sanguisugabogg

It’s pronounced sang-gwee-sue-guh-bog, and means a toilet that sucks blood out of your ass. It’s a portmanteau of the Latin “sanguisuga” (bloodsucker) and “bogg” from founding guitarist Cameron Boggs’ surname, and coincidentally is British slang for a toilet—the rare “happy” lavatory accident. It’s a surreal moniker that could only work for a band born from an acid trip in a flooding Columbus, OH basement. ¶ Boggs since left the basement (and state), as Sanguisugabogg went from solo project to full band, from Maggot Stomp newcomers to Century Media breakouts on the back of four-song EP Pornographic Seizures. Jokes about shirts outnumbering songs abound. Upcoming LP Tortured Whole won’t change that—it launched with plenty of apparel—but certainly solidifies the band, which embraces humor on their meme page and beyond. ¶ Throughout this Zoom interview, members constantly update their backgrounds to images NSFW or hilarious—often both at once. Boggs proudly asks, “Do you like how we trolled everyone in the world into saying tortured hole? Without actually just saying, like, ‘tortured asshole?” ¶ Shit yes. It also works as a mission statement,

as drummer/producer Cody Davidson declares the title track “the most Sanguisugabogg song we have in the universe of Sanguisugabogg.” The criteria has changed since their 2019 release.

“There’s [fewer] caveman riffs,” explains Boggs. “There’s a lot of weird timing parts. I got fed up with people being like ‘caveman riffs, low IQ.’ It’s not really that low IQ; I work really hard on this shit, so I tried to make it not so knuckle-draggy.”

After imitating his EP performance, vocalist Devin Swank recalibrated with the addition of gutturals, octave changes and pig squeals. This is exemplified by Morticianapproved lead single “Menstrual Envy” and its Troma-helmed video in which the band demands a “Dong Clause” (“15+ inches”) be added to their contract. A bloodbath ensues. The lyrics are decidedly less selfish, though still plenty bloody.

“It’s a love song—this guy’s old lady hates it when she’s menstruating,” explains Swank. “He infects his dick with a harmful parasite and it starts eating the inside of the stomach, so he’s experiencing the closest thing to menstruating.”

Another song’s romantic lead brings his necrophiliac lover to a morgue to indulge. Elsewhere, a man eats his own semen out of a dead asshole, pedophiles’ genitalia are mutilated and God’s UTI starts the apocalypse.

Swank explains: “I’m a big Clive Barker fan, and I’ve always wanted to be in a band that got involved with horror and homoerotica.”

Boggs recently came out as queer (non-binary), and has received plenty of affirming messages thanking them for validating the senders’ experience and identity. (“As soon as that shit started, I was like, ‘Fuck it, we’ll just make death metal gay.’”)

“We try to write the most fucking brutal shit imaginable,” Swank concludes, “but at the same time, we write it for everybody.”