Punk’s Not Dead: It's Now Just a Bunch of Shrimp-Obsessed Swedish Guys
Viagra Boys performing in Sweden in 2018. Photo by Magnus Lönnegren Wikensten via Flickr
The phrase “your favorite artist’s favorite artist” has recently been dominated by pop star Chappell Roan. However, there may be another industry darling that your favorite artist might just love. Phoebe Bridgers, Queens of the Stone Age, Father John Misty, The Hives and Kings of Leon have all expressed their affinity for punk rock’s newest darling: Viagra Boys. Yes, that’s their name.
Combining high-octane madness with a peculiar obsession with shrimp, Viagra Boys is one of the shining stars of the recent wave of rock and punk outfits. Bands like Amyl and the Sniffers, Idles, Fontaines D.C. and many others are among the wide array of new voices within the scene. However, Viagra Boys' mix of post-punk, electronic and garage rock, combined with their bonkers on-stage antics, makes them one of the most exciting rising artists today.
Viagra Boys was founded in 2015 in Stockholm, Sweden, when Sebastian Murphy, the uber-tattooed beer-bellied frontman, met his future bandmates getting tattoos. Soon later, they were singing karaoke; as Murphy belted out “We Belong Together” by Mariah Carey, drummer Tor Sjödén explained “...[that] we saw Sebastian singing karaoke and thought… ‘we have to do this.’”
The vision for the band came to fruition, as described by Murphy, “A lot of Viagra Boys is creating this fucked up fantasy world that I made up in my head, with all the images of dogs, shrimps, spies and weird shit.”
Murphy, the only non-Swedish-born member of the band, is a punk rock unicorn, a frontman who exudes raw power through his “your uncle drunkenly dancing to Aerosmith shirtless” energy. As Murphy crowd surfs, bathes in beer and manically sings on the floor about research chemicals, he harnesses the unrelenting energy to the likes of Iggy Pop. The band itself acknowledges its Frankenstein sound, keyboardist Elias Jungqvist described the band as if “[The] Stooges or Motörhead went to a rave.”
Viagra Boys’ debut, “Street Worms,” is a tight 36-minute introduction to the band both sonically and thematically. While at the surface, Viagra Boys seems to be an outrageous satire, their manic and topical lyrics really pull the band together.
Covering hypermasculinity, addiction, psychosis, radicalization and conspiracy theories, the band explores these ideas remarkably well within their style. For example, their third album, 2022’s wonderfully bonkers “Cave World,” explores mass shooters and radicalism online in their song “Troglodyte.” As Murphy warns in the lyrics, “He says he don't believe in science, he thinks that all the news is fake, and late at night he sits on his computer, and writes about the things he hates.”
The band has recently seen a recent rise in popularity due to the build-up to their fourth album, their sort-of self-titled, “Viagr Aboys” released on April 25. Produced by their newly-founded label, Shrimptech Enterprises, it's another consistent non-stop descent into wailing saxophones and earth-pounding bass riffs.
The vinyl of the "Viagr Aboys" album. Photo by Andrew Breen '25
The album’s two opening tracks, “Man Made of Meat” and “The Bog Body,” are the catchiest songs on the newest album and showcase the phenomenal production throughout. “Man Made of Meat’s” inherent crassness through Murphy’s opening belch and Limp Bizkit references pairs phenomenally with its increasingly apathetic “Ok, alrights.” “The Bog Body’s” twisted mummified love story ends up as a ceaselessly replay-inducing track due to the deep, thumping basswork of Henrik Höckert.
“Uno II,” a disorientating track based on Murphy’s pet greyhound’s dental troubles, and “Pyramid of Health,” a crossover of a country ballad and bizarro health nut journey, show off the band’s skills with slower-paced tracks. “Dirty Boyz” leans hard into the electronic dance elements we’ve seen before on albums like “Cave World,” however, the track delves into Murphy’s past addictions, describing hellish drug dens and creatures coming for him in the night.
The following track, “Medicine for Horses,” is Viagra Boys at their most somber, with Murphy’s yearning, pained vocals working incredibly well at the album’s mid-point. The beginning of side B, with “Waterboy” and “Store Policy,” continues the frantic pace and ratcheting tension through the pure wall of sound they create, going so far as to induce ambulance sounds on the latter track.
“You N33d Me” is inspired by one of Murphy’s cocky tattoos. As the song storms in with its drums, Murphy relives his embarrassing party antics of being the center of attention, which consisted of listing his history “fun facts,” “Did ya know that the last Japanese soldiers surrendered in 1998? And they were actually, it was qui— it was commonplace to use bears in the Polish army.”
The album's big closer is “Best in Show Pt. IV,” a hilarious, nonsensical episode of “wow that is an original sentence” lyrics with “I met with the shadow man once again … he led me to an ancient tomb in the subway systems of New York City, where a celebrity cabal was taking place, I then proceeded to steal Poseidon's trident from the Navy SEALs and they'll never get it back.” Essentially acting as a manic stream of consciousness with screaming saxophones and looping bongos, it perfectly encapsulates the band’s mission of unadulterated bliss and nonstop creativity.
As “Viagr Aboys” concludes with “River King,” a swooning piano ballad, it once again shows off the different musical chops of the band. As Viagra Boys prepares for a new world tour, including a massive show in Stockholm at the world’s second biggest dome, Avicii Arena, their ascension into the mainstream rock ethos becomes not if, but when. The future of rock seems to be dominated by a few Swedes who have fully embraced the weird, including anything shrimp, and that’s what we just need right now.