like, a road trip with a friend, a specific song is playing.

Music has been such a big part of my life, and then because my mother’s career was music, there was never a question about not becoming a musician. I had such supportive parents who were like, you have this talent; let’s push you in that direction. I’m trying to think about if there would be any other profession I would want to be in, and the answer’s no.

You are the official pianist and music director for RuPaul’s Drag Race alum Tina Burner, and you orchestrated and arranged her cabaret series Maybe This Time. How much fun was that?
Oh my gosh, it was so fun! I love Tina Burner so much. She is much more of a monster than me, but we have a similar aesthetic in our humor (laughs). I very much enjoy spending time with her, and we are currently working on her next show, Mix Queen: A Relationship Mixtape, which will be coming to Colorado Springs March 2 to 3 at ICONS.

Tina is such a consummate musician; she’s so smart, and I’m so glad that Maybe This Time, which is about telling her story backwards from when she was on Drag Race to when she came out through Broadway, has really shown this softer side of her that the TV show didn’t air. Every place we’ve gone, people are like, oh my gosh, I had no idea you were an amazing singer, or I had no idea that you are a kind human being. I’m so glad that I’ve been able to go on that journey with her.

What can you tell us about Mix Queen?
Tina created the mix, and she likes to splice comedy with sound bites and songs. That really didn’t exist until Tina started doing it in New York. Now; it’s kind of a staple thing that drag queens do across the country. So, we got the crying out of the way with Maybe This Time, so now we’re going to go across the country and show audiences her humor because she’s a reigning National Comedy Queen. It’s going to be very spicy with a mix between her mixes, and then we’re doing live mixes and lots of pop songs. I’m playing piano live, and it’s going to be a lot of fun.

You also wrote the two-hour long minimalist score to the upcoming documentary Conversion, which is about conversion therapy survivors and slated to be released early this year. What can you tell us about this, and what did you take away from that experience?
Oh, wow. It was really hard watching that film. When you write a film score, you’re listening back and watching the same thing over and over again, but this is a beautiful film, and it ends happily because people learn to love themselves. Thankfully, I didn’t go through conversion therapy, but the process of being Mormon, and you’re not allowed to be gay, it’s like I had my own version of it.

Zach Meiners is the director, and I’m so grateful that he’s telling this story, and he’s also in it. Canada just banned conversion therapy, so we as a country have a long way to go. The Queen of England has said that conversion therapy is bad, so why aren’t we saying that here? Writing this score was such a wonderful process.

I had to go to Iceland in the middle of it to work, so I was writing without a piano, but I equate the mountains of Iceland giving me inspiration. From signing the contract to the recording studio, I had two and a half weeks. It was pretty stressful, but I think the marriage of what Zach created and my music, it’s a horror story in a way, but it blossoms into people learning how to love each other.

What are some goals you would like to achieve in 2022, and what more would you like to accomplish with your platform?
I have certain goals. I’m in talks with Carnegie Hall about doing a concert later in fall. We’re still deciding on a date, but I would premiere two new classical pieces, which I think would be wild. That’s kind of been an aspiration of mine. This whole year is me saying, I’m not going to be afraid of taking up space. I know my worth, I know what I can give to the world, let me just do it. Especially in the arts and in New York City, we’re trying to please everyone and not step on anybody’s toes. I’m like, we’re going to step on people’s toes no matter what, so let’s do it with grace and humility.

With my platform, I want people, like I said, to learn how to love themselves and love one another. My spouse ran for city council here in New York, and with the political climate we live in, our Black and brown trans community members are getting killed at alarming rates in the city, and in the country. I hope that we can bring awareness that trans rights are human rights and Black lives matter. Our Asian communities are also being attacked, our indigenous communities need rights, so as a cis white gay man, it’s kind of my job to allow people to speak, and I hope that we can have a more equitable society.

Stay up-to-date and connect with Allen by following him on Instagram @blakeallenpresents, or visit his official website, blakeallen.org.

Photos Courtesy of Michael Kushner and Bryan Clavel