MOMUS DOESN’T JACK OFF OVER SKYPE

Photo by Staffan Eliasson.

Momus has been telling it like it is, record after record, with soft spoken, inconvenient classics such as “The Homosexual”, “His Majesty The Baby” and “Sex With The Disabled” ever since the dawn of time (more or less). And if you didn’t already know, the reason he looks like a pirate is because he lost sight in his right eye after washing his contacts in Greek tap water. Who knew contact lenses and water could be as dangerous as the bottle trick?
Anyway, he’s back, again, with a new EP called The Thunderclown slated for release on Swedish label Tona Serenad. Download a song from the EP on us, right here. And if you happen to be in Stockholm tonight, check out the free show he’s playing at Södra Teatern. Read below for an interview our very own Tobias Axelsson did with Momus last week.

Vice: Watching your new video for Precocious Young Miss Calloway made me feel like I was watching a date get stuck in midair.
Momus: Your reaction perfectly illustrates the theme of the song, it’s about interesting rumours and incorrect extrapolations. Us humans can’t help creating soap operas out of random data. I’ve actually never Skyped with Miss Calloway; the video was put
together using a short webcam video she posted on her YouTube page. She was just making random faces at her computer, and when I edited them together with my lipsynch video, it looks very much as if we’re relating in real time.

I often eat breakfast with overseas friends over Skype. Do you ever mix food and Skype?
Sometimes I eat food during Skype sessions just as a way to show I’m not wanking. It’s important to keep your hands visible at all times. One of the best Skype sessions I ever had involved directing a friend to pour milk over her body. You can never tell where the milk will trickle, and the path it takes provides a rich source of 3D information.

Any food suggestions to accompany your music?
Bread and water, but only the best quality bread and water.

Do you eat meat?
I was a vegetarian for four years when I was a student, but I stopped having orgasms and got tunnel vision, so I started eating meat again. Now I get tunnel orgasms.

So it’s true that vegetarians are worse in the sack since they’re “afraid of the meat” so to speak?
Actually, the sexiest girl I ever knew was vegan. But she had horribly hairy legs. Organic legs.

In your song “The Homosexual” you sing about giving in to people’s misconceptions. Are you still considering it?
Well, in the context of that song, the narrator makes the decision to go along with the world’s misconceptions about him for his own advantage. It’s a bit like a girl who’s sexy in the eyes of the world, but not to herself, who decides to act like a sexy girl. And, naturally, finds it works. I’m still pondering this question on my 2010 album Hypnoprism. The title track uses a Bush-ism when it says “I’m a little misunderestimated, I can measure up to nothing much/I am a crippled tiger and you are my crutch”. It’s up to the listener to decide whether this neediness is cunning, winning, or naive. My narrators tend to show their cunning calculations, but even that may be a calculated strategy in itself, and even calculation might be naive– like for a gamine ingenue like Miss Calloway, for instance. There are many layers to the onion, which is what makes it such a crunchy bite.

TOBIAS DUNÉR AXELSSON