TV: Right. You obviously had a lot more physical resources with this album, but it's still very raw. I'm gonna be honest, I had a very visceral reaction to it. I cried the first time I listened through to the album. Have you gotten any similar feedback from fans? What does it feel like to know that you affect someone you don't know on such a deep, emotional level?

JB: I used to always apologize when people would say they cry, but now I don't. I just try to say, "Wow." Because I understand that sometimes people need to feel those feelings, and to feel that they're valid. And it's cool to me, not in a weird way, but I think it's kind of amazing that through our limited interaction — that is only within or about the music that I've created — that [my work] could have such a strong emotional impact on another person that I know very little about. What's so gratifying, honestly, about performing the songs live, or about making art at all, is seeing it be received in a way that's so intimate....It gives me a very deep reverence for what I do. I don't take it lightly or think that it's ever just a show. I would never take a show for granted.

I think hearing people tell me what the record meant to them or that this lyric made them feel less alone in a situation that I had never experienced [is amazing]. I started to understand that after I've written the song — as a creator and the main character of all these autobiographical songs — part of the task is me getting out of the way of the music itself and becoming just an arbiter for those emotions; to let people feel what it is that they need to feel.

TV: Totally. It's cool to know that you make art that other people can identify so deeply with. Kind of on a related note, does it frustrate you at all when it feels like the conversations surrounding you is identity-focused? Or is that something that's so intertwined with your musical identity that you feel like it's essential?

JB: We were talking before about me trying to get out of the way of the songs. I do not want to make art and then try to dictate how people use it, or how people interact with it. But if that is the purpose that it serves to a lot of people, then that makes me so happy. Because there was not anybody, when I was a kid, explicitly saying, "I am gay and I am also a Christian."

I never tire of talking about it, because to me it seems like such a worthy topic. And what's far more important than me feeling like my art is legitimate and it being engaged with the way that I prefer, is that kids that are queer and come from a Christian background feel less alone. But also, at no point in my music do I have a lyric that says, "I am gay and I believe in God," because I believe that a covert message is sometimes a lot more effective. It can be a little bit more authentic than if I'm trying to be direct with my ideologies, to the point of disregarding any poetry or nuance to it.

TV: What about addressing this sort of thing directly in like interviews and stuff?