Nicholas Snow's Notes From The World: Urban Development—Rising Rock Star is Straight, Not Narrow

Noteworthy: Urban Lavrencic

Nicholas Snow's Notes From The World: Urban Development—Rising Rock Star is Straight, Not Narrow

Born in Slovenia, the former Yugoslavia, 23-year-old Urban Lavrencic is not your typical young rocker making his way up the music industry ladder in L.A. Straight, sexy, gay-friendly, and interested in making a difference in the fight against HIV/AIDS, he explained, “I want to become the first rock superstar to be an MD. Currently I am studying cellular biology and I want to specialize in genetics. Since the end of high school my big interest lies in the manipulation of DNA which will lead, among others, to cures for many now incurable diseases, one of them being AIDS.”

“The money I would make with my music career I want to invest in my own scientific research, independently from the lobbies, corporations or governments, to keep an absolute creative and executive control of the possible discoveries, which are these days often kept secret or abused for the purpose of private interest,” he continued. “I am politically left handed and therefore I believe the medical and educational goods should be accessible and distributed to everybody in the same way, regardless of their financial and social status and all the scientific innovations should benefit everybody in the spirit of my favorite American, Benjamin Franklin.”

Urban’s original music has been listened to hundreds of thousands of times, including at MySpace.com/UrbanMusicLA. When I listened to the track, “I Don’t Care If He’s Your Boyfriend,” I wondered if gay guys turned that line around and used it on Urban’s girlfriend Maria. The lyric continues, “It’s not too late to turn back the hands of time. You could still be mine.”

“They always love to try,” said Urban about sexual advances from his male admirers, but “I rather keep them as providers of girls.” Quite candidly, he added, “My girlfriend is deeply bothered with my past in West Hollywood—not just as far as the girls go but she sometimes expresses her suspicions about my sexuality, wondering ‘how can a straight guy enjoy living among gays?’ As I said, you need to disintegrate from the standard forms of mentality and ethics to look at the concept from the perspective I do. In an addition I am a big fan of Greco-Roman civilization and I guess that is a factor too.”

Surprisingly, Urban actually lived at the clothing optional gay hotel in the heart of West Hollywood—the San Vicente Inn—because the then-owner was a mutual friend of both of ours, Terry Snyman, a father figure to Urban. Urban explained, “I am very comfortable with myself and my sexuality so I never felt endangered or uncomfortable. Most of people there are very respectful as well so if you tell them to back off, they do. I really loved it there.”

“West Hollywood is actually a paradise for a straight man,” revealed Urban. “Soon I developed a strategy based on a mathematical premise that in a gay bar you have 50 gays, 100 straight chicks and no straight men! It’s like putting a kid into a toy factory. A huge pool, so let’s go fishing…” Urban explained his strategy was to befriend the gay guy with the most girlfriends. “My friends back home would never understand those things. It really takes an open mind—an emancipation from stereotyping and a time for partial assimilation—to function in this environment.”

Urban’s interest in music dates back to when he found his dad’s Beatles LP. “I wanted to be a rock superstar since age 14 when I rediscovered Guns ‘n’ Roses—I was too young to listen to them when they were actually popular—and bought myself my first LP with my own money, Appetite for Destruction. I figured out the best place to be to pursue the rock n roll career is right here in Los Angeles.” With the support and blessings of his family, and high school and some college behind him, Urban moved to L.A. four years ago.


“Moving here was a major cultural shock for me. Not just the fact I moved from the second world country to the first world giant, but also the magnitude and the density of population was enormously bigger than the one in Slovenia, where I am coming from,” he explained. “Slovenia is a bit bigger than L.A. County and has probably as much people as Hollywood alone. I did not know anybody here. However, I was lucky again. I surrounded myself with couple of amazing people who helped me get around and assimilate into the new environment.”

“One of the main stereotypes I had about Hollywood prior to moving here,” explained Urban, “was that once you’re here, everybody is waiting for you with open arms, handing out the papers for you to sign the record deal. Unfortunately it’s nothing like that. L.A. is like a tree full of monkeys trying to climb to the top. Each monkey is clinging to its branch, licking the ass of the monkey above and kicking the monkey on the branch below.”

Is the L.A. music scene gay friendly, I wondered?

“Mostly it is, because it has to be,” responded Urban. “There are so many gays in the important positions in the industry that any antigay gesture might totally close your door. Though I guess most people are gay-friendly regardless of the industrial imperatives. However you always find exceptions.”

Among Urban’s musical influences are Paul McCartney, Freddy Mercury, Elton John, Nirvana, Guns n Roses, Bon Jovi, Abba, Foo Fighters and My Chemical Romance. “When it comes to the love songs, my girlfriend Maria is my main inspiration,” added Urban. “I love to mix hard guitar riffs with poppy and sweet melodies. Guys prefer distortion guitars, and girls and gay boys like rather the gentle piano ballads—something for everybody. As long as I enjoy my work, everything is fine. I don't want to become a part of corporate music industry just for the sake of it. But if the music that I write and I love makes money, hell yeah!”


Urban recently signed a management contract with Vincent Cory who has worked with the Backstreet Boys, Seal, the Eagles, and who just returned from the Guns n Roses tour, but has Urban ever been burned? “Many times,” he responded. “LA is the city of fakes, liars, pretenders, and wannabes. It took me time to adapt to it and to learn to differ between the ones for real and the fakers. I know I still make mistakes sometimes, trusting the wrong people, but that's getting rarer and rarer.”

“There is only so much you can do yourself—the rest is up to your luck. I don't think there is a recipe for ‘making it.’ I guess an important thing is to find the right balance between staying truthful to yourself—your artistic essence—and respecting the rules of the industry. There is a lot of diplomacy involved,” shared Urban. “Having balls is not enough.”

I asked, “If this was the last day of your life and you knew this, what would you do differently? Do you have some sort of unexpressed truth?”

“Since my family is in Europe, I'd take Maria, buy air tickets and fly home. On the way I'd try to have as much sex as possible on the plane and at the airports. When I'd get home I would engage my family into a pleasant conversation and die among them like Socrates died among his students.” He added, “Everybody has their secrets and so do I. There are some I am sharing with specific people, but there are some I keep only to myself. I’m waiting for the right moment to reveal them.”

Nicholas Snow's Notes From The World

Nicholas Snow

This column presents stories of courage, strength and hope of individuals worldwide who are passionately involved in the struggle for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered civil rights as well as the battle against HIV/AIDS, demonstrating how these issues are inseparable from the overall fight for human rights for everyone. In addition, the column infuses travel and entertainment reporting into the mix to not only celebrate the freedoms that exist for many of us, but to contrast these freedoms against the dark realities of individuals living in more oppressed situations where sometimes their very lives are at risk. More columns...


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