“I can't believe it, when I was younger none of this existed. Everything was fine, everything was perfect and now it's ruined!,” screams Sebastian Murphy in satire of anti-vax conspirators. As the name might suggest, Viagra Boys is a band with a biting sense of humour. The Swedish post-punk group matches their expansive sonic influences with an eclectic slurry of references. Following a tumultuous, yet wildly productive couple of years, the band is on world tour, and has just released their third album, Cave World.
Their tightest sounding yet, Cave World takes its aim at our current post-truth era: at the ranging absurdities of the modern age. As the lead singer, Sebastian Murphy barks out a conspiracy filled tirade on Creepy Crawlers, wailing on about the threat of vaccine microchips, it is clear the band is able to find humour in the frightening rise of increasingly dangerous alternative-truth media. But, as they cut it up, it is hard not to laugh with them. Theirs is not an uncompassionate making-shit-of those who have fallen to conspiracy theories, but rather a satirical approach to what they see as absurd and obscene, perhaps even a bid to understand such things. The band’s saxophonist, Oskar Carls expressed in our interview a hope that humour may offer a way through increasingly dangerous polarisation. It may, at the very least, allow us to reflect on and laugh at the absurdity of our times.
All conspiracy theories have a bit of truth at their heart, some in greater abundance than others. They almost always operate on common fears and anxieties. The various Covid-19 vaccine conspiracies out there differ vastly in the final conclusions they draw and the powers-at-be they implicate, yet often begin with similar anxieties. Some naturopathic communities, often more left, and the alt-right are joined by their resistance to vaccinations. Although the stories told by both communities to justify their decisions are wildly disparate, these groups experience a preoccupation with governmental regulation of individual bodily autonomy––and although their conclusions are radical, this fear is a common one. Current media allows people to remain isolated in their ideological bubbles, furthering such radical dogmatic takes. Viagra Boys seems to take the broad view on Cave World, discussing various absurdities of modernity and trying to find meaning in it all. Their conclusion, return to the trees and live as monkeys.
The album is their tightest project yet, condensing their driving rhythms to a neater package. Their instrumental solos shine brightly, the band’s free jazz roots are embodied best by Oskar Carls’s blazing sax riffs. This project balanced satire and listenability more than previous albums––although what maturity means for a punk-rock band like Viagra Boys is unclear. I talked to Oskar Carls about his musical background, what Cave World represents for the band, and how he understands the satire of their project. With a pair of sunglasses atop his head, the conversation illuminated the laid-back attitude the band has to their work: musically rigorous, they couldn’t care less about what people think.
All conspiracy theories have a bit of truth at their heart, some in greater abundance than others. They almost always operate on common fears and anxieties. The various Covid-19 vaccine conspiracies out there differ vastly in the final conclusions they draw and the powers-at-be they implicate, yet often begin with similar anxieties. Some naturopathic communities, often more left, and the alt-right are joined by their resistance to vaccinations. Although the stories told by both communities to justify their decisions are wildly disparate, these groups experience a preoccupation with governmental regulation of individual bodily autonomy––and although their conclusions are radical, this fear is a common one. Current media allows people to remain isolated in their ideological bubbles, furthering such radical dogmatic takes. Viagra Boys seems to take the broad view on Cave World, discussing various absurdities of modernity and trying to find meaning in it all. Their conclusion, return to the trees and live as monkeys.
The album is their tightest project yet, condensing their driving rhythms to a neater package. Their instrumental solos shine brightly, the band’s free jazz roots are embodied best by Oskar Carls’s blazing sax riffs. This project balanced satire and listenability more than previous albums––although what maturity means for a punk-rock band like Viagra Boys is unclear. I talked to Oskar Carls about his musical background, what Cave World represents for the band, and how he understands the satire of their project. With a pair of sunglasses atop his head, the conversation illuminated the laid-back attitude the band has to their work: musically rigorous, they couldn’t care less about what people think.
To start, could you introduce yourself? What does your band’s name mean?
My name is Oscar Carls of Viagra boys. I think that with the name, we wanted to paint a picture of the most unmanly thing that we can think of, the worst kind of masculinity. It's kind of satire of what it means to be a real man, to have the power to be hard all the time. It's kind of a joke about it.
How has the tour been going? What has the reception of Cave World been like?
The tour’s going great. We're playing a lot of shows now that have been postponed for years due to the pandemic, and I think you can really tell that people have been waiting a long time for these shows. It's a real good energy going on. The reaction to the new songs has been great, a real fantasy.
You have been making music for a while now, but this album seems like your most tightly packaged project yet. I'm curious to hear about how you think it fits into the Viagra Boys discography.
I just think we tried to push ourselves even further, to make the absolute most of the ideas we have and then try to push them to the extreme. I think that's why you can hear more diversity in this album than before, maybe.
You have said that for you, it is more about finding a groove than something super focused. How did you approach the vibe of this new album?
It's always about this. I mean, the albums are one thing, for sure we can do like 3 minutes songs, but for me, they are more like an advertisement for our live shows, where we can do these songs for however long we want. That's always the start of a song, the groove has been able to be played for like 50 minutes without getting boring. Otherwise, we must work on it a bit more. But I think you feel that directly, if you try a riff in the rehearsal space and feel like you have to have a new part here, a new part here, then maybe it's not as good of a riff as you've thought it had been before.
Your solos feel like the backbone of Viagra Boys’ free jazz style. Can you tell me a bit about your musical background and journey to joining the band?
I come from a more free jazz and free improvised music background. That's the music I played the most before I joined the band. But I also have always been a part of more rock bands, playing guitar and bass in those projects. But that has always been like two parallel things for me.
When I joined Viagra Boys – or actually it happened before then, they were a Polish band called The Kurws – they were also more rock oriented, but they wanted to implement this free jazz sound and try to do something else. They really taught me a lot about how to play the saxophone with a rock band without being the solo instrument all the time – you know, to be part of the rhythm section. That was really challenging at first but it was also a very fun challenge. I have tried to take this further with Viagra Boys and not just be a top line melody or solo instrument; I think you can hear in a lot of the songs that I am more a part of the rhythm section also, and back up Sebastian together with the rest of the band. But yeah, the guys have always been very open to this free jazz style of playing. I think a lot of bands would have just said, “No, what the fuck are you doing?,” they really liked the idea of having a squeaky weird sounding horn. I think that's also one of the main strengths of our band, that we all come from different backgrounds and all of us come with different things to the table. We tried to do the best with that, and try to allow ourselves to be ourselves as much as we can.
When I joined Viagra Boys – or actually it happened before then, they were a Polish band called The Kurws – they were also more rock oriented, but they wanted to implement this free jazz sound and try to do something else. They really taught me a lot about how to play the saxophone with a rock band without being the solo instrument all the time – you know, to be part of the rhythm section. That was really challenging at first but it was also a very fun challenge. I have tried to take this further with Viagra Boys and not just be a top line melody or solo instrument; I think you can hear in a lot of the songs that I am more a part of the rhythm section also, and back up Sebastian together with the rest of the band. But yeah, the guys have always been very open to this free jazz style of playing. I think a lot of bands would have just said, “No, what the fuck are you doing?,” they really liked the idea of having a squeaky weird sounding horn. I think that's also one of the main strengths of our band, that we all come from different backgrounds and all of us come with different things to the table. We tried to do the best with that, and try to allow ourselves to be ourselves as much as we can.
You toe the line of irony so tightly. Do you ever find that people don’t get it?
I think people get it. But that would also be quite fun if we started to have an anti-vax following after this album, that would be something. But for me I don't think it really matters if people get it or not. And I don't think that we have any need to bash on these people that we're talking about either. We all kind of have our ‘holes,’ and we're all kind of the worst you know? But in different ways.
It seems like you guys, especially on this album, have a lot of sympathy for the alienation that people are feeling that lead them to some really crazy conclusions. Would you say that is accurate? And then how do you balance finding absurdity in these humorous elements, while also trying to remain sympathetic to why some people are going to extreme conclusions?
I think that maybe humour is a way to cope with all of these things. I mean, you can be angry or sad about it also, but humour is kind of a good way to talk about things too, in a non-confrontational way. I mean, it's kind of easy to get into fights with people about these things. Also, I think when you can joke about it, maybe it is easier to talk about it in an open way. And yeah, humour is quite powerful in that way.
Some people argue for non-engagement with conspiracy theories. And, for the reasons that you've just talked about, it seems like the band is very much not interested in that. Do you think that is a way forward out of these aggressively isolated groups, these people who aren't really talking to anyone else – who aren’t seeing other media? Do you see any hope for conversation with them through humour? Or is it enough to bring people together through something cathartic?
I have people in my close circle that are into these ideas. And it's really hard to have a discussion with them about it. When you bring up real arguments against these theories, it's a really hard discussion to win, because they always have counter arguments that they have learned and strongly believe in. But yeah, I think in that way, humour is a quite powerful tool to use, to be able to talk about these things with some perspective and not get personal. But it's really hard. If I were to believe something like that – really believe it – I would also think that everyone is crazy not to. And I would be really frustrated, and be like, “what fuck, can't you see what's happening? People are trying to murder us with a vaccine,” and I would be trying to do anything to make other others believe it too. But I don't know, it's hard. And it's really sad that it's dividing people in the way that it does.
I believe this is your first album without Benjamin Vallé, yet this album is anything but sombre. How has the band continued on in the face of this pretty extreme loss.
Yeah, Benjamin was a really huge part of the band. And no one could really do what he did with a guitar. He had like a real superpower that he could play like the most minimalistic, and in some ways stupid, riffs, and make it sound so powerful, you know. So I think that since he passed away and left the band, it has been a journey for us to discover even more what a huge part he was of everything in the creative process. We've been forced to get into that and try to fill this huge space that he left after himself. And it has been hard, yeah, we miss him very much. Yeah, we miss him a lot.
On a very different note, I'm a bit curious about your investment in such American styles and topics. Even as Sweden has experienced its own rise in nationalism recently and has fallen to some of the same conspiracy theories, there's still this throughline of American roots. Why is this something important to the band?
I think it's all about Sebastian's roots. I mean, he was born in the United States, and I think he was brought up with a lot of country music too. I think that's actually what he listens to the most now. So it's something that has come very naturally to us, there's no real conscious choice about it. I know that he really wants to do a country record – go to Nashville and all that, ditch the band and then make a record with professional country musicians. But I guess this is the next best thing for him now. No, I don't know. It's a fun world to play around with too, it has all of its strong aesthetics that you can play with. It's very rewarding to play around with it.
Are you doing music full time now? Do you still have a day job?
Right now, I should have a day job, but I'm doing music full time. It's always a hassle. I work as a chef – I used to work as a chef in a lot of restaurants. But it has been in periods, when I need the money more. Working as a chef is quite a good business to have on the side of music because there's always work, you can always find work at some restaurant, they always need more people. But I'm trying to move past that. And now in the recent couple of years, I've been doing music full time.
Last question, why the sunglasses? Like, always. You guys are always in sunglasses.
(Laughs). I don't know. I think we're all kind of shy guys. And it's a way to just look cool, without having to do too much.
