The only thing Peck is direct about, apart from his “sincerity agenda,” is his sexuality. While he understands his place in modern country’s landscape is, in part, disruptive, Peck — a fan of music’s history as much as anything — is quick to point out he’s following a path that had been blazed long before him. Homoeroticism is almost innate in cowboy culture and has been explored through many forms of media, from visual art and film to literature. Theatrics, he argues, have been ingrained in the genre from the beginning, noting the Opry as “almost vaudevillian kind of performance that you have to be invited and indoctrinated into.”