The traditional mark of success for Worcester musicians is leaving town. Maybe they leave for Boston, maybe they leave for New York City or Los Angeles, but they don’t stay here.

Until recently, the same was true for many LGBTQ Worcesterites. The local community was small, and those who didn’t feel like they fit in went elsewhere.

Singer-songwriter Giuliano is on a mission to change both of those things at once.

“People hear my music and try to compliment me by asking why I don’t leave Worcester,” Giuliano said. “My answer to that is I care about the scene we’re building for queer people and for music.”

A quest for authenticity

Giuliano and backing group, The Band Plays Loud, featuring guitarist Matt Sivazlian, bassist Bryan Worley, and drummer JoBeth Umali, are set to take the stage in a show set for Nov. 11 at Off The Rails Worcester. The show promises a night of loud guitar riffs and proud, shout-along lyrics.

Two weeks before the show, Giuliano sat in a booth at the Boulevard Diner on Shrewsbury Street and recalled being a gay teenager playing music in Worcester’s bars, singing his favorite rock and blues songs to older, heterosexual crowds.

“I got a lot of appreciation from the people I would play to at local bars, but I didn’t feel like I saw myself in the audience,” Giuliano said. “Being unapologetically gay in my music has helped draw in a younger and more queer crowd, and has helped me meet other artists who are also unapologetically themselves.”

Reaching a turning point

For years, Giuliano played guitar and sang lead in the Worcester rock band Hot Letter and performed solo cover shows at various local bars and restaurants.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, he found himself alone with a guitar and recording equipment, and out of that isolation came “Giuliano,” a self-titled solo album that explored the experience of being gay in modern America.

The personal turn in his songwriting came amid a boom in LGBT events in Worcester, a city which had only one gay bar for decades.

Femme Bar, which opened in March, caters to lesbian and transgender patrons, and a thriving drag scene and numerous LGBT recreational sports have also popped up in the area. In September, the 2023 Pride Worcester festival drew thousands of revelers.

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Giuliano said Worcester’s LGBT renaissance has been a welcome development, and one of his goals in performing with The Band Plays Loud is to offer yet another option for local queer music fans.

“For queer community to be vibrant, there needs to be a variety of events for different queer audiences, because we’re not a monolith,” Giuliano said. “We don’t all like the same kinds of music, the same kinds of bars, the same kinds of events.”

‘Your audience is so beautiful’

Since the release of his self-titled album, Giuliano said, he has tailored his concert set lists to an audience of people like himself, listeners who know what it is like to be an outsider.

So far, that approach has been successful.

“The best compliment I got was, ‘Your audience is so beautiful, and you don’t see this much of a mixed crowd at other shows,’” Giuliano said. “Rock and roll, loud guitars, singing at the top of our lungs, all of this stuff exists in a queer space.”

One familiar face in that audience is 14-year-old Finn Santora, who usually ends up in the front of the crowd at all-ages shows.

Santora first saw Giuliano perform solo at the 2022 Queer AF fashion show, where Santora debuted a collection of clothing he designed as part of the Threads youth fashion design program.

“I was inspired by his lyrics about the queer experience,” Santora said. “Growing up queer, sometimes I feel isolated and alone. Having musicians and other queer representation around me allows me to see that I am not alone.”

Santora has seen Giuliano and The Band Plays Loud perform a number of times since, at all-ages gigs at Off The Rails as well as smaller events, and he said he has met a number of mentors and friends at those shows.

“I found more than community. I think of many of the people as my family,” Santora said.

‘Building a community’

Giuliano said that was the experience he aimed to give his audience – not just a fun night out, but an opportunity for connection.

“These shows that I’m doing are not just about me and the band. It’s about building a community where people feel like they can be themselves and let loose,” Giuliano said. “I would rather have a beautiful, vibrant audience in my home city where we’ve created a scene and an experience together.”

That sentiment is echoed on Giuliano’s 2022 album, in the autobiographical “Boy Next Door.”

“He heard people saying if he was a real player, he would’ve left this town a long time ago,” Giuliano sings. “No disrespect, but last time I checked, people talk too much about the (expletive) they don’t know.”

Giuliano and The Band Plays Loud

When: 7 p.m. Nov. 11

Where: Off the Rails, 90 Commercial St., Worcester

How much: $20 in advance and $30 at the door. offtherailsworcester.com.