Darling Gunsel: Electropop N’ Hot

“I think the gender roles are pretty clear. I’m the fucking boss and those two homos have to do what I say.” She’s joking. I think. If not, I am totally moist in my panty area.

I have a HUGE crush on San Francisco’s Darling Gunsel. Jezabel, Ricky, and Dr. Scott‘s brand of icy-hot electropop has been living in my earbuds and making me bob my head at my desk here at Manhunt HQ all month long. They’ll be part of the Accidental Bear Queer Music Tour, alongside Dewitt’s ass-icon Rica Shay, the beefy & brash Big Dipper, the beauteous Logan Lynn and the sexy space-glitzed fuckery of  Conquistador. It’s to raise awareness and funds for LGBTQ mental health and suicide prevention, so it’s an awesome cause. If you’re in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Portland, Seattle, and New York City, you can buy tix here.

Darling Gunsel were nice enough to take on my occasionally asinine questions. I love them even more for it. Don’t you relax and get into it more when the interview subject is nice? I got in a fight with Richard Marx once trying to interview him. True story. Mullet-sporting fucknut. Keep reading as I shamelessly hit on Dr. Scott (wouldn’t you?), investigate the secrets of Jezabel’s killing-me-dead hair, and get tips on how to wear rubber from hot Ricky.



A lot of electropop can come off as icy club music to stare by, but I get a sense of warmth from yours, whether it be some of the burbling beats or Jezabel’s vocals. What’s the feeling for you guys surrounding it? Is Darling Gunsel all about the warm days when you wanna celebrate the world with your music or icy days when you want to make it snow in San Francisco and make sure everyone needs parkas?

That’s quite true! We’re definitely not icy people though, especially when we perform we work super hard to make the show experience as inviting and fun as possible. I think as a trio we kind of keep pulling each other back into a happy medium. Ricky and Dr Scott’s last project (Ejector) was probably a little ‘darker’, but Jezabel’s vocals tend to warm things up a bit. On our album ‘Unresolved Heart’ we used used a mastering technician who specializes in jazz vocals, because we wanted a warmer, more resonant tone to the album. We are all about riding the line between Analog and Digital.

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This is question that gets asked ad nauseum, but who are Darling Gunsel’s influences? I get a little of a Yaz’s “Upstairs At Eric’s”  vibe which is fucking awesome. 

Thanks, that’s very very flattering.  We’re all inspired by different people and things, so that’s always a hard one to articulate. We should probably have a better answer, but instead we’ll just list the first ten bands that come to mind: Depeche Mode, Dolly Parton, Basement Jaxx, Garbage, Goldfrappe, NIN, Suicidal Tendancies (ironically enough), Yaz (no kidding!), Daft Punk, and David Bowie.

How is the creative process divided up? Who writes the music, lyrics, creates the beats, etc? What quality do you guys share that keeps Darling Gunsel together creating?

You ask very complex and multifaceted questions! This is loads of fun, thank you! [Ed. note – J. Harvey blushes, shrugs bashfully, and thinks about Dr. Scott in a thong thanking him personally.]

We’re actually extremely communal about the creative process: we have quite different strengths, but fundamentally, we write as a team. Scott & Ricky tend to go back and forth creating instrumental and lead sections, and Jezabel primarily writes the melody and lyrics, but once we have the basic structure of the song we all go through rounds of editing and input.

We’re really good at acknowledging each others strengths and trusting that, which helps a lot when you’re feeling frustrated or lost in the song writing process. We also do a lot of the initial writing in isolation so we have the chance to really honor our personal flavors before we try and combine them into a ‘band sound’.

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When you guys are strutting for the camera in the “Straight Girls” vid, you came off as the iciest street gang of glamour ever. My thoughts: “That coat! Her hair! Electropop skinhead! Suspenders! Her accent! Dead! I am dead!” How much of a focus on art direction, styling, etc. do you guys put into Darling Gunsel? Or is it more of a “Pshaw! That was for a video! It’s all about the music, dummy!” thing? (By the way, I fully realize an accent can’t be styled. I’m not that vapid. Oh wait, can it?”)

Hahahaha! Of course we’re all about the music, but a part of our musical manifesto is to express ourselves with our entire performance, so unless we’re in the studio (where we sometimes work in our pajamas) we’re pretty into putting personal expression into every element of our performance: clothing/hair and even to an extent accent.

It’s funny to think of ourselves as an icy street gang – we’re actually pretty silly when we get together. As far as the “Straight Girls” video goes, that’s not acting that’s just us being cranky because we were freezing our asses off in San Francisco the night we were filming.

We were lucky to have any amazing design/styling and art direction team for that video. Aron Kantor (the director) is a visual genius and we work with the incredible stylist Emanuel Garcia who helps make sure we’re cohesive as a group.

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Jezabel, who does your hair? Not kidding. It’s awesome. Feel free to plug someone.

JEZABEL: Ha! My wife loves cutting it, so whenever possible I let her do it. She has a jewfro so we usually trade cuts. Lately we’ve been a bit busy though, so I’ve taken to going to the “People’s Barber” in the Tenderloin. It’s all old school and they just put a mean set of steps in my hair.

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How much does your sexuality influence your music? (I had to ask, you do have a song called “Straight Girls” after all?)

JEZABEL: Oh lordy, if the walls of our studio could talk! When we first met we were quite polite to each other, but now nothing is sacred: love, sex, bodily functions etc. I have had quite an education. Ricky and Scott think it’s hilarious to show me these horrific photos and videos just to see my reaction, they claim they are preparing me for life on the road with 10 gay men, but I know it’s just for their entertainment.

I think sexuality is pretty inherent in our music, not always in an obvious-get-your-balls-out-kind of a way, but we write a lot about love and lust and the vacillations between wanting a one nighter then an all lifer.

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Jezabel – [ridiculous prerequisite “woman in a band with two guys gender roles” question]. Feel free to answer how you want, with a haiku, a drawing, an Instagram photo, a GIF of you giving stupid questions the middle finger.

I think the gender roles are pretty clear. I’m the fucking boss and those two homos have to do what I say.

No, I joke, that’s only partly true. I am pretty forthright, but it’s honestly taken me a long time to know how to hold my own in creative collaborations. I try to take a lot of risks in my live performance and that requires a lot of trust from my band mates. I’m lucky that Ricky and Dr. Scott are incredibly willing to roll with my wacky ideas. But it does take work and commitment to each other. We talk about gender roles, sexual stereotypes and sexuality stereotypes a lot as a band, and we often surprise each other during these discussions. I think it’s easy to assume you know how people think/feel. I like to keep communicating and evolving these questions with each other, whether it’s in conversation or through our music. I think the worst thing we can do for each other as human beings is assign each other permanent boxes, roles or constructs.

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I am in love with you, even in that one pic where you had the gun in your waistband. Which was sort of menacing but then I figured you are some sort of electro pop gunslinger working a look. Are you a member of the NRA? You’d be the sexiest NRA member. Do you find fans are lusting after your body and ignoring the fact that you’re a talented musician?

DR. SCOTT: While I’m a new member of the Nancy Rednecks Association, I wouldn’t say I’m the sexiest. That organization is full of attractive members. As far as the lusting and talent go…if the lusting leads to a listen or the listening leads to a lusting, I’m fine with either. All this music making leaves little time to look for a mate, so I’ll work what I can.

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Ricky – you are a hotsy guy who likes skintight rubber. That’s hot and fetishy. We need more fetishy music since Trent Reznor stopped appearing in videos wearing ballgags. A personal question – how much is for the stage show and how much is true to life for you? Does fetish/kink inform the music at all? Also, being somewhat curvy, how would someone like me get into something rubber? Is there a lot of grunting and baby powder involved?

RICKY: It is 100% true to life. For sure. I wish I could have invented a stage persona like that but it’s really just an excuse for me to combine my two favorite things: rubber and music. The best and sexiest way to get into rubber is using your favorite oil-free lube. No joke. It feels great on, and if you’re hairy like me it doesn’t pull anywhere. If you have an extra couple of pounds rubber is a good friend – it squishes all the parts in the right places. I’ve never seen a rubber bear yet that didn’t look yummy in his gear.

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By the way, Dr. Scott, if you need a gimp-type guy to assist you on the tour (I’m sure Ricky could outfit me) I’m all yours. You have arms. ARMS.

DR. SCOTT: Gimp tryouts at our next show. And I’ve actually got a few appendages other than arms. [Ed. note – This boner is painin’ me.]

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How did you guys hook up with Accidental Bear? What can we expect from the tour? It’s raising awareness for mental health within the LGBTQ community, is this a personal cause for any of you? Your interviewer has issues with depression and anxiety, and I’ve always wondered if growing up gay in, let’s face it, a heterosexist world had anything to do with it.

That’s a really good point, and the research would suggest that there is a major correlation, especially for gay men. We’ve all suffered from, or know someone that has suffered from mental illness, so the tour is incredibly important to us. Ironically mental health issues are abundant, and yet it’s still steeped in so much stigma. We’ve been joking about how most people would rather admit they had an STD than a Mental Health problem. Which makes you think…we hope the tour provides us with an opportunity get the community talking and for us to begin to acknowledge that shame & fear has never gotten the LGBTQ community anywhere.

We’ve known Accidental Bear for a while. San Francisco is only 7 square miles so eventually hairy, gay men cross paths. He came to one of our shows and was super supportive when we released our debut album. We are SO excited and thankful to be going on tour with him and the other bands. It’s going to be a hell of a summer.

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We can’t thank Darling Gunsel enough for sitting down with us via e-mail. Word is that Accidental Bear will be adding more dates to the tour, so I’m crossing my appendages (that’s an “I interviewed Dr. Scott!” reference) that they hit Boston. IMAGINE A DR. SCOTT/RICKY/BIG DIPPER THREEWAY AND AFTERWARDS JEZABEL AND I GO FOR SCONES?!?!

For more Darling Gunsel, you can pick up their Unresolved Heart album on iTunes. You can also check out their YouTube channel, and follow em’ on Twitter. And again, Accidental Bear tickets are available here. GO SEE IT!

p.s. I forgive them for this next clip because I’ve eaten mayo off the spoon before. *hangs head in shame*


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3 thoughts on “Darling Gunsel: Electropop N’ Hot

  1. nice little summer ditty 🙂 it will sound good the next time I drive with the top down.

  2. Ejector was pretty sweet . . . . but so is DG. And these three definitely deserve the attention 🙂 Thanks for sharing the interview with us!

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