This glam-pop singer has been called Elton John Gen. His new album is up to that title.

After perfecting your trade on the way and as an act of support for panic! In the disco, Kesha and other artists, Jake Wesley Rogers is taking the center of the stage with a project that sees how the trip of his life.

The singer and composer based in Los Angeles makes a safe offer for musical stardom in his long -term debut album “In the Key of Love”. Last week released, the album finds the 28-year-old reflecting on his strange identity and Christian education against lush-pop and melancholic piano melodies. Songs like “Mother, Mary and Me”, “Kitchen Table” and “Heaven in My Head” are reflexive mediations about faith and mortality, while the propulsive simple “Loser” is a loser anthem that evokes the “ga ga radius” of Queen.

Rogers is loved by fans for his innate theatricality and his sexy and glam-pop personality, which leads Vogue to consider him “Elton John de la Generación Z”. The listeners familiar with their previous four EPs will not be surprised by the spiritual subtext of the new album; Speaking to the defender in 2022, he cited “Like A Prayer” by Madonna as an influence.

Michael Bailey-Gates

But as a gay man, Rogers says that his goal is to be “a presence of love” for those who have come to see religion as a means of oppression towards the LGBTQ+ community and other marginalized groups.

“I am not a religious person, but the Christian lens is rooted in me,” Rogers said. “It is an extension of who I am, where I am and my curiosities as a human being. In addition, I believe that those who are deprived of their rights, unpleasant and, often, ridiculed by society are those who end up saving the day.”

He continued observing: “Religion does not belong to people in power. I think that faith is richer in people who have very little. What ignites me is the possibility of reformulating these stories to include people who were really destined to include … I want nothing more than be an instrument of peace and love in this world.”

Regardless of how “in the key to love”, Rogers sees the album as a personal and professional triumph. Ozark’s native, Missouri, proved for the first time conventional recognition at age 15, when he was a contestant in “America’s Got Talent” in 2012. He was eliminated from the quarter -final round, an experience that now describes as “devastating.”

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“I loved singing, so he felt like something natural,” he recalled. “But there is no care or consideration for the lives that are being exploited. I realized that it was not an artist. Being an artist is about defending something and having a message.”

In 2021, Rogers signed with Facet Records, the distributed seal of Warner Bros. founded by the three times nominated for Grammy Justin Tranter, who has collaborated with Lady Gaga and Chappell Roan. He quickly launched two EPS, “Pluto” of 2021 and “love” of 2022, on the label, but was forced to postpone the work in “In the Key of Love” last year to undergo surgery for a ruled intestine due to Crohn’s disease.

Ultimately, that reverse of health gave Rogers an impulse for “See How there is Go” on the album. “There is a great [David] Bowie cites how the best creativity is when you are swimming beyond where your fingers can’t touch more, “he said.” Maybe I went too far, but I eventually swam. ”

Erika Goldring through Getty Images

Although Rogers is light in details, he plans to support “in the key to love” with a main tour that imagines as “more a musical concert than a pop concert.” This summer will join Cyndi Lauper in the final stage of his girls, he just wants to have fun, a farewell tour, which hits Philadelphia, Denver and other cities before wrapping with two shows in the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles in August.

Given the current political climate of the United States, Rogers says that he is particularly anxious to make the complaint “God bless”, which includes the letter: “God bless the trans Child in Texas”, when the tour reaches the most conservative cities.

“Sometimes one person is only needed to change the fundamental beliefs of another person,” he said. “As a white gay cis man, I’m very lucky not to be too worried [about my rights being rolled back] At this point. It is our trans brothers who need the greatest support at this time. ”