JULIAN RIBEIRO: Where are you right now?
BABYMOROCCO: I’m in my room.
RIBEIRO: Nice.
BABYMOROCCO: Dude, I like your hair at the moment.
RIBEIRO: Right? I recently got it cut, I think a little too short.
BABYMOROCCO: I’m jealous of your curls. They’re exactly what I need right now for the vibe I’m in.
RIBEIRO: I actually saw you on the cover for this project with your hair in the headband, and I was like, “I could get away with that.” But this isn’t the first time I’m stealing swag from Babymorocco, because I’ve been in the gym too.
BABYMOROCCO: Really? You look good.
RIBEIRO: Dude, I’m tea right now.
BABYMOROCCO: You’re what? You’re tea? Oh, yeah, I thought you meant that you’re on testosterone. I was like, “Fab.”
RIBEIRO: You were like, “Listen.”
BABYMOROCCO: I feel like there were a lot of rumors that I used to take it, but I’ve never taken any of that stuff.
RIBEIRO: Is that an exclusive? You’re saying on the record that you’ve never taken gear?
BABYMOROCCO: I’ve never taken gear. Not the gear that everyone thinks is gear anyway.
RIBEIRO: Do you want to expand on that?
BABYMOROCCO: I’ve taken peptides, but that’s not testosterone. I don’t know if they even work.
RIBEIRO: What peptides have you fucked with?
BABYMOROCCO: That GHK-Cu one, the one that makes your skin really good. But I feel like my skin is fairly good.
RIBEIRO: I feel like I’ve always known you to be clear and bright-looking.
BABYMOROCCO: I appreciate that.
RIBEIRO: Well, it’s good to see you. Let’s talk about these fucking show dates, babe. For the readers, where were you just traveling and playing shows?
BABYMOROCCO: I went to Poland to do this festival called—I can’t remember what it was called, but it was a big festival. The day after, I went to Seattle for Capitol Hill Block Party. Then, I did headline shows in San Francisco, Toronto, and Chicago.
RIBEIRO: Hell yeah.
BABYMOROCCO: I collapsed in Seattle in a wedding dress though.
RIBEIRO: Right. How did the rest of the dates go? Hopefully you didn’t have anything as dramatic happen this time.
BABYMOROCCO: Nothing really crazy happened this time. In Seattle, I fainted because, from Poland, I had to get a flight to Munich to Seattle, and I’d just taken a bunch of Valium, and then had one glass of wine. Then, on stage, I was really hot, and I was moving so hard. It all really came over me, and I fainted, and I slammed onto the stage. That was fab, in a way, because it felt really great to be carried off in a wedding dress. But everything else was fun. People said that Peter Thiel was going to come to my San Francisco show, but he didn’t end up coming.
RIBEIRO: Wow. Peter Thiel would be a fierce member of Babymorocco-nations.
BABYMOROCCO: I don’t think it would.
RIBEIRO: People give you enough shit, you probably don’t need Peter Thiel in the mix.
BABYMOROCCO: Right? You know they give me enough shit. I feel like I’m fucking devoured online.
RIBEIRO: Can we get into this a little bit? It always seems to recirculate a bit when you have music coming out. They’re always like, “You’re queerbaiting, you’re gay, you’re straight, you’re da, da, da.” No one else is really getting that treatment, but they give it to you. Does what I’m saying resonate with you?
BABYMOROCCO: Yeah. To really break it down, I’m one of the few gay boys–actually gay boys, but that’s the whole argument anyway—who actually is really fucking experimental in this scene. But they will never class me within the underground scene. I’m always ostracized from that. I think I’m a great songwriter. I think I’m a great performer. I’ve done shit with really good people. I’m one of the most forward-thinking, especially in terms of really experimenting with sound. I don’t get enough credit for that because they mar it with the idea of sexuality. My peers, they can get naked, they can get sexy, but they don’t have to explain it. I have to explain it. They’ll be like, “Oh, but Babymorocco just gets naked, that’s why people like his music.” I’ve got enough fucking streams to show that isn’t the case. I sell shows out. You can’t argue with hard tickets, I’m sorry. Argue with a tweet, but you can’t argue with sales.
RIBEIRO: Let the record show I’m snapping. I agree with what you’re saying completely. I also think that not many people are confident enough or have the presence to be sexy in a tangible, red-blood-in-my-body way. A lot of these other bitches are just waifish in hoodies.
BABYMOROCCO: When I first came out as Babymorocco in 2023, a lot of people utilized whatever I was doing for a little moment. They thought it was really easy to, like, “Oh, okay, he’s doing this sexy British thing. So we fuck with that and are going to engage in that, and that’s what we can package it as.” But as soon as I started to veer out of that, I got even more hate. It was like, “You’ll never be a serious artist.” And unfortunately, I just am. I don’t just exist online or on Twitter. People come see the shows, people ask me to write for them, people ask me to develop all this shit. I deserve my fucking place here. Do you know what I mean? They want to tell me constantly that I don’t. Every gay wants to be a pop star, so I guess they’re angry at me for being able to do that. But I’m just like, “Get over it.”
RIBEIRO: I’m like, “Babymorocco, get behind me.” Amour is a serious fucking album, and it’s seriously good. You put the fucking work in, girl.
BABYMOROCCO: Thank you.
RIBEIRO: I want to talk about the new record a little bit. Talk to me about creating it. Talk to me about this mushroom moment. I’ve listened to it a few times. “Annoying” is the best song ever.
BABYMOROCCO: I actually was writing the second album when I first came up with the idea of doing this mixtape. I remember I was in L.A., around Christmas, and at a New Year’s party—I think it was [REDACTED]’s party. He had this beautiful little stool where this woman was just giving vials of MDMA and jam. That’s when I sucked it out. In my head I was like, “Oh, that gives me that Shmarmaladeharmonica-vibe.” I was like, MDMA and jam would be called Shmarmaladeharmonica. I was feeling very shmarmy. So I was like, let’s do a mixtape about this feeling. It was great. I was dancing around the room. Then I remember going on this crazy night in L.A., and I thought, “This is what the mixed tape needs to be about.” I bought all these mushrooms from this delivery service in LA, and I just wrote the whole basis of the project. Then, I finished it with Jack Laboz in New York, in the studio where Andy Warhol got shot. That’s probably where I finished “Annoying,” as well. I’ve never written music so inebriated. I wrote Amour probably completely wasted the whole time, but I’d never written music on drugs or psychedelics. I probably will try an album as well when I’m sober. That would be nice to do at some point as well. I felt like I wanted to get a bit more whiny and emotional and do more storytelling, and I think psychedelics help you do that.
RIBEIRO: Oh my god. When I was listening through I kept thinking, these melodies and synths are giving me the things that I liked about Neon Indian, MGMT, Empire of the Sun. I felt the visual and the color in the music. Was that the intended effect?
BABYMOROCCO: Yes, for sure.
RIBEIRO: What was the set list for these shows that you’ve just done?
BABYMOROCCO: It’s half Amour, then it’s half Summer Fables. I need to learn how to sing “Porcelain.” I can sing really high really well. That’s the natural gay fighting in me to come out.
RIBEIRO: Right, right. What are your interactions with fans like in real life? I went to Ibiza last summer, and I met this guy Raul [Mencia] there who worked for Pop Crave. We got to talking about music and he’s like, “I have to show you this guy that I’m obsessed with,” and it was you.
BABYMOROCCO: I’ll tell you about the audience at my shows. The range is so crazy. In the front row, there’s always four lines of girls. Sexy girls, quirky girls, quirky-sexy girls.—there’s a mix. Then you get the old gays—fab.
RIBEIRO: Fab.
BABYMOROCCO: There’s a pocket of 10, smattered in different areas.
RIBEIRO: I’ve seen Bear Trade at a Babymorocco show before.
BABYMOROCCO: There was a guy in a fucking Bear Pride t-shirt in Toronto.
RIBEIRO: [Laughs] Fierce is fierce.
BABYMOROCCO: Then, you obviously get the young gays, the kids. The age range is so varied. But there’s quite a lot of sexy people at the shows. But the weird fan interactions—I tried to go out less this time than I usually do. Because the previous shows, like when I was in Ladyland, it was really intense. I got treated like shit there by the security. Also, as soon as I’m offstage, people are trying to take my clothes and tear them off.
RIBEIRO: People have personal space issues with you.
BABYMOROCCO: They do. And I’ve been stabbed, as you know.
RIBEIRO: I was there for both the stabbing and the phone robbery.
BABYMOROCCO: The phone robbery was fucking crazy. The original Frost Fest where the stabbing occurred, it felt like my blood was being drawn in some weird way, like fucking selling myself to the Illuminati.
RIBEIRO: It’s very like, “You want to make it, we’ll need something too.”
BABYMOROCCO: But it didn’t work, bitch. It was so much blood though. I remember iKeda was just taking pictures of herself while we were at the hospital, and I’m just bleeding out. It was crazy. But there was nothing super weird apart from sometimes people trying to touch me. Some girl put my microphone around her neck and tried to strangle herself with it at the front. But while I was singing with it, do you know what I mean?
RIBEIRO: That’s an insurance issue, bitch.
BABYMOROCCO: I used to do meet and greets, but there was this one really crazy person. They got my email, and they messaged me saying, “Oh, I can help you in the industry.” I didn’t respond because I was like, “This is obviously not real.” Then, the next message she wrote was like, “I’m going to fucking kill you. You disgust me. I hate your song anyway.” Then she quoted me my own lyrics and said, “I know what you meant by this, you fucking gay boy.”
RIBEIRO: Wake it up. You got to turn it up on these hoes.
BABYMOROCCO: You Americans, you are fucking crazy. I also started talking about religion. I got that song “Babel” in Seattle, and I was like, “I’m not about to do this here. I’m just going to shut the fuck up.”
RIBEIRO: Oh my gosh. I’m sure if you were just someone who streamed the music and didn’t know you, and then saw you live, they’d be like, “You are a vibe.”
BABYMOROCCO: Thank you.
RIBEIRO: They’re going to learn that part of the puzzle of you as an artist is this physicality and presence. It’s illuminating for people to see it, and then they’re like, “Oh, now the picture is revealed.”
BABYMOROCCO: I think so. I obviously did a lot of theater when I was younger. And after this little mixed tape, I’m really going to be focusing on my acting.
RIBEIRO: Is there a project coming out?
BABYMOROCCO: There’s a TV show coming out in October called It Gets Worse, produced by A24. I’m in four episodes, and I’ve got a song in it as well. My character is a failed musician, which I hope is just a performance. I hope that I’m not considered that.
RIBEIRO: Did you have any ego about seeing the script and they’re like, “You’re going to play the Khia.”
BABYMOROCCO: No, because it wasn’t quite approached like that. It was approached like, “At first, he was a failed actor.” Then, they were like, “Oh, I think it would be funny if it was a musician.” I was like, “Yeah, fair.” I kind of did want to play a failed actor though, but it doesn’t matter. It was really fun to do, and I think the show is really good. All the music’s produced by that band Jockstrap.
RIBEIRO: Oh, cool.
BABYMOROCCO: Lena Dunham’s in it, which is cool.
RIBEIRO: Everything’s coming up Babymorocco. All they had to do was sacrifice your blood to the Illuminati and then steal your fucking phone.
BABYMOROCCO: Steal my phone and then destiny swap with a hundred different people.
RIBEIRO: Right.
BABYMOROCCO: Honestly, I’m losing my mind. But I want to say though, I think what has made my brain go a bit crazy is the idea of trying out new sounds all the time. Because I get so much vitriol online, I always feel like I have to try a new sound so more people can understand me. I feel like that’s why sometimes I don’t stick to one thing.
RIBEIRO: Yeah.
BABYMOROCCO: What I’m finding out is that you can’t win. Do you know what I mean?
RIBEIRO: I feel that.
BABYMOROCCO: But at the end of the day, I will outlast every underground, sceney bitch that ever exists. I want more. Me and my friends, our plan is not to be cool forever. Our plan is knowing that you’re not. I don’t want to just be famous for two years, I want it forever.
RIBEIRO: That’s a really cunt place to stop.
