Cumgirl8: “If you don’t take yourself too seriously, people can only say so much shit to you”
As 2024 draws to a close, it is natural to reflect on the various musicians and performers who have soundtracked the year. An endless deluge of captivating music has come and gone, but one name which has come up more than most has been Cumgirl8. A mysterious, neon-clad outfit hailing from New York City, the story behind the band is that they first met 8000 years ago in an intergalactic sex chat. On this occasion, though, I caught up with the band in the backroom of Brudenell Social Club in Leeds.
Their show in Brudenell’s Community Room was set to be the penultimate date on an exhaustive European tour that began in Iceland and saw the New Yorkers travel throughout the continent. In stark contrast to their high-energy performances and brightly-coloured stage outfits, the band appeared before me in pyjamas and sweatpants, with guitarist Veronika Viliim sporting a Grinch-themed fluffy hoodie. As the show’s support bands, The Oidz and Turnspit, soundchecked in the background, the mellow atmosphere of the dressing room was only interrupted by this reporter quizzing Cumgirl8 on their particularly productive year.
After all, this was the year that the band released their stunning new album, The 8th Cumming, blending their uniquely provocative post-punk sound with ESG-esque grooves and themes of New York, modern alienation, and UTIs. One of the year’s most anticipated releases – no pun intended – the success of the record suddenly saw the band appearing on the radio and in the mainstream musical consciousness after years spent as underground DIY artists.
Make no mistake, though, the success of the band has not arrived overnight. Cumgirl8 first formed back in 2019 and has put out multiple EPs and albums prior to The 8th Cumming, alongside hosting the lockdown talk show The 1-900 and creating an entire world around the band. “I think when you are always working on projects, time gets bent in a different way,” drummer and occasional vocalist Chase Lombardo tells me.
“It doesn’t feel like a slog to me, and then I look at all the shit that we’ve done, and it’s like, ‘Oh.’ But I guess you just keep going.” Seemingly, Cumgirl8’s goalposts are constantly on the move. “You keep going, keep going, and you probably get stimulated from different things,” Lombardo said. “I don’t know, the benchmarks aren’t normal.”
A major milestone for the group arrived last year when they joined the ranks of the iconic independent label 4AD. According to Lombardo, the deal with 4AD is “like a dream sometimes”, though she also noted, “We could exist anywhere, right? We’re fucking amoebas, but 4AD is the best home.” Despite being signed to a label, Cumgirl8 have certainly not lost their enduring DIY spirit, though bassist Lida Fox argues, “The difference between what we were able to accomplish before and what we’re able to accomplish now is really major.”
A successful album, a deal with one of the best indie labels in the game, and a near-sell-out gig at Brudenell Social Club; what more could a gang of intergalactic post-punks dream of? “I can’t wait to sleep,” Vilim promptly responds, drawing attention to the bags under her eyes and the exhaustive tour schedule the band has encountered over the past few months. “That’ll be a reward when I can.”
Sleepiness was a prevailing theme throughout our chat, as Cumgirl8 tried to fight through the inviting allure of a pre-gig nap to answer my questions. The band I spoke to in the dressing room versus the band I saw on stage mere hours later were entirely different entities. Gone were the comfy pyjamas and slippers, replaced by neon fishnets and high-heels. I wondered whether Vilim was still thinking about resting her eyes while she spanked Lombardo with a microphone towards the end of the band’s rip-roaring set.
As anybody who has seen the band will be all too aware, Cumgirl8 have a very unique stage craft. Thankfully, the audience in Leeds were onboard with the band from the beginning, but it is difficult to imagine the very first time Cumgirl8 stepped out onto a stage to an audience that were not already familiar with them. According to the band, though, they have always been quite selective about the gigs they are willing to perform.
“I don’t think we were ever asked to be a support band on a show that didn’t make sense, and we were like, ‘fuck, we’ll just do it’ and then play to, like, an audience of people that wouldn’t understand,” Lombardo told me, thinking back to the early days of the group.
During those first few months in 2019, the band had something of a residency in Los Angeles. “A lot of people think that we’re actually a California band because of it,” Vilim shared. “We were there for like a month, and we had been having a bunch of opening slots for shows. Then we started booking headline shows, and then right when we were about to play these headline shows was when Covid happened.”
Generally, in the pre-covid days, the band’s reception in California was pretty positive. “Americans can be passive, and they won’t tell you to your face if they don’t like you,” Lombardo explained, “But some of our biggest and longest-lasting fans have been from the absolute worst shows we’ve ever played in our lives.” She then revealed the band’s tactic for dealing with any potential haters in their midst, proclaiming, “If you don’t take yourself too seriously from the beginning, people can only say so much shit to you.”
Perhaps this is the reason why the band’s social media presence, particularly Instagram, is dominated by memes and shitposts, where other bands might be endlessly promoting their own music. This balance between humour and the staunchly political anti-capitalist leanings of the band’s music is intrinsic to their sound.
“They go hand in hand,” Vilim told me, speaking on the balance between humour and politics within the Cumgirl world. “I think, generally speaking, everyone takes themselves so seriously that to find a happy medium with humour and relatability to every single type of person is the only way where, when we do say political stuff, that people will actually genuinely hear it. We don’t like to really exclude any certain types of people.”
Explaining the importance of striking that balance, Lombardo agreed, “Self-righteous people are just going to close their mind to you. We try to unite, as hokey as that sounds. Humour is a really easy way to get people to feel safe and put their guards down and then listen to you.”
Brudenell’s audience that night seemed to hang on to every word the group delivered. Performances of ‘UTI’, ‘Karma Police’, and ‘Picture Party’ formed highlights of their set, uniting the diverse audience and getting people moving on a typically freezing winter evening in West Yorkshire. Cumgirl8 were a long way from their home in New York, but they performed with the aptitude and love of local heroes.
Seemingly, the band owes a lot to their NYC roots, with Fox sharing, “I think we are inspired by the history and the energy of the city.” This avenue of conversation soon led to the topic of Patti Smith, who famously declared that any artist trying to make it in New York should pack their bags and move to Detroit. Cumgirl8, on the other hand, are living proof that the city is still a fertile breeding ground for exciting new artists.
“I know she said it’s not a good place for an artist, like when she started out,” Lombardo said of Smith’s comments. “It’s not if you’re not clever, but you just figure out how to be a cockroach, and you can do it.”
Fox then added, “In the 1970s, it was cheap to live there, and artists could just survive off of their art, and maybe working a little – like she worked at a bookstore. Now it’s like, no, you have to be doing so many different things and constantly hustling and thinking about money, how to make money, and how to pay rent.”
Summarising the spirit of the city in general, Lombardo declared, “You can’t really fuck around in New York. You got to be about what you’re about.” Perhaps that is why Cumgirl8 have wasted no time in establishing their musical world, crafting fantastically unique music in addition to their various other projects, like The 1-900 chat show, and even the world of fashion (custom-made boxing shorts were available on the merch stand at Brudenell).
After finishing up our conversation with some enthusiastic discussion about Jon M Chu’s Wicked, I headed back out into the drizzle of Leeds content with the fact that Cumgirl8 were not, in fact, aliens who met in a sex chat 8000 years ago, but were instead profound artists creating some of the most inventive and important music of the moment. These thoughts were confirmed a few hours later upon returning to the venue to see the band’s seminal performance, which became a late contender for the best gig I saw at Brudenell this year.
