Between those two dates, Hoying also appeared on High School Musical: The Musical: The Series, where he played the love interest of Ryan Evans (Lucas Grabeel), thus confirming that the character to whom audiences were introduced in 2006 is, in fact, queer. Though Hoying is unable to talk about his appearance on the show because of the ongoing SAG-AFTRA strike, he is elated as we catch up with him via Zoom during his “first week of being a husband.”
For those unfamiliar with Hoying and his group Pentatonix, the singer and actor hails from Arlington, where some of his fondest memories include going to Six Flags every summer.
“There was actually one year that my sister, sadly, tore her ACL [knee ligament] and she had to get rehab on her knee every day,” Hoying says. “And it was right by Six Flags, and I had to go with my dad to take her every single day of the summer. I think I went to Six Flags every day that summer.”
This has no doubt been a busy summer for Hoying, who is still on cloud nine following his magical seaside wedding, hot off of his EP release. Now he's gearing up to tour with Pentatonix, but he holds his hometown close, especially restaurants such as No Frills Grill, El Arroyo and Whataburger, where he says he will likely stop the next time he’s in town.
After all, Arlington is where he formed Pentatonix alongside Mitch Grassi and Kirstin Maldonado while they were students at Martin High School. The a cappella group has since gone on to win three Grammy Awards.
“It's amazing having Pentatonix, because the music industry is such a scary place,” Hoying says. ”It's so cool to be able to have your best friends that you've known from Arlington, Texas, as people who feel like home in a scary industry. Twelve years later, we're still going strong.”
While Hoying is grateful to be surrounded by the people he grew up with, his solo EP came to him during a lonely time, the COVID-19 pandemic. During this time, Hoying began learning how to use the software Pro Tools in order to write, produce and record a body of work of his own.
“As I started to get past the tedium of learning Pro Tools, I became obsessed all of a sudden — like, video game obsessed — and I started watching YouTube tutorials and learning more and more,” Hoying says. “I started to be able to make my own music just by myself, which I had never been able to do before. I usually have to pick an engineer, a studio and a songwriting partner. I still worked with people [on Parallel], but it was so cool to be able to flesh out an idea on my own.”
Parallel is a project two years in the making, and, as one can guess, beyond the obvious "side project" connotation, it's largely inspired by Hoying’s relationship with Manio. Even the EP’s title alludes to a time when the couple skipped out on an event and spent the night lying parallel to each other on the kitchen floor, talking into the morning.
Over the EP’s rattling, percussive title track, Hoying also uses the word “parallel” to refer to the pair’s synchronicity, both physically and emotionally.
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“He's my muse,” Hoying says of Manio. “And I’m in this really happy, lovey chapter of my life. And when I write music, I try to be as authentic as possible. The EP turned into this love letter to my husband.”
Another more upbeat track on the EP is “Trust Fall,” which Hoying wrote the day he proposed to Manio. The punchy, pop-inspired track has Hoying detailing the events leading up to the proposal and the anxiety he felt in the hours before. Even though, Hoying says, since he was a child he has always looked forward to proposing to his special someone.
A more heartbreaking, vulnerable track is the ballad “Bubs,” which was inspired by Hoying’s dog, Bubba, who died this past January at 2 years old from a rare form of leukemia.
“I remember when I found out that he only had a few weeks left to live,” Hoying says “I was in my car, and I was so devastated. I couldn't even drive, so I pulled over, and I guess my go-to therapy in the moment as I was panicking was to write out stuff in my phone. When I got home, Bubba was laying on the couch by me, and I just started turning that little journal entry I made in the car into a song.”
Displaying raw, vulnerable emotions, Hoying joins an evolving pop music landscape, which is making more room for LGBTQ+ artists. However, while artists like Hoying, Sam Smith, Kim Petras and Lil Nas X seem to be indicators of a change within the music scene, Hoying emphasizes the importance of LGBTQ+ equality outside of the realm of art.
“I feel like a lot of queer artists are thriving,” says Hoying. “It's just so good to see society as a whole start to accept [LGBTQ+ artists] more. But that being said, there’s so much room for improvement. There's still so much rampant homophobia and attacks on the queer community right now that are just at another level. And it's really, really heartbreaking to see, and I feel like we have a long way to go.”
