You’re Looking Very FOX Today!

This November, we met up with the striking FOX GUNN to discuss all things stage style, queer music and fashion influence. In early discussions with FOX regarding their style icons - Shane McCutcheon was an early and clear influence. Hence, exploring the character’s renowned tomboy aesthetic with baggy fit jeans, shirts, vests and identifiable motifs such as a loose tie or chunky leather cuff, our discussion with FOX GUNN covers androgyny, masculinity in dress and the queer gaze. Shot by the incredible Sophie Williams, we portrayed this self-confessed flirt, as the L Word’s most notorious heartthrob.

“I decided to stop giving a fuck and get over it and just be who I am!”

Dyke Digital: How would you describe your music in your own words?

FOX GUNN: I write dancey, dark, alternative pop with very queer narratives. Women and queer people and non-binary people and anyone in the queer community have experiences that are just not talked about enough. I really like writing about sex and dating from a female gaze or a queer gaze, in an empowering way. Women in music are usually very sexualised but here, I’m the one picking when I want to be sexualised and when I want to tell these stories.

DD: Congratulations on your recent record, the Badass and Vulnerable EP! What was that creative process like?

FG: The good thing about being an artist is that I can turn something that’s really hurt me into a very positive experience. I went through a very horrible breakup, my first queer breakup, my first proper relationship. When I started writing Pottery, the first single from the EP, I made voice notes that were just me crying, singing the ideas. But now I can play it live and people scream along, and it helps them. I think being badass and vulnerable is just me. In the world nowadays and on social media, being vulnerable is seen as a weakness. But I realised that being vulnerable is badass and being badass makes you vulnerable as well. The two can coexist, and the whole EP is one of my favourite things I’ve ever created in my life. I’m super proud of it.

DD: How would you describe your style? It’s such a big part of who you are as an artist. Has that always been the case?

FG: Edgy Street Rock – a mix of both. It is a street style; I like to wear boxers and jeans, but with a rock element to it, with chains or silver or leather jackets. I think it’s always been a big part of my music, but I wasn’t brave enough to actually go for it. But for the past two years, I decided to stop giving a fuck and get over it and just be who I am! When I go on stage, I want to look and feel how my lyrics sound and how my music sounds.

“I wanted to create a tiny moment in time and space for queer joy”.

DD: What’s been your favourite look that you’ve had on stage so far?

FG: For the release of my EP, I put on a Queer Prom. I wore a dress when I was hosting and I never wear dresses or dress very femme, but I felt very confident and comfortable. And then on stage was my favourite look. Every time I perform now as Fox, I wear a see-through top with star-shaped nipple pasties.

DD: Queer Prom was such a celebration of your music and the community.

FG: It was amazing! I wanted to celebrate the EP in the perfect way because it means a lot to me. I think that prom for most queer people wasn’t a very good experience. People were either not out or they didn’t go, or they went with someone they didn’t want to. I wanted to create the same kind of experience, but in a way that meant people could be themselves and celebrate themselves. I missed out on that, and so did other queer people. I wanted to create a tiny moment in time and space for queer joy. I think it’s so important because the world is fucked up right now, to have just two hours of being completely free and happy, and to give that to other people.

DD: Holding that space for celebration and emotion is what I think music is all about! How has your queerness and self-discovery more broadly influenced your music and your artistry?

FG: My music and my sexuality journey are very tied together. When I was releasing music with my old band, LULALONG, I never put pronouns. I wrote the first single I released with male pronouns, and then last minute I changed it to ‘she’. This was only five years ago, but I was terrified. I’m very comfortable with who I am, but I was worried that people were going to put me in a category of ‘that gay singer’, if ‘queer’ would be the only adjective that people used for me. But from that, I started learning a lot about myself. It really helped that when I started releasing music with female or gender-neutral pronouns, I was so accepted and so empowered. It helped with my own journey of sexuality and gender. Singing my very queer lyrics and the way I perform, because I did it very confidently on stage and it worked very well, it translated to my personal life. I felt like if Fox can do it, I can do it in real life too. I can do whatever I want because if I do it confidently, people are not going to question it.

DD: How was inhabiting the role of The L Word’s eternal lesbian style icon Shane for this shoot?

FG: The photoshoot felt so good! The L Word came out when I was six years old, so I didn’t actually watch it until I was 18 and moving to London and discovering my queer identity. So especially in the past five or six years, I’ve revisited The L Word and Generation Q a lot. I strive to be as confident as Shane. She’s quite masculine but then she pulls up in a vest with her boobs out and I love that, I love the androgyny.

DD: Does androgyny play a part in the style you identify with and your presentation as well?

FG: I used to dress quite femme until about three years ago, but recently I’ve gone more masculine. To be honest, I was scared of ‘looking too gay’. But I am very gay, so why not just be myself? I picked Fox as a name too because it’s a traditionally male name in the UK. I really like that androgyny, it definitely plays a big part.

“Every time I perform now as Fox, I wear a see-through top with star-shaped nipple pasties”.

DD: What are your other influences, in both your queer journey and your fashion journey?

FG: Halsey literally changed my life. Their gender journey and expression and how she dresses onstage have been a massive inspiration. I felt like I could do this because she was doing it. I’ve read Girls Can Kiss Now by Jill Gutowitz, a book of essays about queer women and non-binary people in pop culture, three times in the past year because I’ve never felt so seen and validated. People actually think the same as me and feel the same as me?! That really changed me. Also, in music especially now, there’s so many very powerful queer women who I love, 070 Shake and Fletcher, for example.

DD: So you’ve got a new single out in December. Are there any plans for something more…?

FG: I want to do another EP next year; I’m working on it. I want it to be quite toxic again. But the song that’s coming out next month is called Crush and it’s one of the most vulnerable songs that I’ve written. Production-wise, I think it’s one of the best things I’ve ever done. Next year on February 8th, I’m playing Doña for Sapphic Sounds, a monthly FLINTA night. And then Queer Prom 2.0 hopefully in April at a bigger venue. I’d love to do a small European tour as well. I’m planning a show in Barcelona at my favourite queer bar. When I was doing music in Barcelona, before I moved to London, I was dating men, and I was happy, but I wasn’t really myself. So I’m excited to go back and say: Hey, this is me! This is what you’ve been missing. I can’t wait - performing live is my favourite thing in the world.

DD: What a powerful way to reintroduce your most authentic self!

FG: That’s the word: authenticity. I was on the tube the other day and this girl recognized me and she said: “Your EP made me come out to my mum!” And I was like, oh my God! She said that it gave her the confidence to actually go for it. And I felt like I’d made it. I get messages too, saying that my music has helped someone through their breakup or other difficulties. Helping people, that’s all I want. I think if the queer music scene that exists now was the same when I was 15, my life would have been so different. I’m trying to be the artist I needed when I was that age, a small grain of sand in someone’s life that helps them to figure shit out. That is success to me.