00:05Hi, I'm Jordan. You're watching NME. We're here at a very wet and windy Reading Festival with the brilliant Viagra
00:12Boys.
00:12Wet and wild.
00:15How are you guys doing? You're playing at the gallery stage later, which I'm very, very excited about,
00:21because your sort of self-titled album, Viagra Boys, but spelt weird, was by far my favourite album of last
00:28year.
00:29Oh, thank you, bro. Yeah, I appreciate that.
00:31Did you know you were sitting on an absolute banger when you were making that? You were like, okay, we've
00:36got something here.
00:38Me, personally, I've never felt like I'm sitting on a...
00:41Sitting on a banger.
00:42Yeah, I know.
00:43Might be quite uncomfortable.
00:44Too much self-loathing. But what about you?
00:47I think that day when we feel that feeling, it's time to quit, maybe.
00:51Really? Right, okay.
00:52I was surprised that people liked it so much.
00:54You were surprised people liked it so much.
00:59You partly self-produced that record, I think, which was kind of a first for you. Is that right?
01:05Yeah, sort of. I mean, yeah. We did a lot of it ourselves.
01:11But I had a little bit of help towards the end.
01:13Is that why it came out so great?
01:15Yeah, we're freaking geniuses, man.
01:19Was that a bit of a learning curve? Like, is that hard to do with your own work?
01:23No, not really. I don't think so.
01:26I mean, it's always hard to...
01:30I think it's always good to have an outside perspective.
01:33Yeah, yeah.
01:34And then sometimes it isn't.
01:36So it's a balance, you know?
01:40And it's about finding the right people to work with as well.
01:44But we kind of get an outside perspective because there's so many of us.
01:48So it's like, you know, if one person has one idea, then someone else might hate it.
01:53Right.
01:54And I think that's healthy to have, like, yeah, a lot of different ideas about what's good and what's not.
02:00It's a self-regulating entity.
02:03Yeah.
02:03Yeah, yeah, yeah.
02:05But we had a lot of help as well from Pelle Gunner Felt, who partly produced all the first albums
02:12as well.
02:13Yeah, yeah, yeah.
02:14I mean, the response to the record has been absolutely massive.
02:18As you've been playing it in sort of the year or so since it came out, have you been surprised
02:22at all by the response to this record?
02:23You didn't realize you were sitting on a banger?
02:27I may be surprised that it was like kind of a lot of, like most people, no one really, what
02:34do you say, saw God.
02:35I mean, no one really said it was bad, you know?
02:39Right.
02:41So you take that and work backwards.
02:43Maybe our manager got rid of all the horrible, just made it so we don't see any of that.
02:49But we know it's been amazing to see like just going to different countries and seeing people singing along has
02:57just been amazing.
02:59I think it's a there's a lot of songs that are people like know every word to it.
03:04Yes.
03:05And it's just been yeah, it's been really cool to see, especially, you know, you go go to fucking Japan
03:11or Paraguay or whatever.
03:14And there's people that that know the lyrics to your songs and they barely speak English.
03:19So it's yeah, it's really cool.
03:21Yeah, especially when they're such brilliantly weird, surreal lyrics.
03:25There's lots of recurring lyrical themes there, whether it's shrimp or dogs or sports.
03:31Do you see a lot of good Viagra Boys lyric tattoos?
03:36We've seen a lot of people with shrimp tattoos and like someone riding a shrimp, someone a shrimp on a
03:42boat.
03:43I've seen the shrimp on a boat a few times.
03:46Yeah.
03:50So, I mean, your shows are absolutely nuts.
03:53What's the, have you seen anything kind of crazy out in the audience?
03:56That's you're like, what the hell is going on out there?
03:58Proud surfing with a wheelchair.
04:00Really nuts.
04:01The referee.
04:03Like which show was that?
04:06Moshpit referee was like giving out red and yellow cards in the, like the entire show.
04:11Where was that?
04:12It was in, it was like in Cleveland, maybe?
04:14Yeah.
04:15Toronto, maybe.
04:16I don't know.
04:18I think, I mean, we're definitely not the first band with a rowing.
04:22I mean, it's a classic Viking metal thing, but we had way before Holland made it famous to the football
04:29soccer world.
04:34I think that's from like Amon Armarth, like Viking metal stuff.
04:38But yeah, people bring that culture into the mosh pit here as well.
04:44And yeah.
04:45And then there's, there's always people dressed up at our shows or at least probably not at festival shows, but
04:50at our, at our own shows.
04:52Yeah.
04:52What do people come dressed as?
04:53Shrimp.
04:54Like shrimp.
04:54Yeah.
04:55And monkeys.
04:56I didn't see it personally, but someone told me that they were at one of the shows and someone was
05:00just throwing a baby around.
05:02Oh wow.
05:02It's tremendously unsafe.
05:05I wish I could have seen it.
05:06The cheese shredder was good as well.
05:08Yeah.
05:09That was years ago.
05:10There was a guy shredding cheese.
05:12Last year.
05:13Last year.
05:13No, it was, no, it was at Dazed.
05:16What's it called?
05:17Desert Days.
05:17Desert Days.
05:18Was that last year?
05:19Last year or something, I think.
05:20Oh, okay.
05:22Shredding a big cheese.
05:25Shredding cheese.
05:26I really hope someone ate it.
05:27Like you're touring this record, right?
05:28So maybe it's a little bit annoying question to ask about new material, but like, are you always writing?
05:33Like what's going on with you creatively?
05:36Um, yeah, I mean, I guess, I mean, we're always writing down ideas and then we've been writing for the
05:42past year in the studio and, uh, just recording demos and riffs.
05:48And, uh, and, uh, yeah, we've got two more shows of this tour and then we're gonna, we're gonna go
05:54live, live in the studio.
05:55Wow.
05:57What's it sounding like?
05:58The new stuff.
05:58Can you tell me?
05:59I have no idea, actually.
06:00It's just different, different types of rock and roll music.
06:05Yeah.
06:06Eclectic.
06:07Eclectic.
06:08Rock and roll.
06:09I don't know.
06:10We'll see.
06:11Uh, whatever it sounds like right now, probably, it probably won't sound like later.
06:15So it's hard to say.
06:16It's too early to say.
06:18The Vagra Boys committee has got to kind of make sense of it all.
06:20Yeah.
06:21Yeah, exactly.
06:21You, is this right that you, you, uh, kind of write and record in your own, uh, kind of, uh,
06:27dream factory?
06:28Uh, the shrimp tech.
06:30Yeah.
06:31Shrimp tech HQ.
06:32Um, yeah, we have our, uh, we have a building, an entire building.
06:39No, it's a floor.
06:40It's, it's, um, the old office of a cemetery factory.
06:45Is that the word?
06:46Cement.
06:46Cement.
06:47It's an old cement.
06:48Oh, cement factory.
06:49Wow.
06:50It's gonna be demolished.
06:51Oh no.
06:52Yeah.
06:52But we're there until it's demolished.
06:55Yeah.
06:56Hopefully they let us know before they demolished.
06:58Yeah.
06:59How long have you been working there?
07:00And does that kind of like change the, the way, the way that you operate?
07:04Does it make it easier?
07:05Harder?
07:05You've got kind of unlimited time maybe?
07:07Yeah.
07:07Because, um, when we made the Viagra Boys, we had the time to like explore, uh, try the
07:16riffs and the, and the songs in a lot of different forms and shapes and keys and stuff
07:22like that.
07:23So that was a big difference from, uh, before.
07:26And we're going to continue in the same space.
07:28Great.
07:28So, yeah.
07:29That, I mean, that must be, because having unlimited time, like you could just fuck around
07:33with it forever, basically.
07:34Right?
07:34And like, we don't, we don't really have unlimited time though.
07:38Right.
07:38Okay.
07:39Great.
07:39I think, yeah, most, most of the guys have to pick up their kids at around 2.30 every day.
07:44So we work from 9 to 2.30.
07:46Okay.
07:46Life, life sort of gets in the way.
07:48I realized we have one, uh, red thread through the new album.
07:52Benke was screaming yesterday about emotions.
07:55Oh.
07:55I think it's the only way.
07:57Emotions.
07:58Emotions?
07:59I haven't heard this.
08:01You gotta speak to Benke after this interview, man.
08:04You gotta...
08:05Yeah, he can't do the interview.
08:06He's watching the Liverpool game.
08:08This is Benke who's off screen.
08:10I heard that he's the spiritual leader of the band.
08:12That was what I heard.
08:13But, uh, he's just now finding out about emotions.
08:18Yeah.
08:18If, uh, what was your name again?
08:21The cameraman.
08:22You can, you can zoom into Benke, our spiritual leader.
08:24There he is.
08:27Looking very spiritual.
08:32Well, I can't wait to hear the new emotional, uh, Viagra Boys record.
08:37Uh, thank you so much guys.
08:39Thank you so much.
08:40Thank you so much for having us.
08:41Nice one.
08:42We love NME.
08:43Brilliant.
08:44Peace out.
