Arlington Heights native Tom Andersen comes back to his roots when he performs for two nights at Metropolis Performing Arts Centre. The openly gay singer/songwriter, who now live in New York City, kicks off Pride Month with this highly anticipated Chicago-area appearance.
Gregg Shapiro: I'd like to begin by having you say a few things about your background.
Tom Andersen: I was born in Chicago and I lived in Arlington Heights, until I was 18 and moved out of the house. I won't tell you what year I graduated, but it was in the late '70s.
GS: Did you do musical theater?
TA: I really didn't. I did a lot of straight plays in high school. I did some community musical theater. I did Oliver, with Karen Mason of all people. I did Fiddler On The Roof and Gypsy. All those old favorites. In my junior year ( of high school ) I was cast as a Great America singer at the Great America Theme Park. I worked with Liz Callaway out in Gurnee. We became pals and we're still friends. I see her now and then, here in New York City. I went to college briefly at Illinois Wesleyan. I realized that it wasn't for me.
GS: What did you do then?
TA: There was a sister park to Great America in California and I always wanted to go to California. I asked the music director if I could do a season out there, just kind of get myself out there, for a change of pace. So, I actually took a Greyhound Bus across country. That was an adventure. It was like out of a movie. The bus got stranded out in Nebraska, it was one thing after another on that bus ride. I finally got there three or four days later. I did a summer out there and I was going to come back to Illinois, to go to another school, to study opera at Indiana University, Bloomington. At the last second, kind of as a fluke, I auditioned for this show Beach Blanket Babylon, which is this show in San Francisco, which has been running forever, still running as a matter of fact. I got hired, as a regular. I stayed for about four and a half years and then I bounced around in the clubs, in San Francisco. After about 12 years, I wanted a change of pace. I wanted a faster pace because Northern California is incredible and gorgeous, but with the whole AIDS thing, a lot of the clubs had closed down and the whole landscape kind of changed. So I thought New York or L.A. New York seemed kind of like Chicago to me. Chicago, I think, has kind of an Eastern sensibility. I just looked at a calendar and picked a date out of the clear blue, "I think I can have enough money by this date" and I just put my finger on a date in June, and I moved. That was 1991.
GS: I'm glad that you mentioned Karen Mason. Have you had the chance to perform with her in New York?
TA: We've done a lot of benefits and things like that, mostly benefits, that's as far as we've shared a bill. I've seen her perform and she's come to see me. I'm a big fan, I've learned a lot from her.
GS: What can you tell me about your performance career in New York?
TA: At the very beginning, I was lucky enough to perform in the Cabaret Convention, which is this yearly, week-long event at Town Hall. There are 20 singers a night and it's always sold out, because the tickets are really cheap. You're basically exposing yourself to a lot of people. That was the first time I really sang here ( in New York ) . Talk about one of those evenings that really change your life. For some reason I just got a lot of press out of that performance.
GS: What about honors and awards?
TA: I received the MAC Award ( Manhattan Association of Clubs and Cabaret ) , some people call it the Oscars of the New York Cabaret scene, I don't know if I'd go quite that far. I've been lucky enough to receive five of them. One for debut, two for male vocalist, one for my recording The Journey and another one for song of the year for my song, "Yard Sale." Then I won another thing called the Bistro Award, I've won three of those. That's given out by Back Stage newspaper.
GS: You've released two discs—Far Away Place ( 1995 ) and The Journey ( 1998 ) . Both albums have a healthy mix of cover tunes and originals. Can you please tell me how you go about selecting the songs that you cover?
TA: It's a tough process, but I always rely on my gut. There are certain numbers that I will be doing live that are really good tunes for me, people respond to them, I love doing them and I think I can go into the studio and produce them well. Those are naturals. My CDs are kind of extensions of my act.
GS: What can you tell me about your original material?
TA: I wrote these tunes basically for fun, for myself, I didn't even know how to write a song. I've been to a couple of classes, have a couple books. I realized that I think I know enough about music in general to maybe sit down and ... I tiptoed into the world of song writing because I hadn't been formally trained. I was totally guessing the whole way. When things started to pay off and people seemed to respond to them, people started coming to me about performing them. It amazes me that something that had lived in my head and then came through my hand onto paper—that people would want to do them. There's a sense of satisfaction when I hear someone perform or record one of my songs.
GS: There were three years between the release of your discs. Does that mean that since it's been three years since The Journey that there is a new album forthcoming?
TA: I've really been doing a lot of writing lately, and as a result of my writing I got a publishing deal with Warner Chapel Publishing. I'm looking at material right now, I've been demoing a lot of material for my publisher and for other singers. I think this summer, I'm going to demo about five songs.
GS: What can we expect from your upcoming date at Metropolis?
TA: It's going to be an extension of my CD The Journey because I'm coming home, my actual home town, I'm so excited about it. A light version of "this is your life, Tom Andersen." Basically, a music journey of my life.
