Nat Gray, The Casting Out, I Am Heresy and the solo years — Nat Gray

Natasha "Nat" Gray is best known as the voice of BoySetsFire, the Delaware post-hardcore band they helped start in 1994. But between BoySetsFire's farewell in 2007 and Gray coming out in 2022, they built a second body of work: two new bands, a short-lived punk project, and a run of solo records released under the name Nathan Gray. This is the story of those years. Gray uses they/them and she/her pronouns, and identifies as trans and non-binary.

A church childhood

Gray was born in Wilmington, Delaware, and grew up in Newark until about the age of 13. Then the family moved to Pensacola, Florida, so Gray's father could attend a theological school. Gray has said in interviews that church members there shaped how they saw music, to the point that for a long time they regarded rock music as sinful. When those plans in Florida fell through, the family moved to Maryland.

That background matters. Gray came out of the same church world as many Christian rock bands, and went the other way.

The Casting Out

On July 31, 2006, BoySetsFire announced they were retiring. Their last show was at the Trocadero in Philadelphia on June 9, 2007. By then Gray already had the next band. On February 12, 2007, they announced The Casting Out, with several former BoySetsFire members in the lineup. Gray told fans it wouldn't be another political band.

The Casting Out ran from 2007 to 2010. They released two EPs in 2007, Your Last Novelty and The Casting Out, and then two albums, Go Crazy! Throw Fireworks! in 2009 and The Casting Out!!! in 2010 on Eyeball Records. In 2010 the band played Rockpalast for German broadcaster WDR.

After The Casting Out ended, Gray briefly started a punk rock band called The New Recruits.

I Am Heresy

In 2011 Gray formed I Am Heresy, a metalcore band, with their son Simon on guitar.

I Am Heresy released a self-titled album on Magic Bullet Records in 2012, the O Day Star, Son of Dawn EP on End Hits Records in 2013, and a second album, Thy Will, on Century Media in 2014. Century Media released an official video for "March of Black Earth," from Thy Will. The band ended in 2015 so Gray could focus on solo work and on BoySetsFire, which had reunited in 2010.

Going solo

The solo years started with a short release. Gray's debut EP, credited to Nathan Gray, came out on August 7, 2015. Next came Nathan Gray Collective, a project that released Until the Darkness Takes Us on March 3, 2017. Gray also published an autobiography under the same title in 2016.

The first full solo album, Feral Hymns, came out on January 19, 2018. It stripped things back to acoustic guitar, cello and piano. Twelve tracks mixed new songs with reworked versions of Collective and BoySetsFire material. The European site Unraveled gave it 10 out of 10 and praised how intimate the vocals felt, especially on the slower songs, where cello and piano wrap around the guitar.

Working Title

The second solo album, Working Title, came out on End Hits Records on January 31, 2020. Kerrang! premiered the title track in November 2019, with Chuck Ragan featured. Kerrang! called it big and anthemic. Gray wrote and recorded the parts themselves at home, then brought a full backing band on tour.

Gray told Kerrang! that their solo work gave them "the space to express myself without having to put myself through the filter of other people's ideals." The change between the two albums, they said, came because "I have changed immensely." They described working hard "to drag myself out of places that were toxic to myself and those around me," and said songs that started out "very morose" turned into "anthems of strength."

The title was a statement. "Working Title was named as such because it is a perfect reflection of myself both personally and musically," Gray said. "I am a constant work in progress, and honestly, I think that is something to be proud of."

Looking back, those lines read differently. Gray was describing a person still finding themselves, two years before they told the world who that person was. They also said, "I think I just went into it knowing I wanted to be true to myself, no gimmicks or veils." In 2022, they would use that same word, gimmick, to describe the persona they had left behind.

The turn

In 2022, Gray posted on Instagram that they were pansexual and gender-nonconforming, non-binary and genderqueer. Four days later they walked on stage with BoySetsFire in Jersey City with a new look, without warning bandmates first. "It's just a realization of that who I have been is not who I am," Gray told Delaware Online. "Being how I was: That was the gimmick."

Gray's solo band became The Iron Roses. In a 2024 interview, Gray said, "I am trans, I am non-binary, I am weird, and I am beautiful," and that they had set aside solo work to focus on The Iron Roses. Gray now goes by Natasha "Nat" Gray. They have also spoken about the cost. They said they had been "abandoned, threatened, mocked, shunned and ignored by many folks" after coming out.

Where Gray fits

Gray's story touches Christian heavy music at more than one point. They grew up inside a church culture that told them rock was a sin. They named a metalcore band I Am Heresy and called an album Thy Will. And their solo work in the late 2010s is the sound of someone coming out of a dark stretch and starting to be honest about who they are.

The records from 2007 to 2020 carry an old name on the sleeve. The person who made them is Nat Gray.