Out and in tune: since coming out in People's Top 50 Bachelors issue, Matt Zarley is loving his new life as an openly gay singer. (music).

Should Matt Zarley's recently released CD--the aptly named Debut--take off and make the hunky singer-songwriter a superstar, the folks at VH1 should have no trouble coming up with clips to show on Before They Were Rock Stars. For starters there's that Frosted Flakes commercial he danced in at 12. Then came Zarley's leg-warmer phase, during which he turned up on TV's Fame and in videos for artists like Vanessa Williams and Reba McEntire. His Broadway days--Zarley appeared in such shows as The Who's Tommy, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, and A Chorus Line--would also merit screen time. (During the latter show, in a twist out of All About Eve, he had his first gay relationship--with his understudy.)

Still, the highlight of the episode would no doubt be when Zarley poured his heart and soul into an interpretive dance to the song "Muskrat Love" for his second-grade talent show. "What can I say? I was really into the Captain and Tennille," the Illinois-born, California-raised performer confesses, laughing at the memory. "I mean, the first record I ever bought was `Love Will Keep Us Together.'"

With Debut, a 12-song collection of tender love songs and slamming dance tracks--10 of which he cowrote--Zarley has succeeded in getting his own brand of "adult pop" into record stores. What's more, after years of trying to discern where he fit in in the ever-changing music business, Zarley's happy to be right where he is. "Before recording this CD, I was always preoccupied with what other people thought of me," reveals the singer, who financed the disc himself before signing with Universal's Fynsworth Alley division for distribution. "With this project, I did what was right for me."

That includes being open about his homosexuality, which he declared publicly for the first time in June in a way that no one has before: appearing--shirtless, natch--in People magazine's Top 50 Bachelors issue. "A couple of years ago I would have done anything to make my recording career happen," he admits. That included keeping his sexuality a mystery. "In the past year it's become so important for me to just be who I am," asserts Zarley, who was courted by Epic at the height of Ricky Martin mania--the deal, however, fell through at the last minute. "And if being gay is going to keep me from succeeding, then I don't want it."

Though he no longer considers himself a bachelor--he recently started dating a musician he met while performing in the Stevie Wonder revue Signed, Sealed, Delivered in Las Vegas--Zarley is thrilled to have caused more than a few People readers to do a double take. "Not long after the issue came out they printed a letter from someone's mother," recalls the singer. "She said something like, `Thank you for showing that gay people can have normal lives and normal careers.' It was really sweet."

This fall sees Zarley promoting his new single, "You Always Want (What U Ain't Got)," at clubs around the country, performing for the first time as an out artist. "When I made the decision to be out, it was like a weight had been lifted," he says. "Now I look forward to performing the songs." And what does he hope audiences get from his music? "I love when people relate to what I'm singing about and say, `I've been through that,'" says Zarley, smiling. "The biggest compliment is if people say that the emotions seemed honest and real. That, to me, is the ultimate."

Hensley, the author of Screening Party (Alyson Books), also writes for Detour.