Tyler Childers and Silas House break new ground, telling an Appalachian LGBTQ+ love story with song and video

Tyler Childers performs at the Railbird Music
Festival in Lexington, Ky. (Photo by Silas Walker, Herald-Leader)

Appalachian LGBTQ+ love stories are just as real as other love stories, and Tyler Childers' "In Your Love" song and video, a collaboration with Silas House, tells that story, reports Monica Kast of the Lexington Herald-Leader. "Actors Colton Haynes and James Scully play two men in rural Appalachia who meet and fall in love while working as coal miners in the 1950s." Despite hostility from other miners and community members, the couple stays together, farming and loving one another. House posted on Instagram, "To our knowledge, it is the first-ever country music video with a gay storyline to be released by a major label."

Silas House (Berea College photo)

Childers and House, both Kentuckians, "wanted to tell a love story set in Appalachia. Childers pitched the idea for the music video to House and asked him to work on developing the story. Jason Kyle Howard, House's husband, wrote and provided creative direction for the video. He came up with the idea for the two main characters to be coal miners," Kast writes. "There are personal touches in the video, too. House, Howard and Childers used family photographs as inspiration for outfits in the video, making sure they were true to the period but also true to what people really wore. The cast is also made up of Appalachians and Kentuckians who represented the region."

House told Kast, "There are all kinds of different people in Appalachia and rural America, and they very rarely see themselves in the media, in film or TV, or especially in country music videos. . . . It's a gay love story, yes, but more than that, it's a love story. It's about gay people who love where they're from, and they don't want to leave it. Those men could have left not only the coal mines but they could have left the area. They chose to stay. A whole lot of people have done that, despite discrimination, because they love where they're from."

"At a time when Kentucky has seen an increase in anti-LGBTQ legislation and sentiments, House said he hopes the video will be 'a balm' for people who are hurting," Kast reports. House told Kast: "We just wanted to tell a human story that is rarely seen. Tyler Childers is one of the great storytellers of our time, especially in rural stories. This is another rural story that needs to be seen." Kast adds that Childers' album "Rustin' In the Rain" will be released Sept. 8."