'viagr aboys', walkouts and why 'perfection is boring', with Tor Sjödén
This isn't clickbait, I just can't write the band's name without triggering your email block filter.
Tor Sjödén seems gentle. He has a perpetual half-smile and glassy gaze, speaking slowly and deliberately as he tells me about his holiday plans: eating ham, skiing, and celebrating Christmas with his young family. As we speak, he’s in his kitchen at home in Sweden, around 9am local time.
“It’s very early, but I have kids so I have to be up early anyway,” he says.
In this setting, you could mistake Sjödén for my accountant. But we’re on Zoom to talk about his actual day job as founding member and drummer of Viagra Boys, the Swedish punk iconoclasts whose fourth album viagr aboys is currently being celebrated on many ‘best of 2025’ lists.
The self-titled (ish) record is the most polished dance-punk Viagra Boys have done yet. It’s the sort of record that David Byrne might have made if he were born decades later, listened to Cum Town, and ditched art school to play a lot of Counter-Strike. It’s a 37-minute fever dream that features endoscopes, preserved corpses, “flappy giblets”, and a beguiling song from the perspective of frontman Sebastian Murphy’s dog, Uno II.
Sjödén’s drumming is the first thing you hear on viagr aboys, quickly joined by Murphy moaning and groaning. It’s still somehow perhaps the most restrained Viagra Boys record, eschewing the unfettered lunacy of older songs like ‘Ain’t Nice’ and ‘Troglodyte’ for a steadier tone that feels richer, more off-kilter, and engrossing. The band’s ever-present satire has also been sharpened: there is a non-sequitur about Chandler Bing in a hot tub that feels lifted from a Connor O’Malley video, plenty of shrimp talk, and a quote about raisins I’m sure Viagra Boys will have yelled at them in the street for decades to come.
But most striking is the tenderness that peers through the cracks of the chaos. Album closer ‘River King’ pairs an unguarded and direct Murphy with Elias Jungqvist’s piano, while ‘Medicine for Horses’ sees Sjödén patiently drum his way through a haunting show-stopper that feels disembodied and dislocated from time and place.
Sjödén, who cut his teeth drumming in doom metal band New Keepers of the Water Towers, doesn’t see the shifting sonic palette as any inhibitor of his drumming.
“I actually enjoy playing every song because, for me, it’s always about making the groove feel good,” he says. “It’s a cliche, but music is a universal language. We can make people dance in Finland and we can make people dance in the middle of the US.”
This is something well-established: since forming a decade ago, Viagra Boys have been a must-see live act, with the tattooed and always topless Murphy holding court like a degenerate pastor in the world’s sleaziest church. Murphy is a comet: he will slither around the stage, or bounce around, or — as he’s taken to doing recently — switch out lyrics to make light of, say, Charlie Kirk. Such energy makes the band what it is, but it only works so well because Viagra Boys are an experienced unit that knows how to work around one another.
“We’ve played so much together, so I think we have a beautiful mutual understanding,” Sjödén says.
“It’s so important for me that parts are not exactly the same every night — Sebastian might be in a different mood and we can make a little change, the intro is long or the outro is longer, depending on what he’s talking about, stuff like that.”
Sjödén sees it as not just important for the band’s functionality, but its humanity. Later, when we talk about doing pre-recorded performances for late night television (as they did recently on The Daily Show), Sjödén mulls over whether he’d prefer the pressure of performing live on air.
“That would be fun, but then you could really fuck up. But I think it’s important nowadays to fuck up because AI and computers are taking over,” he says. “That’s why I’m really not nervous when we’re playing live too, because it’s more important than ever to show you’re human. Perfection is boring.”
The Daily Show spot came during the band’s long run of dates across the United States a few months back. For a band outspoken about its Palestinian advocacy and fervent disdain for fascism, I was curious to know how the country looked through the eyes of Viagra Boys.
“You know, the US has a lot of really nice, smart people there, too,” Sjödén says when I broach the question, with the rehearsed patience of someone who has been asked many times by friends and family since returning home from tour.
“I mean, obviously where we play, there’s a lot of people who don’t vote for Mr. Pigface, so it feels perfectly normal. I mean, Sebastian gets a little political when he’s on stage and maybe three or four people per show walk out—”
I can’t help but interrupt: people are getting upset with anti-Trump rhetoric at a Viagra Boys show? In 2025?
“But, you know, 99.9% stay,” Sjödén smirks.
Viagra Boys will likely achieve an even better strike rate when they grace Australian shores in January 2026. Joined nationally by Private Function, it marks the band’s third visit and biggest shows yet. The blow-up has happened fast and furious — after debuting at The Tote in 2019, Viagra Boys returned in 2024 to play the Enmore, The Tivoli and Forum (twice), and now they’re back barely 12 months later, sizing up again.
“I think we really, really connect with you guys down there. We have a great energy, and it’s really easy to tour in Australia,” Sjödén says. “It’s weird to travel halfway across the whole world and recognise everything. It’s a mixture between Europe and the US, it feels a lot like home.”
As to whether there’s anything particular synergistic about Australia? “I don’t know, there’s a lot of guys with mullets.”
Those eager for a taste of the tour can now get it in the form of Shrimp Sessions IV, a proto-live recording of viagr aboys. Following in the footsteps of Shrimp Sessions and Shrimp Sessions II, the band filmed themselves playing live. This iteration saw Viagra Boys bring in an audience to participate in the feeling.
“We just wanted to do something different than the others, to bring in an actual crowd and show people what it’s like when we play,” Sjödén explains. “I think it’s the best one yet that really captures our energy live, I feel really proud of it.”
I ask about the fate of Shrimp Sessions III, from which a few songs were released but never the full project. Sjödén is coy.
“Yeah, there are some videos from that, but I don’t know what’s happened,” he says. “I think it’s Viagra Boys-esque to have I, II and IV. But maybe someday you’ll dig it up from some archive and put it up on eBay for $6,000 or something.”
Sjödén is unbothered by its fate, as he seems to be about most things he can’t control. He’s happy for the band’s imperfections to show. They’ve done enough to earn their status on top and their success has only emboldened them (he promises the next Viagra Boys album will be “even simpler and stupider”).
And who can blame them? When you’ve gone from cult idol to headliner halfway across the world, why would you feel the need to slow down or compromise?
“You have to pinch yourself sometimes,” Sjödén laughs. “Like, okay, this is my job. But it’s fun.”
Viagra Boys are touring Australia and New Zealand from January 14 with Mini Skirt, Private Function and The Gnomes (tickets).
‘viagr aboys’ is out now via Shrimptech Enterprises. Listen now on Soundcloud, Apple Music or Quboz.
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