“I’ve had a taste now of what this full-time life of an artist is like, and I’m addicted.” For Irish-born, Wellington-based singer Dónal Gunning, there really is No Other Option anymore, as he gears up for the release of his upcoming album. Walking away from everything he once knew, a steady career path, moving internationally, and taking a leap of faith into a new journey as a full-time musician is something that few people have the means or the drive to do. For Gunning, it’s about finally feeling as though he has found exactly where he belongs. “I love it, albeit it’s turbulent. The highs are awesome, but I learned so much from the lows, so there is no other option for me. I feel as if the role of a musician and entertainer was built for me, and I feel as if I’ve found my path. To fathom going back to something that wasn’t this life is just, it’s tough to conceptualise, because I’m so happy at the moment. I genuinely think there is no other option for me to be a musician, to put these songs out there, and for these songs to be heard.”
Like so many musicians, Gunning was trying to balance both worlds, holding down a steady job and planned career path while also pursuing his artistic ambitions. Finally deciding to take the leap and leave an established accountancy career and make a drastic change. Leaving the accountancy firm and moving to Portugal, he describes having made the jump as the biggest thing he got right. One of the biggest learnings however – he underestimated just how long the process would take. “Wanting results overnight, like who doesn’t, right? But, I think if you make this, or thinking that you’ll hit your goal. When I first took the plunge to go full-time, part-time, I thought being able to sustain myself on covers gigs would be the dream. I managed to do that, and then I said, okay, what about half-time covers, half-time originals? That was turbulent, but once I did get there and now trying to take a more serious approach to my originals, taking up bass, the bassist role in In the Shallows, or taking up various session bassist roles I’ve taken up and trying to keep my covers gigs afloat, that to me is another challenge, and to try and ensure that as many people hear this album, that’s also been the challenge.”
Learning accountancy has taught Gunning many things which he considers invaluable to his new career path as a full time musician. “I think one of the right moves was coming from a career that was finance or business related, because it teaches you terrific business acumen, whether it’s communications, finances, it’s a valuable USP to any musician. And I think it’s a USP that a lot of musicians don’t necessarily have purely as a result of that, you know, traditionally artists might come from a more artistic background versus an accountancy qualificiation, but the accountancy – those exams teach me work ethic. They also teach me problem solving, which is very applicable in music as well. Trying to work out a bass, solo, trying to, when I write my songs, sometimes I write them as if i used to write my profit and loss accounts. There’s my verse, there’s my bridge, okay I need a chorus, I can sub that line in there. So you know, I think as a 20, 22, 23 year old coming out of college, it’s a safe bet to get your exams and qualifications, but it’s led me to a turbulent but exceedingly fulfilling life now as a musician. So go for it, that’s my advice. Get your exams first, then go for it. Bring your stripes, and then fly.”
Moving from Portugal to New Zealand, Gunning spent years gigging heavily around Wellington and the lower North Island, playing as many as three to four covers gigs per week, learning 5-10 new songs, covering all sorts of genres from pop to blues, reggae to rock, and of course, Kiwi pub classics. But rather than seeing playing covers as a distraction from the creation of original music, Gunning saw them as a part of his education, with the covers circuit becoming his unofficial music school. “It definitely gives you terrific trial and error in terms of learning what fits, and what doesn’t fit. And I think it gives you a good sense of when the set you wrote for one city is going well somewhere, but it’s not going well in another city, it teaches you to be creative on the fly. It also teaches you terrific people reading skills, how can we get this group of XYZ people at the bck to come and pull up, how can we try and filter in to what people are really after?”
In addition to learning to read the crowd and adjust on the fly to keep an audience engaged and entertained, Gunning also sharpened his musical instincts, discovering things like which chord structures, basslines, rhythm and arrangements he likes. “But I think even being a bassist in a covers band, and a singer in a covers band, that’s filtered into ultimately how to be a more polished singer-songwriter. And i think for any musician who is keen to grow as an artist, it’s important they learn other people’s work, because ultimately that’s what lends itself to inspiration.”
Taking all of those lessons on board, Gunning recently released his new single Breathing, from the upcoming album No Other Option. Having first constructed the chords around 18 months ago, he was at a transitional point, trying to decide between full-time and part-time musicianship. “I always thought that song for me was a real stepping-stone, in terms of evolving my songwriting and particularly expression. It’s really grown on me and the fact that its become so palatable, as well as holding its own musical nuances has been really, really rewarding. I know a lot of artists don’t say it’s radio friendly, and what does the radio want these days, but to me, it’s got an earworm. It’s got somewhat of an encouraging and inviting intro, it’s repeatable, it’s got a euphoric chorus. It’s a real hat-tip to a lot of my rock influences, primarily Brit-pop and like 90s rock as well. Massive Oasis fan, massive Stone Temple Pilots, Nirvana, everything else. And for me, it kind of just met in the middle in terms of my influences and what I was after as a songwriter. It’s always a tune, when we play at our shows, that draws people up front. If people haven’t seen us before, this is always the song, so it’s been terrific getting it out.”
The song wasn’t consciously designed to be a statement about mindfulness, but seemed to naturally take this route as Gunning sought to contrast the tension in the verses with a euphoric chorus, creating a song about breathing and slowing down while the lifestyle surrounding its creation has been one of relentless work. “I’d anticipated for the chorus to be euphoric, and then for somewhat lyrical tension to be within the verses. But ultimately, the song is about learning to slow down and smell the roses, and not forget to breathe in a world where we are overingested with technology and everything else. It’s important to just, especially life as a musician or life as a young professional, you need to not lose sight of what you’re doing and why you’re doing it. So this sounds, speaking to that, it speaks to the mindfulness and the importance of, well, breathing is pretty important, as well as a physiological act… but I really didn’t set out to write a song that depicted breathing or mindfulness. For me, I usually just write purely from my heart, and it’s quite introspective, and then I look back and I say, okay, this song ties to these themes and has this sort of vibe. I don’t think it’s fair to compartmentalise an artist into a particular box, or a song, for that matter. Most people that I speak to, none of us like to be put in a box. We just create what we create, and then it’s almost like we create it without realising what we’re actually creating at the time, and then other people might attribute meaning to it afterwards.”
Gunning’s 2024 EP Born To Perform reflects an earlier, more indie-folk, singer-songwriter phase of his career, heavily influenced by his Irish roots and circumstances at that point – performing as a solo artist and leaning on the resources he had at the time. The more recent 2025 release, Zero Bucks Given, represents another stage, drawing more from rock and hiphop rhythms, reflective of what he was listening to at the time, which included a lot of Rage Against the Machine. Looking ahead to the upcoming album, the tracks deliberately embrace diversity, harnessing rock, pop, midwestern emo and singer-songwriter material. “I think the songwriting is evolving to become more polished songs, versus say, an indie folk song or, let’s say, an indie rock song, like Gimme More on Zero Bucks Given. I think now where myself and the lads are going is that we’re evolving towards creating more polished songs from top to tail, intros, hooks, bridges and the like, versus my songwriting prior was just ‘get from A to B and see how you go’.” Music for Gunning is not a fixed genre, but rather a snapshot of where he’s been and where he’s going, with the diversity of his music being more a strength than a lack of identity.
Having previously described Zero Bucks Given as keeping rock music alive, it’s evident that the live elements are key for the band’s musical identity. “If you catch us live in any of our shows, we are quite mobile on stage, and we really embody that rock and roll, maybe takig note out of the 80s rock scene. We like to move a lot, we like to portray our art passionately. Definitely bumped into the lads a few times on the smaller stages on various tours! I do think that rock and roll is coming back to life. Now we’ve seen this influx of country music popularity, jumping off from the States, and as we know, cyclically, everything comes around in circles, right? So then after country, we have blues, and after blues, we have rock. So I think it’s quite good timing to be coming into a rock musician in this modern world of music. But, looking at the album, there are some songs on there that are quite reserved and showcase my singer-songwriter side. There’s songs on the album which I think are more pop, there’s a midwest emo song. But the singles particularly, I would say, are more along that keeping rock, pop rock, grunge, all of that alive – and I think there’s a terrific market for that in New Zealand.”
Originally from Dublin, Gunning’s Irish background remains a part of his musical identity, but New Zealand’s musical diversity has given him space to find his niche. “I was home in Ireland not too long ago, and there was just all these really super polished pop songs on the radio when I was doing the rotations. And then, when I hop into my car, I’ve got the likes of Hauraki and The Rock, and I’m just like, yeah, no, that probably sings more to why I feel at home in New Zealand now these days. New Zealand’s a bit of a melting pot, I like to think that we’ve got something for everyone, and you can find your niche wherever you are.”
The upcoming album No Other Option is less of a snapshot of a band at a specific point in time, but rather a culmination of the last two years of songwriting, the album documenting an evolution rather than one fixed artistic identity and providing evidence of a journey, not simply a destination. “You look at albums being made today, there’s one argument that you get all the bandmates into a house or shed in the middle of nowhere for a month, and then you bust out the material, they hop in the studio and you capture what the band was at a particular time in their career. For these songs, I’d say that yes, it’s an album, but it’s also a foot trail of my songwriting experience the last 2 years, taking the best nuggets, or the nuggets I deem fit for the album, and throwing them together. I think it’s important to have diversity on an album, whether it’s your singer-songwriter side, your rock side, or your pop side. It’s important to show diversity as an artist. If they’re all, excuse me, ‘balls to the wall’ rock and roll, I think you’d tire the listener and you’ll also also risk not finding potential new fans, who come across your work who might not be into rock, but they might find your midwest emo tune that you wrote that they like, or your singer songwriter song that they like, and that might be a tap into new listeners in a new market.”
After years of treating music as a calculated risk, Gunning has finally reached the point where there isn’t another road that he wants to take. The album artwork features two red dice on the front of a tour van, representative of taking a chance on a new career as a musician. At this stage, the initial gamble has become something more deliberate, a path which has led Gunning to move internationally and spend years building his craft through covers, relentless gigging, and creating original music. Music is not something which he is pursuing temporarily – it’s the path he’s chosen.
No Other Option is scheduled for release on Tuesday 27th October.
