Music groups with openly gay members?

Cafe Society
1

A friend and I were discussing this the other day. Why, I don’t know. The stipulation that she put on it was that it applied to males only. I’ve decided to open the forum up to include females. Solo artists count, to.

We came up with:

Elton John
Queen (Freddie Mercury)
Frankie Goes to Hollywood (Paul Rutherford, isn’t it?)
REM (Mike Stipe)
Judas Priest/Fight (Rob Halford)
Rufus Wainwright
Pet Shop Boys

Along the female lines, I know of:

Indigo Girls
Melissa Etheridge
Jill Sobule

There are a few more I can’t think of.

Feel free to add more.

2

Hello? The Village People? C’mon! How could you miss them?

3

Husker du, and all of Bob Mould’s or Grant Hart’s later projects.

Not to mention the Village People and about eight gazillion disco or techno bands.

4

Culture Club and k. d. lang

I don’t know much about the Dandy Warhols, but the video for “I Never Thought You’d Be a Junkie Because Heroin is So Passe” hit all the “camp aesthetic” cylinders.

5

George Michael wasn’t out yet when he was in Wham, but he did “make it big” in a bathroom stall eventually and got caught.

6

George Michael.

Ani DiFranco’s bisexual.

And there was that Russian fake lesbian band a few years ago, Tatu.

7

I’ve heard a lot of rumours about Joan Jett.

8

Except that almost all of them were straight.

9

Supposedly everyone in Rammstein is gay; though not having looked into it (nor caring much) I have no idea whether it is true nor whether they open about it.

10

  • Roddy Bottum (Faith No More/Imperial Teen)

  • Pansy Division (An all-gay punk band. Their version of an AC/DC classic was redone as “For Those About To Suck Cock (We Salute You)” and Hirk Hammet from Metallica guested on it!)

  • Morrissey (solo & The Smiths)

  • Jobriah (billed as “the first openly gay rock star;” he was, in fact, gay - however, he wasn’t much of a “star.” That said, his two LPs are an interesting listen if you are a fan of Ziggy Stardyst-era Bowie and glam.)

  • Stephin Merritt (Magnetic Fields)

  • Scott Plouf (drummer for The Spinnanes and later Built To Spill)

  • Andy Bell (Erasure)

  • (How can anyone forget) Boy George (Culture Club)

  • (How can anyone forget) George Michael (solo & Wham!)

That’s all I have off the top of my head.

11

Well, the Gay Men’s Chorus has a fair share.

12

Culture Club was three-eights gay, namely Boy George and drummer Jon Moss were lovers before Moss went straight on him.

Let’s add Fred Schneider, Keith Strickland, and the late Ricky Wilson of the B-52s.

betenoir, you can’t be serious about the Village People. Other than lead singer Ray Simpson (the cop), and his predecessor Victor Willis, they were gay.

13

Stipe came out? When was that? I suck at paying attention to pop culture. Was it in the midst of that Shiny Happy People video? I could never watch the damn thing all the way through.

14

Interview with Michael Stipe in 2004:

15

Placebo-one gay member, one bisexual member, one straight member.
Scissor Sisters- Jake Shears and Baby Daddy are both gay, not sure about the other members.
Jim Verranos-former American idol contestant
Will Young-Winner of the first series of British Pop Idol
Marc Almond- of Soft Cell.

There’s always that dodgy list on Wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_famous_gay,_lesbian_or_bisexual_people

16

I have my suspicions about that Liberace fellow.

17

Didn’t Halford come out after he left JP?

18

I don’t believe Morrissey is gay. Perhaps he’s bisexual, though. I know for years, he downplayed any talk and speculation about his sexuality and claimed to be “asexual.” Hasn’t he been linked to women in the past? If I’m wrong, I will stand corrected.

19

I thought that in the cases of The Village People, Queen, and Liberace, there was a sort of don’t ask, don’t tell thing going on. Even though the writing was on the wall, the subject never really came up. People just assumed they were straight. And I thought that Elton stayed in the closet for decades and only recently came out.

20

I concur BBVL, I don’t think Morrisey has ever self-identified as gay. Didn’t Rolling Stone magazine label him as gay in the 80s and it kind of stuck?

Which member of the village people was gay is a pub quiz question I’ve heard a couple of times. The answer has always been given as the bloke in the native-American outfit.