BODYELECTRIC - TWO (Colton Haynes Cover)

BODYELECTRIC

COLTON HAYNES Photography RYAN PFLUGER

2 Cover Star: Colton Haynes Photography: Ryan Pfluger Fashion: Benjamin Holtrop

Cover Star: Yassin Chekkouh Photography: Raphaël Chatelain

BODYELECTRIC Editor-in-Chief / Creative Director TJ HADDOCK Featuring COLTON HAYNES PEACHES CHRIST ROSSI STEPHEN WINTER YASSIN CHEKKOUH Contributing Conversationalists JORDAN FIRSTMAN PATRICK ROGERS THOMAS DEKKER TRIXIE MATTEL Contributing Photographers ADAM WASHINGTON ALEXANDER COURTMAN ANTONINO CAFIERO CALLUM WALKER HUTCHINSON CARLO VELASQUEZ GABE AYALA GABRIEL VORBON JB ALEXANDER MARCO OVANDO MATTHEW MILLS PANTELIS RAMON CHRISTIAN RAPHAËL CHATELAIN RICHARD KRANZIN RYAN PFLUGER SAM REISS WEST PHILLIPS WINTER VANDENBRINK Contributing Stylists BENJAMIN HOLTROP MARLON PORTUGAL MARTINA FESTA Featured Models ALESSANDRO G, CLIFTON MOONEY, COOPER KOCH, DAREK WIERZYCKI, DERECK GIMENES, DMYTRO PALADII, ETHAN O’PRY, FINN LEWIS, GABRIEL LOURERIO, GORGUI T, JHONA BURJACK, KING TURNBULL, KONSTANTIN RESCH, LENNY KRAGBA, LORENZO B, MARK YOUNG, NICK P, NICOLAS LORENZON, NIKITA KORZO, OLORUN WEBSTER, RHYS KOSAKOWSKI, SAM, TARYL BOOTHE, VLAD, WILLIAM MUYAYALO, ZANDER HODGSON Special Thanks ALEXANDER TORRES, ANDY GILLET, ANNA STOVITZ, ANTONINO CAFIERO, BENJAMIN HOLTROP, BRAD SAENZ-CHRISTOPHERSON, BRIAN FIRKUS, CALLUM WALKER HUTCHINSON, CHARLIE BY MZ, COLTON HAYNES, JACLYN BLUMAS, JADE CANY, JORDAN FIRSTMAN, JOSHUA GRANNELL, LA MODEL MANAGEMENT, MARCO OVANDO, MATTHEW ZINK, MELANIE LECHAT, MONICA BOSELLI, NATALIE ALYN LIND, NO TIES MANAGEMENT, RAPHAËL CHATELAIN, ROSSI, ROXANE MESQUIDA, RYAN PFLUGER, SAMANTHA HOLLINS, SERGIO GARCIA, STEPHEN WINTER, STORM PROD, SUNTY POR, TARA LANOWAY, THE WALL GROUP, THOMAS DEKKER, TYLER UDALL, WINTER VANDENBRINK

Published in Los Angeles, CA. All interviews are edited for length and clarity. bodyelectricmag.com © BODYELECTRIC 2024. All content copyright remains with the author and reproduction of any material without express written permission is strictly forbidden.

Any views expressed in interviews or articles are those of individuals and do not necessarily reflect the views of this magazine or any other organization or individual.

Photography MARCO OVANDO Fashion MARLON PORTUGAL Assistant JACOB KOE Models GABRIEL LOURERIO & DERECK GIMENES

Photography ANTONINO CAFIERO Fashion MARTINA FESTA Casting TUONO CASTING Models NICK P, ALESSANDRO G, VLAD, SAM, LORENZO B, GORGUI T

Denim LEVI’S

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Boots SONORA

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Hat ARTHUR ARBESSER

necklace YVES SAINT LAURENT

Vince Rossi is out for disco revenge. The pop sensation, who shot to gay stardom with his iconic single “7 Minutes” and has been hustling the Gay Pride circuit ever since is set to debut a new EP and single this year. He talks to best friend, college peer, and former Grindr employee, Patrick Rogers, about being a gay divorcée, foursomes, drag queens, and how revenge is a dessert best served with thumping beats.

PATRICK: Hi, Vince Rossi.

VINCE: Hi, Patrick Rogers.

PATRICK: Long time, no see. When was the last time I saw you? IRL. VINCE: Well, every time I come to New York you don’t want to be there.

PATRICK: The one time! I did something in LA recently. I know I saw you in a hot tub.

VINCE: That certainly makes sense in my fantasy.

PATRICK: Okay, let me ask a real question. How’s your emotional landscape?

VINCE: A good mix of chaotic and grounded. Do you know what I mean? It feels like I’m meditating but I also just had a Celsius.

PATRICK: It’s so weird because usually we talk more regularly, and we really haven’t caught up in a minute.

VINCE: I said that to Larke yesterday at the mall. I was like, it’s so weird ‘cause Patrick and I haven’t talked a lot, so it’s funny to catch up during an interview.

PATRICK: Where are you right now in the world?

VINCE: I’m in my apartment in Studio City. The best part of Los Angeles that I’ll never leave unless I can go anywhere else.

PATRICK: You’ve been in that same apartment for a while.

VINCE: 12 years.

PATRICK: You used to live there with your husband. Remember him?

VINCE: I sure do. And you know what? You officiated our wedding.

PATRICK: Should we get into it for a sec?

VINCE: Yeah, it’s hilarious.

PATRICK: Where did we meet?

VINCE: College! We met in college in the cafeteria, and you were wearing blue framed Ray Bans.

PATRICK: They were Versace. Continue.

VINCE: Okay. Versace, excuse me. And you were a grade older than me. I just remember that you did a performance of La Cage Aux Follies, and it was mind blowing. And I was like, oh my God, who is this guy? And then, we didn’t really connect until you moved to LA. Because of Mia Serafino.

Shout out Mia. We became best friends very quickly, I think. I remember, wasn’t it on July 4th you came over? We watched Jaws and all these summer movies. And then over time, you know, I was with my ex-husband Ryan, or boyfriend at the time, and it was always the three of us. You were my introduction to queer culture because all of my friends at the time were straight women.

PATRICK: God bless.

VINCE: We used to go to you for everything gay.

PATRICK: And then I married you crazy kids.

VINCE: I know. And like, honestly, the speech was amazing. You even brought Xtina into it. You also renewed my parents’ vows, which was actually one of the highlights of the weekend.

PATRICK: It’s just crazy that while you guys were getting married, you were also in the midst of getting divorced.

VINCE: That’s the real tea. I remember people being like, this is just wedding stress. You guys will be fine, etc. And then the wedding happened, and we were just growing in different directions.

And now we’re in this healthy place where we can literally be great friends. Sometimes you grow together and sometimes you grow apart.

PATRICK: Growing separately is a very mature decision.

VINCE: I would say that was the hardest decision to make. And I don’t know if I would’ve made it honestly. Ryan had to make the call, because he was the one that was a little more like, okay, we gotta do this. I would’ve suffered a few more years.

PATRICK: Okay well speaking of your marriage, remember when you opened it up and we all had a foursome with ****?

VINCE: Oh my god, Patrick. Was that here or at the other apartment.

PATRICK: The studio city apartment.

VINCE: It’s funny because I just was so sheltered at that point. My idea of open at the time was like, only if you’re my friend.

PATRICK: That night really bust down the door for y’all.

VINCE oh did it…

PATRICK: Meanwhile…**** and I started dating.

Who has a foursome and ends up with a boyfriend? I’m so demented.

VINCE: We’ve been through some things.

PATRICK: Are you dating anyone now?

VINCE: I haven’t dated anybody in like a year… maybe two years. Two years. I actually went on a date last night for the first time in a while. We went to see Sky Ferreira in Pomona. I don’t think I know how to date. The problem is that there is no mystery to Vince Rossi. I’m like, hey, I’ve been married, I’ve been divorced, I’m an open book.

This is who I am.

PATRICK: Not many people can say they’ve been a gay divorcée.

VINCE: No. And I kind of love that about myself.

PATRICK: It’s very chic actually.

VINCE: I’m just looking for a good time. And someone to dress up with me in wigs.

PATRICK: And how many Rupaul’s Drag Race queens have you slept with now, Vince?

VINCE: Four…or so.

PATRICK: How the hell you gonna love yourself if you can’t make love to a few queens?

VINCE: My thoughts exactly.

PATRICK: Who would you say your musical muses are? Who turns you on?

VINCE: I’m very into Prince. That sexuality that he had on stage is so hot. I’m listening to a lot of old Bowie right now too. Of course, I’ve always got my girls, you know, Gaga, Miley, Beyoncé.

PATRICK: What deep cut songs or artists do you think people wouldn’t suspect you to enjoy?

VINCE: I think because I make pop music people think I only listen to pop music but at home I listen to Lana Del Rey, Kasey Musgraves and Dean Martin. When I’m home alone, I either want to be in silence with my thoughts or I want to listen to something chill. When I leave the house, I’ll put on a playlist of Fleetwood Mac for my dog, Kenley.

PATRICK: “Sweet Cheeks” came out this year.

What was the inspo?

VINCE: I honestly just heard the phrase. Most of the songs I write, I have a lyric pad on me, and I’ll just write words or phrases that I like, and one day I wrote down sweet cheeks. I wanted it to have the feeling of “Hella Good” by No Doubt, but with Prince vocals. And we created it in like three hours, the whole thing.

PATRICK: And who has the sweetest cheeks?

VINCE: Tough, but probably Jake Dupree.

PATRICK: Oh right, insane ass.

VINCE: The burlesque booty hit different.

PATRICK: Let’s talk about this photo shoot.

VINCE: I always go to Sam (Lepre) because her references are so unlike anyone I’ve ever met.

When I come to her with an idea, she’s never like, no. She’s like, okay, let’s think about that. For the shoot, we had this cool opportunity to be in a queer magazine and I wanted to do something that’s not an Abercrombie and Fitch catalog. I just thought of a ball gag, and I was like, but it’s a disco ball. (Gag on the disco, if you will)

PATRICK: You look like a rabid Lisa Rinna.

VINCE: I fucking love her PATRICK: It was a compliment!

VINCE: Duh. PATRICK: If you got to curate the Similar Artists on your Spotify page for Rossi, who would you pick?

VINCE: I want it to be like Prince and Bowie. But at the same time, there is an element, it is a bit mainstream sounding as well. If I could go back and just choose like 2010 Katy Perry, that would be a reference, because I love the campiness of her early career. I think like, obviously, you know, Gaga would be somebody out there for me.

Because we’re both Italian.

PATRICK: You haven’t mentioned that you’re Italian in the interview yet though, so you’re not serving Gaga.

VINCE: Stop. I got a spray tan yesterday and it develops over 10 hours and by the 10th hour we were at the concert, and it was just eyes and teeth. It was very “A Call from the Vatican.”

PATRICK: Okay speed round. Five questions in 30 seconds.

VINCE: I hate you. Okay go.

PATRICK: Who’s your musical crush?

VINCE: Okay. Hold on, hold on. I just sat up; I think I’m getting too lax.

PATRICK: Do you not understand the term speed round?

VINCE: Miley Cyrus!

PATRICK: Most famous person you’ve slept with?

VINCE: **** ****** PATRICK: Favorite song to cover?

VINCE: “Kiss,” by Prince.

PATRICK: Why does a Rossi fan come to a show?

VINCE: Why is this question in the speed round?

OMG. Six-minute monologues, campiness, and my disco stick.

PATRICK: Speed round over really good work.

VINCE: Did you just make up a speed round to get me to talk faster?

PATRICK Okay final question. You’re about to film a reality show this week, can we discuss it?

VINCE: Yes! It’s for the CW, it’s called Follow Me, and it’s 10 influencers competing against each other. So, each week are challenges and we’re gonna meet up with brands and they’re gonna give us keywords and they’re gonna say, make a TIK TOK or some other piece of content.

PATRICK: This is so dystopian. I love it.

VINCE: It’s fucking crazy. And then it’s gonna be put into an app and people are gonna vote. And on top of that, the brand is going to say what is the most engaging and the best. I’m competing as the pop star influencer. And they’ll probably be like a fitness person, a beauty girl, you know what I mean?

PATRICK: Final question. What’s next for Rossi?

VINCE: This is like the third final question. An EP next year, the theme is disco revenge. The next single is called “Center of Attention.” It’s my way of taking back my power over a nasty situation where I was told that I always need to be the center of attention. The EP definitely has a Robyn “Dancing on My Own” vibe—a release of negative emotions that you can groove to. Up until this point, even in my divorce, I never wrote a negative song about anyone. But the relationship I’m singing about on this EP is different. When people mistake my kindness as weakness then I’ll sing whatever the fuck I want about them.

PATRICK: When is the single coming out?

VINCE: I assume that’ll come out in the spring and then I’m gonna be performing at Mardi Gras in Australia in March for World Pride!

PATRICK: Hallelujah. Okay, give us the final word.

VINCE: Revival.

ROSSI

Photography CALLUM WALKER HUTCHINSON Words PATRICK ROGERS

Glam SAMANTHA LEPRE Movement KENT BOYD Shot at CHANDLER CREATIVE STUDIO in North Hollywood, CA

blazer PRESSIAT

necklace MELINDA MARIA

suit PRESSIAT shoes YVES SAINT LAURENT

suit I AM GIA shoes SYRO

top PRESSIAT

Photography WINTER VANDENBRINK Model RHYS KOSAKOWSKI Set Design ERJAN BORREN

Photography GABE AYALA Model ZANDER HODGSON

PEACHES CHRIST in conversation with

TRIXIE MATTEL

photography CARLO VELASQUEZ

Cult leader, midnight movie empress, filmmaker, and drag star Peaches Christ owns the throne of the queerdo underground. Creator of the infamous “Midnight Mass” movie event series and writer/director of the annual, massively successful Halloween experience “Terror Vault,” Peaches burst onto the ‘90s San Francisco drag and cult scene when things were messy, dangerous, confrontational and groundbreaking. Mother to Bob the Drag Queen and Jinkx Monsoon, collaborator and peer of Elvira and John Waters, Peaches’ wild and daring work, including the 2010 feature “All About Evil,” starring Natasha Lyonne and Mink Stole, was laying the groundwork for a world of drag she never thought possible. Here, Peaches and drag superstar Trixie Mattel reflect upon their meeting, the current revolution in youth, and the thrill of turning straight men’s stomachs.

Peaches Christ: Here we are. I’m excited. I’m ready for you to probe me.

Trixie Mattel: I was just in San Francisco for a day, and you weren’t there, but that’s okay.

PC: You were doing a private gig, right?

TM: Yeah.

PC: And you ran into your ex-lover.

TM: They said that Heklina used to have that gig.

PC: I have no idea what they’re talking about. I mean, if she did, I didn’t know about it.

TM: It was an easy small birthday party. Well, small for rich people.

Like 120 people and they just wanted a DJ for when people were coming in for cocktails and after Gaga. So, I just played some music.

PC: Maybe she (Heklina) just said, yeah, I can DJ. And she just showed up and played music or whatever.

TM: Which I think, if you’re in drag, if you show up in a wig, people’s expectations of you should be in the goddamn basement.

PC: Exactly. Yeah. If you want a drag queen to play music, sure. But, you know, calling her a DJ might be far-reaching.

TM: I was probably 19, maybe 20-PC: You were a child.

TM: And you were 40 or 50, I don’t know-PC: Uh, I was in my thirties, my later thirties, and you were a teenager.

There’s a lot about that time period that I don’t remember because it was 15 years ago, but I definitely remember you. And I remember those shows because it was a big deal for me to go from city to city, showing this movie that I made, and also meeting underground drag performers in each city. And what I remember about Milwaukee was that we were told there wasn’t really an underground drag scene but there was a Rocky Horror cast and that we should reach out to them, and of course, that’s what we did. We met the directors of your shadow cast and then they put together the group that was going to do the show. I specifically remember you; I remember becoming Facebook friends with you and following your evolution as a drag performer. And of course, I love the picture of you and I together because it shocks people who haven’t seen early Trixie Mattel. It’s not the way we would picture Trixie Mattel today, with a very signature makeup style.

TM: Even your makeup is softer in the picture. It was mostly glitter on the brow bone and eyeliner more than anything, whereas now I think your look is so much shadow and color.

PC: I’ve changed my look a little bit because of when I lived with you in Provincetown. You said something like, I would do a more graphic line here, and you kind of made a couple suggestions. I remember going into the art house and darkening up some stuff and then going further and further. You and actually Bianca, I think it’s hilarious that all the fucking Drag Race fans that worship you, they worship your ridiculous makeup styles, and then if a picture of me shows up, they’re like, “Look at that hideous clown, she doesn’t know how to do makeup.”

And I’m like, “Wait, how are these two celebrated for this?!” I love really over-the-top, insane makeup but there was a time when that style of makeup...like people HATED my makeup. Which only made me more excited to be crazier.

TM: Do you remember Holy McGrail?

PC: Of course! Holy was in many of my shows.

TM: In early Googling as a drag queen, pictures of you, Holy, Bunny, they would always come up because when you’d Google drag makeup, Google would generate the biggest drag makeup it could find.

But then I met you and I saw that big makeup up close. And I’d never seen professional costumes. Like when I saw you with your big, beat, perfect loaf of hair and custom-made sequins, you know, I’m a Rocky cast. I’m a teenager. I’m standing there in probably my sequin dot fabric and you’re in real sequins, which is like 40 a yard at the time, I’m sure, and I was just like, “Whoa.” And you were a working drag queen traveling and showing your movie! I mean, this is pre-Drag Race, I think. Or it had started but hadn’t-PC: You know what’s really weird about Drag Race is that Ru came and did Midnight Mass in San Francisco, and she was lovely. We had met before because there weren’t that many working queens in the ‘90s, especially the people who stuck with it. There was the explosion of drag the first time with “Supermodel” but it was really an explosion for Ru, and Lady Bunny with the Wigstock documentary. It wasn’t like drag had exploded the way it has now. Anyway, Ru had come to do Midnight Mass because she had made a feature film called “Star Booty.” She had reached out to me to see if I would do “Star Booty” at Midnight Mass and I said “Of course” because who would turn down RuPaul, right? And when she was there, she said, “I’ve got this new project coming up. It’s going to be a drag TV show, a reality TV show, a competition,” and of course, me and the audience were like, “Oh, okay, cool.” Because things had gone on Logo but had just never become big. And the way she described it was, it was going to be a parody of “America’s Next Top Model” meets “Project Runway.” And then Drag Race came out and it was on Logo, and it was fine. The first few seasons, they weren’t the explosion that ended up happening, which I think really was around season 4 with Sharon Needles. I feel like that was when everything kind of switched. That’s when I really paid attention.

TM: When you say Milwaukee didn’t have an underground drag scene, it didn’t. When I started, there were maybe a dozen working drag queens and there were 2 weekly shows, maybe, and it was the same queens who’d had the same position for 5 plus years.

PC: It’s interesting to me because you were so close to Chicago, right? So, it sort of reminds me of Baltimore and Washington DC because they’re only an hour apart and Baltimore, their drag scene is so different than Washington DC. Dramatically different drag universes.

TM: Baltimore is weirder, right?

PC: Baltimore is weirdo and trashy and just kind of unhinged. I guess what you would call artsy, but maybe even like...is it art or--?

TM: Like anti-art.

PC: Trash. Yeah. DC’s more traditional, more diva, beautiful impersonation, pageanty, you know, fierce. And that kind of makes me think of Chicago and Milwaukee a little bit. I will say, when we reached out to Chicago, we got hooked up with the House of Santana-TM: Oh yes, House of Santana.

PC: And that’s who we did the show with there, and they did a big after-party at Berlin. Being in Chicago, which seemed like the big city, and we were meeting all these wild queens and trans women and doing an after party at a really cool underground gay nightclub and then going to Milwaukee where it was so kind of nerdy in a way, I actually think I fit in better with the Milwaukee people because I’m such a cult movie nerd.

TM: Well, you worked with our Rocky cast, which was people who loved, like, “The Room” and “Phantom of the Paradise.” Like, bad movie people. Whereas Chicago and House of Santana, the pretty girls, the pageant girls, a lot of them...let’s say those were professional drag queens vs. the Rocky cast, which was really just a bunch of fools putting on heels and glitter and fake blood and screaming.

TM: Do you think that San Francisco was primed for you to lay the groundwork for a big, weird drag scene or did you step into a very developed weird drag scene?

PC: I would say maybe a little bit of both, but probably more that I stepped into one. I feel like San Francisco, in some ways, is often overlooked, or maybe not totally understood, or maybe it’s a little underrated. We haven’t really been that well represented on Drag Race, which is fine because maybe that’s not the best vehicle for San Francisco drag. And part of that is because San Francisco drag is, in its nature, outsider. It’s where the Cockettes got their start. In the late ‘60s, they were doing bearded drag, they had AFAB Queens, they were living in a commune. They were doing midnight shows at a movie theater in 1969. They were doing this crazy glitter makeup, making giant sets for huge theatrical productions, writing their own original musicals, doing irreverent and offensive parodies. So, I can’t take credit for much because that was happening in the late ‘60s. I stepped into a San Francisco drag scene that was at the height of grunge. It was the mid-’90s, Trannyshack had just started but was already a thing. Fucking rad. Like, I’d walk in there on a Tuesday night, and it would be packed and I would see the most insane, inspiring, talented drag performers and drag shows and of course, I jumped right in. I was 22 years old, and I began performing and became best friends with Heklina, who was running it and, you know, I was lucky. I was that kid who wanted to be a punk rock runaway drag queen and that’s what I ended up becoming.

TM: I think the way you start drag has a lot to do with the drag queen you become, right? And you starting with the group you started with and me doing Rocky Horror drag for 3 or 4 years before I even set foot in a gay nightclub and saw another drag queen--you were like the third drag queen I’d ever seen in person.

PC: That’s so wild. That’s why I don’t understand why I don’t get more credit for your success.

TM: I mean, the check should clear.

PC: You know I talk about it any chance I get. I’ll say that Bob and Jinkx are my drag children but let it be known that I met a young Trixie Mattel when she was 18 years old, and her makeup style was lacking and I told her she should wear more makeup and the rest is history.

TM: I do think if we had started at 21 and walked into a gay bar and a beautiful pageant queen or something had taken us under their wing, we would have turned out looking different. Not better or worse, just different.

PC: Yes. Although, I can’t speak to you, but, while I loved drag, what drew me to drag was Divine and Frankenfurter. So, for me, I don’t know that I would have ever ended up in a pageant drag scene because drag on its own...I would have expressed my gender identity somehow, I probably would have become a club kid or something, or just lived more trans. I often think that if I hadn’t discovered drag or been Peaches, I would appear a lot more non-binary as Joshua.

Sometimes I get really upset when young people dismiss me as just an old white, cis gay man. It’s like, “No, bitch, I’ve lived 30 years of my life being this Peaches performer and before I was Peaches, I was going to college with barrettes in my hair and wearing lipstick.” I was a sissy; I was always bullied for being like a girl. I needed drag in the way that I think a lot of us need drag. Some drag performers, I’m sure, are more comfortable just being identified as cis gay men but most of us, in general, have been non-binary forever and just didn’t have that word to describe ourselves. And drag is actually how we express a big part of our gender identity.

TM: I never wanted to look like a woman, I wanted to look like a drag queen. I remember first seeing pictures of Amanda Lepore and then seeing a picture of Lady Bunny and being like, “Okay, without the surgery, that’s what I want to look like, so fabricated.”

PC: Yeah, and for me, it was Divine, right? I would read in John’s books about how he and Divine didn’t fit in with the regular drag world of the ‘60s and ‘70s because it was about pageants and illusions. And I love all that, but it wasn’t what drew me. I was drawn to drag because of someone like Divine, just like you were drawn by Lady Bunny or Amanda Lepore. We’re lucky that we had that. And I’m lucky that I landed in a place like Trannyshack, and you’re lucky that you had that weirdo Rocky cast in Milwaukee.

TM: Is it weird to you that you are so close with people like John Waters and Elvira? Is it weird for you that that is just normal now?

PC: Yes, absolutely. Because I earnestly built this thing, this character, that is all about celebrating these icons and movies and things.

I’m a fan of these things and I grew up worshiping John. I grew up in Maryland so I would go into Baltimore, and we would drive around, just looking to see if we could see any of them. Like, “Was that Mink Stole?! Oh my God, was that John Waters?!” So, the fact that all these years later, I’m friends with them, genuine friends, it’s surreal. I recently went and spent time with Cassandra (Peterson), she of course lost Paul Reubens recently. Paul was a dear friend of hers and I messaged her and said, “Hey, if you don’t want me to come up for the visit anymore, I totally get it.” And she wrote back and said, “No, you’re the one person I really want to hang out with,” because I had lost my friend Heklina earlier in the year. So, I got to grieve with Elvira, sharing these very adult things about loss. That was a sort of “Pinch me, what is my life?” type moment. Because she’s fucking Elvira.

TM: Drag blossomed in the ‘90s in a way that predated Drag Race.

PC: Yes. TM: Obviously, “Supermodel” was part of that but what do you think it was in ‘90s culture that...was it because everyone was saying “I’m gay?” Was it because of club kids on talk shows?

PC: I think club kid culture was obviously very drag adjacent and drag queens were part of club kid culture and club kids, in many ways, kind of made that a new form of expression. It brought on a new era and style of drag. Even alternative music and alternative culture was enjoying a real sort of heyday. Bands like Siouxsie and the Banshees and Depeche Mode were becoming mainstream-TM: Marilyn Manson.

PC: Yes, there was this sort of explosion of wildness. The band Deee-lite had come out of the New York club scene and their hit song “Groove is in the Heart” became massive-TM: “To Wong Foo”-PC: “Priscilla, Queen of the Desert.” It was an interesting time because there was this drag explosion, and I’ve heard people describe this better than I’m going to articulate it but drag at a point was a response to people being sick and tired of being sick. And what I mean by that is, AIDS was so crippling in the ‘80s and took away so much of the fun, imagine queer culture with Studio 54 and the ‘70s and queer liberation, freedom, all being erased because of Ronald Reagan in conjunction with AIDS. TM: On a surface level, if you’re queer, you feel invisible in culture, but on a real physical numbers level, queerness, having queer sex, exposing you to the risk of HIV, AIDS, the numbers were actually thinning.

So, it’s the number of bodies thinning in addition to the visibility. You were being ignored and your friends were disappearing.

PC: Yeah, all the entertainment industries are ignoring you, you had to be super closeted if you were a celebrity. The communities themselves, the Castro District, Chelsea, the West Village, they looked like horror movies because people were so sick. So, people weren’t going out clubbing. I think in the late ‘80s and in the ‘90s, club culture, the explosion of drag, I think, honestly, the way I’ve heard it from older queens, older than myself, like Bunny and Ru and Jackie (Beat), was that there was this sort of, like, “Fuck it, enough with the death, enough! We’re going to go out and have fun.” And even though AIDS was still scary, and it was still out there, there was this pendulum swing of an explosion of drag and a return to nightlife culture.

TM: If you can talk like a girl, if you have a swishy little walk, if you have a quick wit from years of being dumped on by everyone around you, suddenly, everything bad about you is a tool in a toolbox. That’s what’s weird about drag. Yeah, it saves people, and it moves queer culture forward but as a queer person, your whole life, you’re trying to plug up the holes of the sinking ship, hoping you don’t turn even gayer. Of course, I think as we get older, we’re always turning gayer, it’s like a losing battle. But drag is this thing where all your gay shit that’s inherent, that I have to remind myself to change, it all comes out like a floodgate, like a laser beam. And you’re like, “Holy shit, I can turn this into money, friends, travel, and artistic fulfillment.”

PC: There’s a sort of spiritual thing that draws us to it because the world, especially up until recently, is basically telling you “Do not do this thing.” And that’s why I sometimes say to people, there’s a specific power to drag performance that’s unique to drag performance because of the taboo that the performer is overcoming. Most of which is themselves. Having to unlearn what was crammed down our throats as children about our gender expression. So, drag is magical. And I still find it to be magical. I still love drag, even after all these changes.

I never really expected nor thought it was possible for drag queens to have the kind of success that you have. I talked to Bob the other day and she’s in Milan doing a concert with Madonna. Madonna! And you are so fucking rich, and you have this huge career and Jinkx was on Broadway and I fucking love it. I feel like I’m this proud mother.

The drag race superstars, you guys really did change drag and drag culture. Now, for better or worse, we could debate the merits of that.

But I will say this, drag has become bigger than I could ever have dreamed. There’s a fucking convention for drag queens, it’s insane!

And I do think that Drag Race is brilliantly made and brilliantly written and produced and it has created a phenomenon of fan culture that us older queens could never have dreamed of. Now, do I miss old drag culture? Yes. But do I respect and think it’s exciting what’s going on?

Yes. It’s both.

PC: I think this is why we see the conservatives turning more and more nuts, becoming more openly hateful and freakish, and running insane candidates. Trump is essentially a Hitler wannabe, a Mussolini wannabe, saying he’s gonna root out the vermin, and the reason is that these kids right now are all on TikTok learning that everything they’ve been taught as Americans might not be true. And it is freaking old people out because everything the old people have ever known as far as their ability to brainwash their children to be homophobic, to hate drag queens, to hate Arabs, it’s all gone out the window.

TM: Well, one of the craziest parts of all this is the number of straight men who enjoy drag and it doesn’t mean anything about them, and they’re not embarrassed to admit it. It doesn’t make them gay because they were in the same room with a person with a wig on.

Straight people now, all the way to straight men, access drag and aren’t threatened by it. And I’m sure you feel this sometimes too, but, for me, if somebody saw me in drag and it made their stomach turn, I got a charge out of that.

PC: Yeah, it was exciting!

TM: It’s sort of like, “Oh, you don’t like that? Oh, you’re looking away?

Oh, what’s the problem?” There was something antagonizing about drag that--listen, as the Mickey Mouse of drag, I can’t complain about the gentrification of it cause guess who threw the first fucking brick at the gentrification of drag-PC: That would be you. It’s your fault.

PC: I was completely obsessed with drag and queer culture and weird queer culture, but I was also obsessed with horror, and I made “All About Evil” way too early. No one was talking about queer horror. The world didn’t know what to do with it. I mean, there were reviews written of it, it did well as far as critical response, but clearly, horror fans were freaked out by it. And they weren’t freaked out by it because of the gore. They were freaked out by it because it was made by a drag queen, and it was openly queer and it weirded people out. And I would go to conventions and people would ignore me. These straight guys wouldn’t even look at me. I would be there with Elvira, and it was like I was invisible.

TM: Well, listen, we’re all invisible next to Elvira, to be fair.

PC: But you know what I mean? Like, I grossed them out. I was the scariest thing there and they had people dressed up as Leatherface, disemboweling girls. I think it’s amazing now that I can go to a horror convention as Peaches and there will be as many straight guys excited to meet me or take a photo with me as there are queer guys.

So, drag and the popularity of drag, it’s changed in ways that I super appreciate. We just did “Terror Vault” and it’s not a queer audience but it’s a very queer show that queer people and trans people made and 10,000 people came to see it. I could never have done a show of that size 10 years ago. People wouldn’t have been as accepting of it.

TM: What’s your favorite thing about the youngest generation in drag?

PC: I will say this first. I think that we are seeing a generation of queens who are entering decades of their lives in which you would have normally expected them to retire. And I really love seeing that Ru, Lady Bunny, Coco (Peru), Jackie, they’re all about a decade older than me and I think it’s so cool. And beyond them, Elvira, John Waters, they’re in their mid-70s and they work so fucking much. And I like working, I like keeping busy. So, I actually look to these people and go, “Oh, this is awesome. They’re still working. They’re still active.

They’re still doing shows.” I’m lucky that I do enough projects where I get to work with older people, like I’m going on tour with Mink Stole again, who’s an older woman and so wise and I love it. But then I do something like “Terror Vault” and I’m surrounded by a lot of young people, a lot of people in their 20s. I think one of the things I really like about the young people I get to work with today is that...we kind of changed the entertainment industry in a lot of ways, the entertainment world sort of sees us as performers and actually now respects us as something that can have a validity, that didn’t exist 20 years ago, 30 years ago, but young people now, I think, are actually doing the work of truly changing culture. Not just pop culture, but culture culture. I have performers who, out of drag, out of their costumes, are more challenging to society than in their costumes.

TM: That’s a really good point.

PC: Like, I have performers that show up and have full beards, tits, and there’s hair growing out of their tits. It is gender in a blender, and it is challenging and I fucking love it.

TM: You experienced a time in drag where drag meant something it will never mean again. The extremeness of it. You walking down the street in certain neighborhoods now is safer, flat out.

PC: That’s true.

TM: You experienced drag at a time when it was maximum public disgust and shame, and the idea that “If I do drag, I might never be able to work at the bank.” You did drag at a time when it really was still dangerous, and I don’t think it’s dangerous like that anymore.

Which of course means we’re winning an important battle, but I don’t know, I hope you feel lucky that you did it at a time when it was scary and sexy and weird. Now to be weird in drag, do you know how weird you have to be?

PC: It’s true. It’s true.

Photography MATTHEW MILLS Creative Direction ANDREW W. BASILE Model DMYTRO PALADII

Photography JB ALEXANDER Model MARK YOUNG

Photography ALEXANDER COURTMAN Model KONSTANTIN RESCH

suit, tank PETER DO jewelry DAVID YURMAN

A heartthrob to admire. Colton Haynes, the magnetic star of “Teen Wolf,” “Arrow,” and “American Horror Story,” has been on a long and winding road to self-discovery. Shattering the glass ceiling by coming up and coming out during a time when the closet was mandatory in Hollywood, the actor, model, photographer, and author has left an even firmer imprint on gay and queer culture with the recent release of his tell-all autobiography, the stunning and heartfelt “Miss Memory Lane.” Colton and fellow out actor of the same generation, Thomas Dekker, discuss their overlap of getting sober, the personas thrust upon them in youth, and the work it takes to live authentically.

Thomas Dekker: Are you drinking Red Bull too?

Colton Haynes: Yeah, I’m drinking Red Bull. The 16 ounce.

TD: This is a 12.

CH: I have a problem. I drink way too much of it and I’m convinced that it doesn’t do anything, but I guess we’ll find out when I quit because I’m sure I’m gonna go through withdrawal. So that’ll be really fun.

TD: I am someone who’s done it. In 2020, when I quit smoking, I also quit Red Bull because I’d gotten to a place where I was drinking 2 to 3 of the biggest ones you can get a day. And it was great, and it was fun. And then I didn’t drink Red Bull at all for 2 years.

Since then, I got back into it and I’ve managed to keep it at a sane level, but it’s hard. It’s really hard.

CH: Those are exactly the two things that I have to quit next. Smoking and Red Bull.

TD: There are worse things in life than Red Bull but what I found when I was drinking buckets of it was that I was pissed off all the time. More so than I naturally am.

CH: I don’t really go around a lot of people, but I’ve noticed, especially since I’ve been sober, my irritation levels...it’s really just towards teenagers. Anyone else is fine.

TD: Teenagers are a lot.

CH: Teenagers are a lot.

TD: For me, the aggression thing, I’m still figuring that out.

CH: It’s my No. 1 thing. I’ve had to go through anger management.

I don’t know where it came from. I think it actually started after I came out and it just kind of continued and it was like, “I have to figure this out because I can’t want to explode.” It’s such a fucking weird thing, feeling things now. Being sober for over 5 years, it’s just like, damn, we really have to feel. And I’m not used to that.

TD: Yeah, it’s a whole rediscovery of how to be. I remember too, the first time I was back on a set, fully sober and clear and present,

it was almost overwhelming. It was an environment I’m so used to, but suddenly it was like, “Oh, it’s a lot of bombardment.”

CH: 100%. When I got out of rehab, I went home for one day, flew back to a job I was working on, and was bombarded right when I got to work by a group of people I thought were my friends. They were like, you owe us an apology. I’d been in the hospital for a long time before I went to rehab and to be bombarded with that...I can’t discount their feelings, I hurt their feelings by hurting myself. But I didn’t directly do anything specifically to them. After completing something I never thought I could do, it was, like, beyond anger. It was really heartbreaking for me. To be at work and be like, “Wow, everyone here is mad at me.” But I think I’ve found a nice balance to where I actually enjoy working now.

TD: Yeah, the flip side is, I actually re-found pleasure in getting ready in the morning to go to work, as opposed to, “Oh my god, I’m dying from the night before,” etc.

CH: Yeah. Just having to, like you said, clean up the wreckage before you start the day, only to later return to that wreckage. God, that was such a rough time for me. I’m very stubborn, so I tend to be the type of person that has to hit every branch on the way down and I fell and I hit every branch, every twig, I fucking scraped my way down that tree. And I think that’s really a reason why I’ve been able to not have a very difficult time since I’ve been sober because I truly don’t want to return to that.

TD: We both got sober in 2018, right?

CH: Yeah, October 2018.

TD: April 2018.

CH: 5 years. That’s amazing.

CH: The 30s have been pretty interesting...

TD: Yeah, but overall, as difficult as they are, I’m preferring them to my 20s.

CH: Oh, fuck the 20s, are you kidding? That shit was so fucking stressful. My therapist is always catching me because I tend to hold people hostage with my memories. And finally, she was like, “That was a really dark time for you, why do you keep resorting back to wanting to relive it?” And a lot of it has to do with, to be completely honest, the way I looked at that time. But I have to keep reminding myself, “Oh, you had a very severe eating disorder, and you were doing all these terrible things, so you can’t just have that without the actual feelings of going through all that shit you had to do to maintain it.”

TD: It’s a mindfuck that I’ve talked about with a couple other actors in our age bracket. For me, and I feel probably for you too a little bit, you have this big bang of success, and on paper and on the surface, it’s all this fabulous time. So, a part of you, of course, wants to return to that. But then when you look at that time, at least for me, it’s like, “Oh, it was chaos and misery and disaster and all bad things beneath that moment.” And then you go, “Wait, am I more attractive to the world as a mess?” It all gets complicated.

COLTON HAYNES THOMAS DEKKER

in conversation with Photography RYAN PFLUGER Fashion BENJAMIN HOLTROP Assistant EMILY K.E. JOHNSON

jacket TELL THE TRUTH pant GVDS gloves CHARLES & RON necklace ALTRA NOVA BY SHEILA B

TD: I want to go to your book for a bit. I read it, actually, I listened to it because I wanted to hear it in your voice.

CH: That’s awesome. A lot of people listened to it as opposed to reading it.

TD: I always choose to read vs. listen, but with you, I wanted to hear it as it’s a personal thing.

CH: I had to redo a certain point in the book 4 times because I was crying too hard.

TD: Well, I think it’s stunning. So exquisitely written and so evocative, and there’s this blunt force poetry to the whole thing and I can’t stop talking about it to anyone who’ll listen. I’m curious, when you finished it, when it was released, what was the feeling? Were you liberated?

CH: Gosh, it was such a complicated thing. I said to my publisher and the whole team beforehand, “Just so you know, I know how press works and it’s not designed to help you.” I went to New York and was doing all these interviews and on the list of things I said was going to happen, I said, “The headlines are going to be about the 2 lines that you guys wouldn’t let me take out of the book.” One of the lines was, “I left ‘Teen Wolf’ because I wasn’t getting paid the same” and the other was, “I left ‘Arrow’ because I didn’t get along with a cast member.” 2 things that are, what, 10 words in the book and have nothing to do with the rest of it. But I said, “That’s going to be the headline.” And of course, it was for every single interview. It took the soul out of everything for me. To see every fucking headline be about that, therefore making the book appear not as interesting or...I don’t know. I put a lot into it. I basically didn’t sleep for 3 years.

It was really, really difficult.

TD: Well, it doesn’t feel like you put a lot into it, it feels like you put everything into it.

CH: People would be like, “Why is he doing this now?” I was like, “I have to write this right now because I will not be able to start a new chapter if I don’t get this out.” I had to put every chapter in that book and put that book on a shelf so I could start anew because there was just so much inside of me. And in my head, I was like, “What if people aren’t going to get the message?” Once I started seeing the reviews people were leaving and people started reaching out to me, that became the most unbelievable feeling I’ve ever had. The book has connected with people, especially a lot of the gay community. I think they saw themselves in a lot of the things, especially the self-harm and the feeling of worthlessness a lot of the time. That was something that really meant the world to me.

TD: It’s a profound work, to have accomplished at your age as well.

You and I, for many reasons, have a lot of similarities but I will say, I personally don’t think I’ve ever read another book whereas many times I would be listening and say out loud to myself, “Yep, yep, yep, been there, done that, felt that, had that exact situation,” like it was almost kind of shocking. Less so the early part of your life, but once you were here and acting, I mean, everything all the way down to the Vancouver bathhouses. I’m shocked we never ran into each other.

CH: Oh yeah. The worst was a drag queen from, I think they were on Canada’s Drag Race or something, tweeted, “I just saw Colton Haynes walk into a bathhouse.” God, it was fun, but it was a dark time for me. I just felt like I was still hiding away.

TD: Well, we were. What I thought was one of the most incredible elements of the book was really from your very young childhood on, you can see what I think of as the gay boy traumas and the gay boy experiences and the gay boy situations that often lead to substance and addiction and everything else problematic. And I certainly, in my own life, see the road map of that, and getting to see your road map through the book, that’s what I think is really going to speak to so many people.

CH: I had known about you before we met on that shoot because you were the cool indie darling. You were always doing, I guess you’d call them art house films, and my manager at the time, and acting coach, there’s a whole chapter about him and his bullshit, had said to me, “You don’t take this seriously, Colton, you have to look at someone like Thomas Dekker who’s bleeding for their art.”

And I was like, “I’m auditioning for one line, you want me to go and bleed for my art when I’m trying to do one line on the CW?” Like, “I’m not at the point where he is.” And you were very edgy and dark, and you had tattoos and black hair and so when we met, I thought you were gonna be in a corner, smoking cigarettes, reading Chaucer, but no, you were super nice and it was so funny to me. I don’t think I ever told you that story.

TD: What’s so interesting is that that version of me, this “bleeds for the art” thing, was invented. What I get from the story is that we were both already, at that age, in other people’s narratives. Because that was the narrative built for me. That was how the industry knew how to market me. Being a strange, artsy, nice, gay kid wasn’t appealing but being a troubled, mysterious, brooding thing, that they knew how to sell. And the same goes for you. Before I met you, all I’d heard was that you were the most gorgeous new jock in town. This “leading man,” sex symbol, body type and so I was really intimidated, thinking you were gonna have an attitude and be a dick like most of those dudes that I’d encountered. And then you were so sweet and open and kind and intelligent. So, it’s funny, we both were expecting the personas that were being sold that weren’t actually either of us.

TD: How does it feel when you look back on just the sheer fact that you did the thing that is depicted more than anything else in movies about Hollywood? You came from this small-town existence, you beat down doors in an era that was very difficult to do so, even more so than now, and you made it. You not only made it, you fucking soared. How does that feel with where you are now in life?

CH: It doesn’t feel that way. There are facts about the way my career was going and then when I came out, the way it was just gone.

Of course, there were also other things I was contributing to that, that’s when my substance abuse and my alcohol was ramping up.

I also got into a very public relationship, which, at the time, I didn’t realize...I just had no fucking idea what was going on. But I think I really fast-tracked a lot of things in the public eye that I never got to experience, having been in the closet for so long, like a relationship.

I just had this idea that I needed to share everything and it’s so embarrassing to look back on, especially with social media. But I have to stop looking at it as “I did all this hard work leading up to 2016 and then everything that I’ve done past 2017 is discounted.” I think having everything in the world and then going back to getting 4 auditions a year and every role is for a 45-year-old gay who has 3 kids, 1, I don’t know if I can play 45 yet and 2, I never played gay before I came out of the closet. And while there’s nothing like playing a gay role, especially being out, because you have such a connection with the character, I think it’s very interesting when you build a career on going up against straight actors and getting those parts. Because when you come out of the closet, you’re no longer allowed to do that. It’s just kind of like, where do you go?

TD: Oh my God, 100%. You and I both, I feel, neither of us are particularly comedic, neither of us are super flamboyant, we always played “leading man” roles, predominantly in genre shit. And so, as you said, when you’re in the closet, and it’s kind of a mystery, you can occupy those roles but...I’ve given up trying to figure out where I quote unquote fit. I don’t think nowadays I do.

shirt VERSACE

top REBECCA CREWS coat DANTE jewelry DAVID YURMAN

TD: The irony is, of course, that who you actually are and what you are passionate about, i.e. writing this book, telling this story, your photography, everything else you’re doing, that’s the real gift of you to the world. And I feel that in myself too. I think we’re sort of programmed to think that in order to be this successful thing that we’re supposed to be, the last thing you can be is anything authentically you. And then you come out of that, on the other side, and you’re like, “Oh, the parts that are authentically me are actually worth something.” Your photography is extraordinary and I’m curious, I know from the book, you were really into fashion images, and you knew the photographers as well as the models as a young person, but was there a point where you really decided in earnest, “Okay, I want to pursue this as a talent and skill?”

CH: Yeah. I started remembering moments that I feel changed the trajectory of my life, like the first time I saw this Italian Vogue cover of Sasha Pivovarova shot by Steven Meisel, and it completely, I mean, it’s the background of my phone, it completely changed me.

Steven Meisel’s photography, I remember specifically as a kid, it almost looked like extraterrestrials. It was like an alien beauty, and it was very stark and everything in the eyes. Longing but also sex and also pain. It was something I was so captivated by. And so, I started buying those magazines. I bought Kate Moss’s first-ever cover for British Vogue; I found a lot of Arthur Elgort’s old stuff. I was obsessed with the photographers, not specifically the models.

And then when I was 14, I was like, “Well, fuck, I’ll get to meet some of these photographers if I try to be one of the models.” And it was cool because I got to work with Arthur Elgort, and I got to work with Jeff Burton and some of these people that I really loved. I went back to school and took (photography) classes around 4 years ago and it reinvigorated this thing. I have hundreds and hundreds of photography books, and I obsess over that shit. And I can’t say that I have ever done that with acting. I’m not sitting here looking up directors the way I am photographers. I just truly enjoy taking pictures. I don’t

post a lot of them, a lot of it’s for me right now or for the people that I’m photographing. I just want people to feel the feeling I had when my first magazines started coming out, like, waiting at the newsstand. I was so obsessed with the fact that my dreams as a kid were starting to come true, especially when it came to the modeling stuff. And it wasn’t a vain thing. It wasn’t like, “Oh, look at me, I’m pretty in a magazine.” It was this obsession with everything to do with photography and fashion, and getting to be a part of that was exciting for me. So, I think I just want the people I photograph to feel beautiful but also to feel, I don’t know...I like when people feel good about themselves.

TD: When you look back on the whole whirlwind, let’s say from your start in LA with “Teen Wolf” and “Arrow” and everything else that came with it, all the way through your personal private journey, when you look back on that period, what are the first 3 things you feel about you then?

CH: Inauthenticity, sadness...but, on the flip side of that, I guess the 3rd would be pride. Because, while it would have been nice to have a little more of myself in all of this, the driving force behind the machine I had to become to get to a certain point was my perseverance. It was me. It wasn’t a lot of people doing a lot of things for me. Still to this day, I’ll send a text to my friend and be like, “Can you tell me I can’t do this? Cause I need some fuel and if you tell me I can’t do it, I will do it.” And that’s a little bit of what I miss about being in the rat race. Because when people would say anything bad about me, any time someone doubted me, it would fill up my gas tank and I would be like, “Well, let’s fucking go.” So yeah, it would be inauthenticity, sadness and pride. I’m proud that I got there.

TD: You should be.

Photography RICHARD KRANZIN Model NIKITA KORZO

Photography ADAM WASHINGTON Model COOPER KOCH

YASSIN CHEKKOUH PHOTOGRAPHY

RAPHAEL CHATELAIN

FEATURING

FRANÇOISE GALZY-GOUDARD

PRODUCED BY

STORM PROD ANDY GILLET MELANIE LECHAT

SET DESIGN

BRICE MICHELINI

shorts ADIDAS

YASSIN CHEKKOUH by BODYELECTRIC BODYELECTRIC: So, you’re in Paris right now?

Yassin Chekkouh: Yes, I’ve lived in Paris my whole life.

BE: Where in Paris do you live? What district?

YC: The 11th.

BE: Bastille?

YC: Yes, I live in Bastille. I live by myself. I spend a lot of time close to République, Le Marais. Paris is a very nice city to just walk in. I love Greek food, Mediterranean food in general, but I love to also just discover new restaurants. I am very curious in general about things, and I love to eat. I love food.

BE: The best croissant I ever had was in Bastille.

YC: Yeah. I try to avoid a croissant on a daily basis because I still want my abs

to exist. In France, it’s very hard to stay in shape because there are so many different occasions to have cheese or bread or charcuterie or croissant or pain au chocolat. It’s delicious, but at the same time, it’s very, very heavy in calories. I eat the same thing every morning and I track my calories in the morning and at lunch, not for every meal because most of the time I’m not home for dinner. I’m, like, either out or at my best friend Thomas’s. But yeah, you won’t see me down at the boulangerie too often.

BE: What else are you into?

YC: I love to do simple things. Like, I spend most of my nights with my best friend, hanging out, playing video games, listening to new albums. Going to the cinema. I spend a lot of time in the cinema. To me, a perfect day is a day where I can spend time with my

best friend, go to the cinema, go to the gym, hopefully, make love with someone, and then go to bed listening to Lana Del Rey and smoking a joint.

BE: You were a member of the Pit Crew on “Drag Race France,” right?

YC: Yeah, one of my hobbies is Drag Race and just going to drag shows.

I think it’s very inspirational because most of the time they have, like, these crazy lives. They have decided to stop being the victim and just own all their queerness. I’ve always been fascinated by drag. When they contacted me to be a member of the Pit Crew, I was obviously ecstatic. So, I can’t wait for season 3. It’s going to be shooting soon.

BE: Oh, you’re doing it again?

YC: Of course. Yeah, I’m very excited about this.

BE: How old are you these days?

YC: 32.

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shorts NIKE shoes SYRO

BE: You were just here in LA. I think you’re allowed to talk about it because you posted a picture with them, but you were working with Steven Klein, right?

YC: Yeah. I can talk about it. I was working with Steven Klein for a Dolce & Gabbana campaign.

That was an amazing moment of 2023 for me.

BE: I’m very happy that so many brands are embracing you. I think it’s great.

YC: Actually, Stephen told me that he knew of me because of my work as an HIV activist.

It’s so great. I would have never guessed this.

When I posted the open letter on Instagram, I thought I was going to lose followers and that people would be, I don’t know, somehow mad that I waited so long to say it. So, I would never have guessed that I’d be going to do a Dolce & Gabbana campaign in LA a few years later, you know, it’s crazy.

BE: That’s incredible. So, you grew up in Paris, you’re first-generation Parisian?

YC: My parents are Immigrants from Algeria.

They made us in France. I have 3 brothers, who I have quite difficult relations with, actually.

I feel, with my whole family, it’s always been complicated because of culture or religion.

When I came out, my dad was an Imam and he kind of told me that we either find a way to cure the sickness that I had inside me, or I get the fuck out of his place because he couldn’t stand having, well, he never really said the word gay, it was so taboo in my family that they can’t even say it, you know? So, it was pretty difficult actually, growing up. Now, we are in a better place, but we still don’t really talk about this stuff. I told them I was HIV-positive and then we never really talked about it afterwards.

I learned to create my own family. And luckily, in Paris, I’ve been blessed with the best friend I could have imagined. The people that I met when I left are still the people that are my best friends today. So, I really value that part of my life. Because I think, even when I decided to be public about my HIV status, I think that if I didn’t have my friends supporting me emotionally, it was such a big deal in my life for actually the first 5 years after I discovered that I was positive. And I think if I didn’t have my friends with me back then, it would have been completely different. I don’t think I would have been able to have the strength that I have today, so I’m very blessed for that. Even though with my real family, it’s still difficult today.

BE: I’m sorry to hear that. I think that it’s like that for a lot of gay guys.

YC: Especially in the Muslim community or the Algerian, Middle East community. When I talk to people that are Arabic, they are always surprised that I came out. It’s still something that is very, very, very taboo and, actually, that was one of the reasons that I decided to be more vocal and to talk about it publicly because I felt like there weren’t a lot of people doing it. I knew that it was going to maybe help, first of all, the HIV+ people, but also the queer people from the Muslim or Middle East community.

BE: Yes, that is huge.

YC: I kind of realize it now because people come to me telling me how I helped them in this way or that way, but, in the beginning, when I did it, it was mainly to just liberate myself from all the shame and the guilt and the stigma that I had built for 5 years. The worst

situation that I had in terms of serophobia was from the gay community. They kind of used my status as a way to hurt me or to threaten me. If I would date a guy and I would post a story about him, he would receive a message from a complete stranger, like “You should take care of yourself because Yassin has AIDS and it’s very dangerous for you.” This kind of thing happened to me a lot. Until the day when I just decided that I couldn’t have it anymore. When I did it, I had no clue that it was going to open so many doors and place me as an activist. It was just me sharing a story. Then I realized that not only was it freeing for me, but it was also freeing for a lot of people. So, yeah, I’m very glad that I did it. It was a pivotal moment in my life when I just decided to own it and to be proud of it, because at the end of the day, I couldn’t bear all the bad feelings and the bad thoughts that it gave me, and it was completely useless.

I didn’t feel sick until I had to disclose myself to someone or until I had to face the serophobia, and to me, this serophobia is actually the sickness of the disease. Especially nowadays because of all the improvements that we have in terms of treatment and everything.

BE: I’m sure it felt like a huge weight was lifted off you when you went public about it.

YC: Yeah, it was crazy. I can’t describe the feeling. I was light as a feather because for so long I couldn’t even talk about it. I was trembling when I had to discuss myself to a lover or new boyfriend or whatever. So, just knowing that it’s out and everybody knows it and I don’t have to relive this coming out over and over, because that’s what it is. It’s like, you were in the closet and then you decided to leave the closet but then you have to go back again, and go back again, and go back again. It’s always the question of “When should I say it, when is the perfect time?” Because you don’t want to say it right away, because you’re not even sure that it’s going to be something with the guy, but at the same time, the more you wait, the more you’re stressing out because the other person could freak out and you feel that you’re betraying him by not saying it. It was like a mind game; it was just sucking all the energy out of me. So, when it was out, I cried like I’d never cried before, but it was good tears, you know?

BE: Most queer people have to come out once in their life. Well, maybe multiple times, but about one thing. You’ve had to come out many times.

YC: Many times. Like, my first coming out was so deep and so heavy. When you’re gay, for instance, and you come out, you have all the community. Like, you go to a queer bar, you are with your friends, and you feel like you belong somewhere, but when you discover that you’re HIV+, it’s just silent. You don’t know who is HIV+. It can be very, very lonely. Some people never talk about it. I’ve seen so many people that unfortunately let it control or define their life, and it shouldn’t be the case. You’re not a virus. You’re simply a human being and you have an infection. It’s very common and you can control that infection and it doesn’t have to dictate your life or tell you how to navigate it.

It’s just a part of you that you shouldn’t forget about, but at the same time, it can’t define you.

You’re way more complex and more beautiful than that.

BE: So, when you came out publicly, did it change the amount of discrimination you were getting?

YC: When you start owning the thing that people are cursing you for, or making fun of you for, you kind of take that insult out of their mouth.

So, as soon as I started to talk about it publicly, I instantly felt like the discrimination that I was facing decreased, but not to the point of zero.

When you finally decide to take that step, this type of behavior, you don’t really listen to it anymore because you know who you are, what you are fighting for, and your worth. I won’t say that I had zero discrimination after that, but much less. But maybe different, for instance, recently, I was contacted by a journalist to tell my story about HIV, but the journalist kept saying AIDS instead of HIV. I mean, maybe it’s just a mistake and they didn’t mean to hurt me in any way, but at the same time, you’re writing about the subject, you should at least know the difference between AIDS and HIV, because otherwise, you’re only part of the problem and participating in the misconception between the two. It’s very dangerous to me because HIV is an infection and AIDS is a disease. When you mix them up, you’re kind of saying that HIV people are dangerous or are a risk for themselves and to others, and that’s something that we as activists are trying to deconstruct. So, yeah, I’d say that now it’s more like clumsiness than the real discrimination that I was facing before.

BE: More ignorance than an intentional attack.

YC: Exactly. But I would imagine that’s going to always come. There’s always going to be people who want to be haters for whatever reason, but when you’re open about something, you’re also opening the door for support as well.

Now if I post a video and some hater writes a comment, I know that I will always have 2 or 3 people posting to defend me. So, I feel like I’m very supported.

BE: Tell me about where the science is now.

YC: There are several ways to treat yourself when you’re HIV+. You can either be on a regular pill, an anti-retroviral that you take every day, or I’m doing a new treatment that is an injectable treatment and it consists of 2 injections that you do in the glute and keeps your viral load undetectable. Undetectable means that the virus is in such a low quantity in your blood that you can’t transmit it to anyone, and that the virus is controlled. So, when you reach that state of undetectability, you’re harmless, and you can’t ever transmit the virus. So, I think the most important thing that people should think about is just to go test themselves. The infection keeps spreading because of the ones who don’t know their status and who are transmitting to people without even realizing it.

Nobody is infected by someone who is HIV+ and on treatment. And I think that’s something that’s very important and that people should know. Even today, 1 out of 4 people still think that you can get HIV by kissing someone who is positive, or drinking out of the same glass, or sitting on the same toilet, which is crazy because it’s 2023 and there is so much information online. So, it kind of feels that people don’t really want to know, like, they live in the ‘80s in their head.

denim ANDREA CREWS

BE: Yeah, it’s interesting. I wonder why that is.

YC: I think that most people think it’s still a gay thing. So, they don’t necessarily want to know more about it. But recently, there has been more transmission among straight people and not the gays. I think because of PrEP (Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis,) PrEP is also a way to prevent HIV and most gays use PrEP, you know? But straight people, they’re like “It’s a gay thing, I don’t care.”

Even nowadays, if you watch a documentary about HIV, even something that is recent, they will always choose old, traumatizing images, and it’s very dramatic, and it’s very dark, and it’s very much about death. But it’s completely changed. It’s so different now than it used to be 40 years ago. I think that’s also part of why people are still perceiving HIV as AIDS. I think it’s very important that we live in our time. The lives of people who live with HIV are so different now than they used to be.

BE: In your opinion, what is the most important thing for people to know?

YC: I think “U=U” (undetectable equals untransmittable) is very straightforward, very direct, and very understandable. If you take your medicine, your viral load is low, you’re undetectable, and it means that you don’t transmit the virus. I think that’s the most important thing that people should remember.

For the HIV+ people, maybe learn more about this new treatment (injectable long-acting antiretroviral therapy) because for me, not having to take a pill every day was actually life-changing. To be honest, the moment I used to take the pill was the only moment during the day where I would feel that I was sick, and I think that people should know about it.

BE: You’re also a personal trainer and you’re very body and health-conscious. Does that also play a role in your advocacy?

YC: Yeah, actually. When I first realized that I was HIV+, I thought it was a death sentence. I thought that I was going to be so thin and lose my hair, and I had this crazy idea of me dying in a few months.

I was partying a lot, so I kind of stopped partying for a bit, quit cigarettes and really used sport as therapy and a way to regain power, both visually and internally. It’s also a fuck in the face of all the people that are like, “Because you’re HIV+, you will be weak and won’t have strength.” To me, it’s funny to just prove them wrong.

BE: It sounds like all of this has made you look at life differently.

YC: Yeah, completely. Actually, if I had to go back to the day I know I was infected, and if I could change that day and be HIV-negative, I don’t even think I would want that because It has given me so much joy and so many opportunities. It turned me into a more sensitive person, an activist, more political. I’m very proud and I think ever since I decided to regain that power in my life, it’s been nothing but great.

BE: I’m happy to hear that. How did the Jean Paul Gaultier collaboration come about?

YC: Jean Paul Gaultier was the first Maison that I worked with. It was the first time that I did an interview with my face and my voice. Jean Paul Gaultier is very close to Sidaction, which is an HIV association in Paris. They contacted me for an interview, and I remember before that interview, I was pissing myself. I was so stressed out because

it’s so different than writing an open letter on your Instagram. When you have to actually face a camera and know that it’s going to be seen by probably hundreds of thousands of people because they have millions of followers, it was a very defining moment, I think. After that, I was like, “I can do anything”. And it was so great because it was the first step of so many other projects that came because of that. It gave me a lot of visibility. I was very happy that they decided to put some light on me because not a lot of fashion brands would.

I was very happy that they took a chance on me, and it was a very good collaboration.

BE: And now you’re doing their “Le Male” fragrance campaign?

YC: Yeah, it was like a full-circle moment.

BE: I’m happy for you. What’s next?

YC: My dream now is to be able to open my own gym studio where I can do more videos and bring all my clients to the same place. Maybe more acting. I just want to be able to keep doing what I’m doing now. I’m not bored at all. Maybe I just need a boyfriend now.

BE: I think a boyfriend is very attainable for you.

YC: That’s complicated though. Everybody is in a relationship, or everybody wants to do an orgy, or everybody wants to take drugs. It’s very hard to find someone that just wants to, you know, connect with you in a healthy way. Maybe I’m just being too cheesy now.

BE: No, not at all.

YC: I’m ready for a relationship. So, if I want to wish for something, maybe it’s that.

Photography GABRIEL VORBON Movement ÖZGE GÖNLÜGÜR Model WILLIAM MUYAYALO

Photography WEST PHILLIPS Model DAREK WIERZYCKI

Stephen Winter has been waiting for the world to catch up. Revered in creative circles as a brilliant writer and filmmaker ever since his astonishing debut feature, 1996’s “Chocolate Babies,” it wasn’t until 25 years later, in a post-pandemic world, that the film, and Winter’s work in general, would be regarded as the seminal and historic milestones they are. A shepherd of new queer voices in cinema, he produced Jonathan Caouette’s now-classic documentary “Tarnation,” and a lover of tonal peculiarities and science fiction, he co-created what the New York Times called “the best new social thriller” podcast “Adventures in New America” and directed the UFO-themed audio series “The Space Within,” starring Jessica Chastain and Ellen Burstyn. Here, he catches up with friend, admirer, and star of Sebastián Silva’s “Rotting in the Sun,” Jordan Firstman.

Jordan Firstman: I’m excited to talk, Stephen.

Stephen Winter: Aww, I’m so happy to see you, my beautiful friend.

JF: I’m in bed right now. Last night was...it was a big night so I’m a little-SW: It often is for you.

JF: Yeah, but I’ve actually been more low-key recently. It’s been a goal of mine. I did a meditation retreat and realized I needed to tone it down a bit. But last night was a very over the top Hollywood event and you look around and realize that every day, it’s more and more “Hunger Games” and I’m not the one fighting. I’m in the disgusting outfits and I’m like “Jesus, how did this happen?”

SW: That’s how I picture your life, so this is really beautiful for me. And I love the fact that this kind of life can exist and sustain for you. To be a young, exciting, out, brilliant, queer artist and to be able to be at the table like this, in a way that wasn’t conceivable in the ‘90s, I just live for it.

JF: There’s a scene happening, people that I know who are able to be gay and talk about drugs and talk about sex. You had that scene, and it was as exciting, it just wasn’t as integrated into mainstream culture.

SW: Correct. We definitely had it, and we were definitely doing things but it was compartmentalized from the rest of our existence, so our career path always had to be separated from our pleasures. Gay was radical at the time. To be a gay filmmaker and say the word gay in 1996 was this radical thing. As a person who now identifies as queer, I have to say that gay never sat that well with me. But the deal was, in order to be present in the conversation, you had to be gay, and you had to be radical, which was the same thing, but you could not actually discuss or expose to the world what the queerness meant to you. And a lot of what the queerness meant was having dinner at your friend’s house, who you used to sleep with and are now best friends with, then you go to the Wonder Bar which is now Club Cumming and you smoke cigarettes inside and you drink 17 screwdrivers, because we used to put orange juice with vodka together, and then have sex with untold billions of people. But you can’t tell that to The Advocate because they’ll call you a whore.

JF: Is this the Sundancey film scene kind of blowing up? Cause there was a time where you guys were walking around like “We know we’re the coolest. We are the scene”.

SW: Oh, well, I think you’re talking about when it was Todd Haynes and Rose Troche and John Cameron Mitchell, John Krokidas and Cheryl Dunye. We knew that we were absolutely the shit, but we would compartmentalize it at industry events. We wouldn’t get fully queer until we left the event and went to the queer bar of that town or locality. And I think that’s the big difference is that, Jordan, you get to be queer at the Independent Spirit Awards.

JF: I almost have to overdo the confidence at the straight events. Like, I’ll talk about G, and I’ll talk about group sex cause it’s almost a power move at this point. It’s something that they don’t have. And it makes them feel not cool. And you do need to play that card with these straight men, especially, or else they feel so above you. So, I almost have to walk in and be like, “Oh, you guys actually don’t know culture, this is culture now”, to kind of just get myself to match their level. I’ve been noticing it so much, as straight becomes less cool, the resentment of it. Cause it

was SO not in vogue my whole adulthood for a straight guy to act even at ALL homophobic. But now that it’s leveling out...it’s a very man thing.

“This gay guy shouldn’t feel threatening to me, so why does he? And what does this mean about my masculinity?” There’s this weird male dynamic that I feel straight and gay guys didn’t really have until now. But now that a gay guy can do more, the straight guys are getting jealous.

JF: We met, and I was a fan of your soul, body and spirit first, before your work. Then your first work I saw was “Jason & Shirley” (2015), which I was absolutely gagged by. Totally blew my mind. It was a piece of art I didn’t know could exist and I think there’s a lot of similarities between “Rotting in the Sun” and that movie. The power dynamic. Knowing the many facets of your career, where you’ve been over people but also under people, what’s your relationship to working power dynamics? Because I feel in the film, there’s obviously so much about exploitation and the black gay experience but it’s also what you are going through. Like, what you wanted to say on the inside was something about working power dynamics you’d experienced.

SW: Oh, you’re so wise, nobody’s ever asked me that in that particular way. First, good news, I’m doing an expanded edition of “Jason & Shirley” that will be out next year. Bigger, blacker, bolder, better. And funnier and also darker and deeper. And second, the reason I’m doing this is because I never actually felt that that film was truly finished. I felt I’d taken it to a place and then wasn’t able to come back and really have the space to truly figure out what it was that I was talking about. And what I was talking about, essentially, which you put your finger on, is what it was like to be a black person in the independent film world and being consistently overlooked, ignored, but also appreciated as being the best. Everybody was always clear that I was the best. And I almost felt sometimes that they were happy that the system was such that I couldn’t actually get into the ballgame. On one hand, I knew that if I just stayed true to my art, to myself, my practice would continue, and I would get somewhere. And then the world would understand something about me, eventually. Which now, of course, wonderfully, it does. But the anger and the bitterness, I feel like a weight has been taken off my chest. A weight that I had been holding for 2 decades. Because I’ve now had my work re-evaluated and seen and I’m being taken seriously as the artist that I am. Because that weight is gone, I feel lighter, I feel fresher, I look better at 54 than I did at 44.

JF: You look great.

SW: You, Jordan, are one of the first people that got that ball rolling. You saw “Chocolate Babies” and you were part of this group of young film viewers, along with Jeremy O. Harris and a bunch of other people who were like “What the fuck, this is the greatest movie ever, why is nobody talking about it?”. And you, Jordan, made a point to talk about it, and insist to power brokers that attention must be paid. You got the ball rolling and the things that it took to get the ball actually over the hump, involved the pandemic and George Floyd and many other things. Which is about fate. But you were one of the prime architects of it. I’ve told you this in private but I’m glad to tell you now in public: thank you so much.

JF: What was the response when you made it (“Chocolate Babies”)?

SW: Everybody who saw it loved it. But Variety gave us a so-so review.

They sent in their gay white reviewer, and they shouldn’t have.

JF: Name names.

SW: I don’t remember the gentleman’s name.

JF: They don’t live on. They don’t make statues of critics.

SW: They should have sent somebody else because the gay white reviewer did not see the film and he also was put off by it. I now understand the full trajectory. In the ‘70s, gay guys of all stripes were coming together on the disco floor and then the ‘80s came and AIDS came, and everybody across the board, regardless of race, is dying. But the party line became that the whiter you are and the more respectable you are, like, the first people they said were HIV risk groups were gay men, intravenous drug users and Haitians. That was a government line that was then parroted by the gay community. When I was a teenager coming into the gay community and going into active Chicago, that’s what I was told.

Haitians. And Haitians means black. It doesn’t just mean Haitian.

JF: Yeah.

STEPHEN WINTER JORDAN FIRSTMAN in conversation with

SW: So, by the time the ‘90s came around, everybody is in PTSD land, they are objectifying quote unquote health, which means Marky Mark bodybuilding, Marky Mark, who’s straight. They’re prioritizing straight people. So, the straighter you are, and you step into a gay role, i.e. “My Own Private Idaho”, applause, applause, applause. Now, I’m not criticizing any straight person who played a gay role or Gus Van Sant in any way. That film is beyond reproach but it’s also endemic of something that was in the air when “Chocolate Babies” happened. It doesn’t center the white gays, but it IS about what’s happening right now. It’s very successful at pulling off its multiple tones and its multiple storylines, it’s got great love scenes as well as great political scenes but there are no white gays for them to anchor themselves to, so they completely dismissed it. They did not look at the inspiration it had from John Waters. They did not look at how well structured it was. And I also didn’t get any credit for making a low budget movie look great. Back then, they were like, “We love a $12 movie! “Go Fish” cost X amount, “The Living End” cost $18! And it’s wonderful!” I did the exact same thing, but it doesn’t look the same when it’s a black person doing it. At least not then. If a black person makes it independent, it looks cheap.

JF: There’s a thing too where it can be too current. And too real. People often aren’t ready to see that. And as artists, there’s such an immediacy. Like we need to tell this story now because we’re seeing it, we’re living it. But just because the artist needs to make it now doesn’t mean the audience wants to see it now or is ready to see it now. I think that’s another reason why “Chocolate Babies” maybe felt like too much for a lot of people. They just weren’t ready to go there yet.

SW: It’s very possible.

SW: James Lyons, who was the wonderful punk rock white gay queer editor for Todd Haynes in the early days, and an actor and a writer, on one particular day, we saw “Cat People” at his house on a VHS, and then we went to the Fine Arts Theater and we watched “Portrait of Jason”, and then we walked uptown and saw “Contact” by Robert Zemeckis and Jodie Foster. And I was noticing, and I talked to James about it, the sound design in the first five minutes of “Contact” is echoed somehow in what Shirley Clarke was doing in “Portrait of Jason”, which was also echoed in the first jump scare in “Cat People”, from 1940-something by Jacques Tourneur. James was the best, New York was the best, there were no cell phones, there were just dirty queer bars, movie houses, and the opportunity to make friends with people like James Lyons. That was the best cultural time. I’ll put it that way.

JF: That sounds amazing. I wish I was there.

SW: I wish you were there too.

JF: I would have been fun.

SW: Oh yeah. Fun is definitely a word I would use.

JF: What has your favorite era of your life been? You can’t say now, cause that’s cheating. When anyone gets asked any question like that, they’re like, “Now, now’s the best”. So no, that’s not what I’m asking, bitch.

SW: I’m going to say right now. I live in the moment. The present moment.

No, the best era for me personally, I’m going to say, was when I was a teenager becoming a young man in Chicago. 17 to 21, ‘87 to ‘91. I was hanging out with older black gay people who were part of the house music scene with Frankie Knuckles, whom I got to meet and have dinner with occasionally. I knew I was in the presence of an important person; I didn’t know it was all going to be the legend it became. They taught me how to dance. They taught me how to just be myself. I had dreadlocks at the time, I was super skinny, biracial and I talk like this, I was a nerd. They called me Wolf Boy because I would eat really quickly. I was punk rock,

and they were very, you know, glamorous, but they accepted me. I saw not only all that amazing stuff in the Chicago house music scene, but I also saw Aretha Franklin up close, I saw Bad Brains, I saw these incredible concerts, and In terms of movies, I remember seeing Ken Russell’s “The Devils”, projected in a really shitty 65 millimeter print and it was amazing.

I saw “Salò” for the first time at the Fine Arts theater and had to put my head in my hands. I’d get my skin clawed off by these works of art and these experiences and then a new skin, brought back on, tighter and more beautiful, I kept feeling and learning more about myself through those experiences.

JF: I look at the times you got to experience with such reverence and jealousy. Especially now that things are so...the simplest word is bad. The culture is in a really bad place, and I don’t see community around me. I think the gay scene is in the worst place it’s maybe ever been, spiritually.

I think there’s such a disconnect happening in the world. Maybe because I’m chronically on my phone, I see worse shit than you but all I’m seeing is...I really don’t like the generation below me. I don’t like the way they think or act. They piss me off.

SW: Oh no.

JF: They’re not doing it for me. And then the world in general just seems to get worse every single day. So, you know-SW: On that, I can say there’s not much room for argument. The world is getting terrible. Which is why we have to cling to each other and find the love within the things we love, even more so.

JF: Gen Z, in person, they’re really sweet and they’re gagged. They only echo things they’ve heard on TikTok and on the internet, so anytime they see a piece of art that diverges from what they think is allowed to be said, they freak out. In a good way. They’re like “Oh my God, I didn’t know this could exist”. They all came up in the last, like, 6 years, when Netflix was king with really bad things on it. It was post “Orange is the New Black” Netflix. They came up with “To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before” and “The Kissing Booth” and “Riverdale” and they were told “This is what you get.

This is what art is.”

SW: The quality downshift...

JF: We did a couple of college screenings of “Rotting in the Sun” and they freaked the fuck out. They were like “We didn’t know you could say these kinds of things!”. And then even them hearing Sebastián say “Fuck Marvel”, they were like “What do you mean fuck Marvel? Marvel is the biggest thing”. They just think if something is big, then it must be good. I don’t mean to harp on the plight of the millennial, but people hate us so much. Gen Z is actually very well liked, and people are scared of them and they’re bullies and they’re mean. Every Gen Z hates Millennials. Boomers hate Millennials. Everyone hates us but we’ve really never been given the shot to do anything. No one gives us chances. But we’re actually the last people to have actual taste. We invented having niche tastes, hipsters invented listening to vinyl again. I don’t know. I think Justice for Millennials.

We’ll have our day. We’ll have our day in the sun.

SW: Well, we’ve been talking about that for 10 years now.

JF: Because we’re annoying. We’re kind of annoying and a little bit cringe.

SW: Yeah. Which is adorable. You all are very John Watersy in a way.

JF: What do you think you were born on this planet to do?

SW: Oh, spread joy.

JF: Really?

SW: Spread joy and tell tales. I have an ability. People want to tell their tales when they’re around me and they want to hear things. I get people open and excited. Always have. That’s what I was born to do. That’s what I’m doing.

Photography PANTELIS

Photography SAM REISS Model KING TURNBULL

Photography RAMON CHRISTIAN Model CLIFTON MOONEY