Paul Masvidal and Sean Reinert have been playing music together since middle school. After years of tightening their progressive metal sound, they formed Cynic and released a number of promising demos before recording the masterful Focus in 1993. They became mega-stars in the metal community, but there was something that not even their biggest fans knew: they’re gay.
Both men are gay and stars in a music scene where bands can wear corpse-paint makeup and leather S&M garb while singing about Satan and dismemberment — yet genuinely nonconforming sexuality hasn’t always been welcome.
Though they’ve been comfortably out for years in their private lives, the two haven’t yet spoken about their sexuality in the context of their music.
“I see all those old dudes out there just banging their heads to our records,” Reinert said, wearing an imposing goatee and extra-large Miami Dolphins jersey. “And I have to think — ‘That stuff you’re banging your head to? That is some gay, gay metal, man.'” (Via)
Read more about that gay, gay metal, man, over at the LA Times.
