Jan Ek gay punk rock revolutionist

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This article was published 04/07/2019 (2276 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Serving as electric and eclectic voice fuelled by the punk of the 1970s, Jan Ek has been using his platform to challenge social norms and spark a revolution for more than four decades.

A spry 54, Ek boasts dynamic and heartfelt vocals that merge style and nuance with the subtle whisper of his guitar and the emotional expression of his voice.

His message reverberates and connects with people in the community, Brandon Pride vice-chair Kenneth Jackson said.

Jackson has known Ek for years, first through his music and later as an activist in the LGBTQ community.

He described Ek as intelligent, thoughtful and passionate about his music and the causes he supports and upfront with who he is.

Ek has been performing at Brandon Pride for approximately 10 years.

“He’s very animated — his body, I think, you can see the music moving through him,” Jackson said. “You can see the emotion there.”

Ek was born and raised in Portage la Prairie and grew up feeling out of place as a hard rock-loving closeted gay man.

He felt like he would die in the city, be it by suicide or being beaten, because of what he heard around him in the town, Ek said.

“I just felt doomed,” Ek said.

He found a light in the darkness when he discovered the punk bands that were changing the face of music in the 1970s.

Ek grew up on a diet of classic rock. However, as soon as he heard the rebellious notes of punk, the genre immediately spoke to him — the community seemed to have a very open mind on how one could express themselves.

“In that music, I heard gay voices — I heard something that I could relate to,” Ek said, citing bands like Wayne County and the Electric Chairs, the Buzzcocks and The Damned. “It was quite open.”

The voices he heard gave him the inspiration to survive. And as a bonus, punk rock was easy to pick up and play, he said with a grin.

“I created a song the first time I picked up a guitar thanks to punk rock and the confidence it gave me,” Ek said. “Your voice was valid, it was the most amazing do-it-yourself ethic — it was a revolution.”

He started a punk band in Portage called We’re Nipped but soon moved to Edmonton to join the band Down Syndrome.

The hardcore community was a magical space to be a part of, he said, the tight-knit group of talented people with good hearts had the spark to light a positive revolution.

“It was an amazing experience,” Ek said. “We thought we were changing the world, and in a way we were”

He came out of the metaphorical closet in 1984, and the ability to be more open with his sexuality and his increasing prowess of the guitar led him toward playing glam rock.

His band was signed to a major label and toured around the country. However, Ek decided to go back into the closet in 1990 in service of his career.

As a masculine-acting cisgender gay man, it was easy to “pass” as a straight person, he said, but it was “hard on his soul.”

“I was just blending in with the regulars, where it hurt me most was in my authenticity,” Ek said.

He found it increasingly difficult to be expressive and share his true self as an artist — living in the closest left him with stress and anxiety over being caught, along with limiting his expression as an artist.

He cited how easily toxic straight masculinity causes some men to resist expressing themselves in many ways.

“That was a career decision. It was a wrong decision,” Ek said. “But we felt we had to do it at the time.”

He went on to spend time in Toronto and Montreal living as an openly gay man, where he was able to find his voice.

He has no clear music style now, choosing instead to embrace every genre that draws on rock ’n roll, ska and folk while maintaining a punk edge.

“I never really belonged to one specific tribe,” Ek said.

He carefully weighs each word he uses and because of this it is getting harder to write lyrics these days because he has a low tolerance for the insincere — he wants to be original and meditative about everything he writes.

“I write very few words these days,” he said.

His focus is on self-affirmation and the difficulties of just being a human being, especially from the perspective of vulnerable disenfranchised members of society.

Nurturing an empathetic voice, Ek calls on people to look after everyone and respect peoples unique experiences and needs.

He said he feels privilege because of his position as a cisgender white gay man and works to use the platform to show support for vulnerable people in the community.

Music is a big part of his activism.

When he came back to Manitoba he wanted to share everything he had gained in those years and be out showing young people they could be whatever they wanted to be while providing a safe place for personal expression.

Ek moved to Brandon in 2003 to attend Brandon University.

The first thing he did on campus was go to the student union and ask about gay programming, of which they had none at that time.

He took it upon himself to start creating the community and helped organize the Equality Resource Centre, which would go on to become the LGBTQ Collective, and hosted socials.

“It was mostly making spaces available, that’s the big thing,” Ek said. “Spaces you can occupy just to feel good.”

He faced some pushback at the university, including straights crashing parties.

“There was some opposition, some confrontation,” Ek said.

It is important to have a wide range of voices and opinions in the community, Jackson said, and it’s invaluable to have someone like Ek who is willing to share his.

It can be easy to get wrapped up in one thing and lose sight of the other perspective, he said, adding that someone like Ek can help one reevaluate their preconceived opinions.

When Ek first came to the city, he wanted to use experiences from the artistic and gay communities in Toronto and Montreal to celebrate and support the Westman LGBTQ community,

Ek’s unique voice has even hit the airwaves, with shows on CJ-106 FM, the Assiniboine Community College campus radio station, where he was able to host from an LGBTQ perspective.

“I had an official voice at CJ-106, and used it,” Ek said.

“It’s my responsibility — I don’t want to lead anyone on and I also I feel like I have to present a face to the public by being out so people know that we exist.”

Ek’s radio was a prime example of the important place he had in the LGBTQ spaces and the Westman community because it demonstrated his ability to explore issues in the community and his commitment to researching and learning about current issues, Jackson said.

“He likes to keep himself abreast with what’s happening in the world, and I think that shows through both his activism in the community as well as his music,” Jackson said.

He is currently working toward a new band and plans on at some point leaving Brandon. He hopes to make it back to Montreal or the interior of British Columbia or return to Edmonton.

“I’m privileged with my passing, whereas other people have it much more difficult than me and I like to sing for them,” Ek said. “I can make sure those voices are heard.”

Ek mainly works as a live artist nowadays. His music can be found on soundcloud.com/queerriver.

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