The Kansas native who now lives in Los Angeles after a stint in New York City is one of our favorite funny lady lesbians.
She sings, she dances, she acts, and she has a sharp eye for the foibles of heteronormative culture. Of course, she was that Midwestern tomboy who wore a tiara to school every day.
The star of MTV’s Mary + Jane and Oxygen’s Funny Girls, Durwood turned being different into a super power.
Her newest EP Comedy Electronica Vol. 1, released via Blue Élan Records was preceded by a series of equally hilarious music videos now on YouTube, most notably, Steal UR Girlfriend.
How It Happened
After meeting and collaborating with Dave Darling (Def Leppard, Queen Latifah, Tom Waits, Brian Setzer) on her debut album, Take One Thing Off, the duo rejoined in the studio last summer to record the follow-up, Comedy Electronica. “I knew I wanted to lean more into pop sensibilities with this album so Dave and I imposed a hard rule of ‘no real instruments,’ explained Scout. “We only broke that rule for a theremin and I think there’s a little bit of guitar mixed in somewhere.”
First single, “Steal UR Girlfriend,” is a hilarious but all too accurate portrait of life as a lesbian. “I’ve always been interested in gender roles and how we alter our behavior to mimic ‘masculine’ or ‘feminine’ roles, so of my three ‘bros’ in the video, one is a gay cis man and the other is non-binary. I love drag in all directions. Whenever I put makeup on, I consider it getting into drag even if it’s intended to make me look more like a girl. We shot the video in a day in a warehouse in Inglewood. Keva Walker did the choreography and was incredible to work with on set.”
“Growing up, I was painfully weird, but blissfully unaware of it,” she smiles. “I was everybody’s lovable little weirdo. After college, I moved to New York. I knew I wanted to be in show business, and in my mind, the way to make it was to be the most original, most creative, and most outside-the-box.”
She went way outside-the-box, spending nearly five years as a draw in New York’s burlesque scene: named as one of the Huffington Post’s “20 Burlesque Stars to Know,” to boot. With this unforgettable experience under her belt, she traded the Big Apple for Los Angeles in 2012. After multiple starring roles, her thirty-minute comedy special was released in 2018 on the Epix series, Unprotected Sets.
Also in 2018, her musical debut Take One Thing Off accompanied a twenty-two episode digital series of the same name. The digital series was included as part of the 2020 Slamdance lineup as well as nominated for Best Indie Series at the 2019 YouTube Streamy Awards — an annual awards ceremony which recognizes and honors excellence in online video, including directing, acting, producing, and writing. Scout is also an accomplished cabaret singer and nationally touring stand-up comedian. She currently has a scripted half-hour comedy series in development with Sony / Freeform Entertainment, and hosts a monthly live variety show, Everybody GoGo, in Los Angeles.
“I think I’m still that girl in a tiara who doesn’t know she’s weird. That’s become the heart of my comedy. I’m happy to be different, and I hope other people feel the same way. It’s about letting your freak flag fly, and if that isn’t reason enough to dance, I honestly don’t know what is.”
Track by Track
The lyrics to “Sky Dancer” are actually pretty close to the scratch track. I had the hook, but I was having a weirdly hard time coming up with the verses. Dave put me in the booth and let me freestyle a couple of times. When I came out, he was like, “that was great!” And I was like, “what did I say?” And then we cleaned it up a little bit and that was it. Gunner Sixx through in all the bits and bobs that really make the track work.
“Sexually Implicit” is an excel sheet of words I think are funny to say. It is possibly the dumbest idea I’ve ever had for a song, and also probably my favorite on the album.
“I Don’t Want To Hold UR Baby” was conceived as a rant about all of my pet peeves, but as soon as I hit the first one, I was like… nope. There’s the whole song. We shot that music video at an amazing house in the hills on a day that was blisteringly hot, but because of our shooting schedule, no one got to get in the pool until right before sunset. By then the temperature had dropped, and the water was freezing. I put my dancers through hell, but they keep coming back to work with me!
I’ve always had a joke that men make being a lesbian very easy because they are such weak competition. I basically talked to one of my bisexual friends about all the worst men she has ever dated and put them into one fictional man, which was the basis for “Steal UR Girlfriend”. ‘Predatory lesbian’ has become one of my personal mantras.
“Sad Ukulele” was inspired by all real events. The uke is the only musical instrument I really know how to play, and it always made me laugh to try to sing about real sad events on the ukulele. As a comedian, this song feels particularly relevant to who I am. I want to change the world, but the only way I know how to do it is through jokes.
