WATCH: Pentatonix’s Scott Hoying Talks New EP ‘Parallel;” New Husband Mark Joins Him for Interview!

We’ve seen musician Scott Hoying’s career skyrocket after he and his fellow members of the acapella group Pentatonix won the third season of the singing competition The Sing Off. He’s won Grammys with the quintet, appeared in Pitch Perfect 2 and Pentatonix is nominated for another Grammy this year for Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album. On top of that Hoying is now a married man and that is the inspiration for his new single “Parallel”.

When GLAAD’s Anthony Allen Ramos spoke to Hoying in a recent interview, he shared that the song was inspired by the moment that he and his now husband, model Mark Manio fell in love.

“We were supposed to go to some fancy event or something and we were getting ready and listening to music and we just laid on the floor of my kitchen next to each other parallel and just talked for hours,” Hoying recollected. “Before we knew it, it was like 4 a.m. and we missed everything.”

Written by Hoying and produced by Jon Levine, who has worked with Dua Lipa, Rachel Platten, and Drake, “Parallel” is the titile track of his seven song EP which was released in July.

“I started writing songs just every night as a way of therapy [during] the pandemic and I didn’t stop,” said Hoying in regards to where this music came from. “I wrote hundreds of songs and most of them are about Mark because I am at this beautiful, loving time of my life and he is my muse in so many ways.”

“Parallel”, which includes a music video Hoying directed in Iceland, not only from this big moment for the two of them, but it was also about “how everything feels to like it’s just like flowing perfectly.”

He continued, “Coincidences happen and all these things just feel like it feels like the universe like meant us to be the other.”

In addition to his solo music career, his partnership with Mitch Grassi for the musical duo Superfruit, which is a result of the two of them being part of the aforementioned acapella group Pentatonix, which includes members Kirstin Maldonado, Kevin Olusola, and Matt Sallee. The group continues to preserve their strong bond as they do their own projects. Pentatonix is a sort of homebase for all of them.

“I think that we’ve been a band so long because we’ve been so supportive of each other,” he said. “Being able to break off and do whatever they want and whatever fulfills them in that moment – I think a lot of like labels make mistakes with groups when they force them not to do anything else [outside] the group because then you feel trapped and you want to break out of it. I feel very grateful that we’re all so supportive of each other’s side projects.”

During the interview with Ramos, Hoying’s husband made a cameo and the two talked about their incredible wedding and how it was infused with Manio’s Filipino culture.

“We had a lot of Filipino food at our wedding — which was incredible,” said Manio. “love my mom’s like home cooking food. It was kind of a great way to incorporate that into our wedding… and we had about 100 of our family members on my side there. So, they were all like loving all the lumpia and all the different little Filipino touches we put in.”

Manio said that his family is obsessed with Scott and vice versa. Hoying said that it was incredible to have their families celebrating and supporting his and Manio’s love —  especially during a time when the queer community continues to be oppressed with anti-LGBTQ legislation and rhetoric.

“You know, growing up, we were scared to come out and then we didn’t know if gay marriage was going to be legalized,” he said. “We were younger and we don’t know if we were gonna find love. We don’t know if our parents or if our extended family are gonna accept us. It just felt like all those obstacles that we worried about our whole life… were all gone.”