On his achingly beautiful debut album Music for Tourists (Absolutely Kosher), queer singer/songwriter Chris Garneau performs tunes that linger like the vapor trails that airplanes leave in the sky. His incredible voice can go from a gentle whisper to a full-fledged belt in a matter of moments, and the effect is palpable, sort of the musical equivalent of a lump in the throat. I spoke with Garneau shortly before he embarked on a U.S. tour.

Gay & Lesbian Times: Your debut disc Music for Tourists was produced by Duncan Sheik. How did that come about?

Chris Garneau: I met Duncan about eight years ago. I was still in high school at the time. I grew up in the New York/New Jersey area and I used to do some minimal acting stuff back then. I was involved with the preliminary workshops of his new musical called Spring Awakening. When I was however old I was, 17 or 16, he said, “Someday I’ll produce your record,” and here we are eight years later with a record out that he produced [laughs]. That’s how we met.

GLT: So, he’s a man of his word.

CG: Yeah. I gave him these sort of silly recordings I made in high school, and he said he loved them, and that he’d produce the record for me, and we did it.

GLT: What part did you play in Spring Awakening?

CG: I did a few workshops in high school and a little bit post high school. I played numerous roles. I was never either of the sort of main two boys; I was always a different school boy. I had a different name every time [laughs].

GLT: Would you consider Duncan a musical influence, and who else would you consider to be your musical influences?

CG: Honestly, no. My main, more modern influences are in the [Jeff] Buckley, Elliot Smith, Chan Marshall vein. Joanna Newsome is a big influence. Duncan’s Phantom Moon record is the first sort of bit that I got to know of him. But most of his music is more geared in the pop direction, which isn’t something that has really influenced [laughs] me over the years.

GLT: And Phantom Moon was more of an homage to Nick Drake. I’m glad that you mentioned Smith because you perform a cover of his song “Between the Bars” on Music for Tourists. Was it very meaningful for you to be able to include a song of his on your album?

CG: It was! It is the cover song that I do. I’ve been playing it for years. Ever since I first started playing shows in New York, I was playing that song. I never even got to see Elliot play live, unfortunately, and when he died it was really overwhelming and really, really sad for so many people and for me. It was really important for me to put that song on the record.

GLT: The video for “Relief” is truly wonderful. What can you tell me about the making of it?

CG: One of my best friends, Daniel Stessen, co-directed it with our other friend, Dori Oskowitz. They were living together in L.A. a few years ago. They called me up one day and said: “We want to make this video. We have a little budget to do it. We’ll fly you out to L.A. and just do it. Pick a song, and if you feel there is any kind of single on the record, let’s try to do one of those. Whatever you want to do, let’s just make it,” and I picked “Relief.” Within a month, I was out there and they had this beautiful plan for it. It was a really fortunate experience for me. It was super fun and just really amazing to show up and have this team of people wanting to help me out. It was just really, really lucky.

GLT: Why did you choose that song?

CG: For one, we were still sort of in the beginnings of making the record and, at the time, “Relief” was the only rough mix that was ready to go [laughs]. You may even notice that it’s quite different from the record version, with just piano and cello and drums at the time. There’s not really anything else, and the song that’s on the video is a rough mix, so that is sort of weird. It could maybe be thought of as the single; it’s probably the poppiest song on the record. I just sort of chose it on a whim.

GLT: Has the video been shown on Logo?

CG: I just recently found out that they added it to their list. I don’t know what that means for me. I guess it means that it will be shown on Logo at some point. I don’t know how and when that happens.

GLT: The lyrics to a couple of songs on Music for Tourists were co-written by Mike Hadreas. Do you enjoy collaboration?

CG: I do. He’s the only person I’ve ever collaborated with. Those songs that we wrote together, “Release” and “Saturday,” are the two oldest songs on the record. He and I were together for a few years, and we’re still very close. He gave way a little bit, kind of opened my world up to writing lyrics. He taught me a little bit how to write. He really influenced my writing heavily. If I were to pick someone again to work with, I would definitely do more with him. But, at this point, I am just focusing on keeping everything my own writing. I am trying to write everything myself. I’m sure in the future, we’d work again together.

GLT: Have you started working on working or writing songs for the follow-up to Music for Tourists?

CG: Yeah. In fact, we’re more than halfway through recording the next record. I would like to put it out the fall of this year or, at the latest, January of 2008.

GLT: Are you making an effort to reach GLBT listeners?

CG: I am really trying to reach as many people as I can at once. It was never exactly a goal of mine to reach specific crowds or to reach queer crowds. As a musician, it has been music first, really, before anything else – before being an out musician or before trying to reach people on political levels or anything. I just try to write songs and play them. I don’t have any specific people in mind to hear it. It’s always been about writing music and playing it, and whatever comes of that is great.