Latest news with #Swedish-American
Mint
08-05-2025
- Sport
- Mint
Mastering the impossible: Inside the record-breaking world of pole vaulter Mondo Duplantis
In 2024, there were athletes, and then there was Mondo Duplantis. To describe that season, words are hard to come by, and Duplantis himself mutters things like 'weird" and 'surreal". But if there's one word that, casting aside superlatives, captures the essence of the 25-year-old Swedish-American pole vaulter's year—15 wins in 15 competitions, world champion, European Champion, Olympic champion, and three-time world record breaker—it's this: impossible. Any athlete operating in the top tier would like to believe that they are chasing the impossible, that they are on a quest to turn dreams into reality. Once in a generation, that really happens. Duplantis belongs, with consummate ease, in the same sphere as Usain Bolt, Michael Phelps, Simone Biles and Eliud Kipchoge. So far ahead of the rest that during the Paris Olympics, with the pole vault competition done—in fact all events for the day were over—and the gold in his pocket, Duplantis, who still had a couple of jumps left, if he wished to take them, decided to go for the world record. More than 77,000 people inside the sweltering, heaving Stade De France roared and chanted—Mondo, Mondo, Mondo. Even his opponents, the entire pool of finalists in the men's pole vault, stood on the sidelines egging him on. He had won the Olympic gold with a 6.0m jump, so he first loosened up with a 6.10m jump to set the Olympic record. Then he raised the bar to 6.25m, jack-knifed and soared over it like only he can, accompanied by a deafening wall of sound, to break the world record for the ninth time. Duplantis had become the first man to break the pole vault world record in an Olympic final and the first to win back-to-back Olympic golds in the event since US's Bob Richards in 1952 and 1956. By the time I meet him, on the sidelines of the Laureus Sports Awards on a cool April day in Madrid this year, Duplantis had broken the world record twice more (it stands at 6.27m now), and had been unbeaten since 2023. 'But Paris…man, it's hard to beat Paris," he says, lounging on a sofa in blue denim, sneakers and a flowy slate-grey cotton shirt with a Cuban collar. 'The way the stars aligned for me that night…I was on a different planet, it was weird. It was such an overwhelming, surreal and life-changing moment, it was hard to take it all in. The craziest moment I had in my career for sure." A striking development in the world of sports, very visible at the Paris Olympics, is the newfound camaraderie between rivals. Neeraj Chopra and his Pakistani rival Arshad Nadeem (silver and gold in javelin) are fast friends, the American gymnasts Simone Biles and Jordan Chiles bowed to Brazilian gymnast Rebecca Andrade when the latter won the gold in the floor event, and all of Duplantis's rivals lined up to cheer him on to the world record. 'In our instances, it's a very individual sport which I think helps to bring everybody together," Duplantis says. 'Because whatever the person on the other side does, it's not going to affect me or my performance. It's just a competition within yourself, just against the bar. Particularly with pole vaulting—it's just a strange and crazy event that attracts people who are kind of weird in their own way to even dare to do it." Pole vaulting is a strange sport, no two ways about it. It requires the speed and power of a sprinter, and the coordination and daredevilry of a gymnast. It is highly dangerous—the athlete pummels down a track at full speed holding a pole that's a little over 19ft long, which they then ram into a hole (called a 'box"), to flip themselves over a bar that, at the elite level, is 19ft high or more. Pole vaulting has been around since at least 2500 BC, when the ancient Egyptians used poles to reach enemy battlements or cross a hurdle, but it's safe to say that no one in those thousands of years has managed to soar to Duplantis's heights. Yet fear is not part of his emotional spectrum when it comes to pole vaulting. 'You always have a bit of a mental barrier when you are jumping, specially when you are trying a new height," Duplantis said. 'But I was always quite good at it. My father, who was my coach, never had to help me overcome any fear. The main thing for him was…if something happened like I broke a pole or had a bad jump, it was really important for him to try and make sure that we ended the session on a good jump, ended with a good taste in my mouth. You only ever remember your last jump, that's the beautiful thing about it." When Duplantis says that he was always good at it, what he means is that he has been jumping since he was a toddler. He was only four when his father Greg, a college-level pole-vaulter in the US, built him a backyard facility at their home in Lafayatte, Louisiana, and taught him the sport (it may be pointless to try and explain how someone gets to such rarefied levels of accomplishment in any field, but in sports, you can bet genetics has something to do with it—Duplantis's mother Helena is a former heptathlete from Sweden, which is also why Duplantis chose to represent Sweden instead of the US while in his teens). 'I grew up idolising my dad," Duplantis says, 'he just has so much love for sports and for pole vaulting that it just rubbed off on me and I think that's a big part of how I was able to get attached to it at such an young age. Of course he was the one who introduced me to it, but then also the way he was obsessed with it, that's something we bonded over." As he grew up, Duplantis says, his relationship with his father became less like that of a child and his parent and more like 'best friends, or brothers, in a way… 'I follow his advice and guidance all the time, but at the same time, he has let me figure out my own path in such a beautiful way." The backyard set-up still exists in their sprawling garden—more a forest than a garden, in the way that everything grows in wild profusion in the rainy, humid and hot climate of Louisiana. It consists of a running track which was once just packed earth but is now only slightly more upgraded with a metal track overlaid with plywood and foam, ending in a landing pad and the bar. Vines and ferns encroach from all sides. And one side of the track has the neighbour's brick wall, padded with discarded mattresses if Duplantis was to suffer a fall. But even here, Duplantis cleared world record heights multiple times while isolating himself and preparing for the Tokyo Olympics in the middle of the pandemic. What does it feel like, I ask him, to break the world record so many times? 'It's difficult to explain…people look at it two or three centimetres, but man that's a big gap," he says. 'When I first broke the world record with 6.17 (in 2020) to now at 6.27, those 10 centimetres are light years away, a completely different level of jump. Each time it becomes exponentially harder for me. I'm just creeping up I guess. Each time it requires me to be better at everything, every aspect of the jump, and I have to find little details that I can refine to get to those extra centimetres." But is 6.28 just around the corner? 'Oh yes," he smiles, 'I think that's coming soon." Rudraneil Sengupta is the author of The Beast Within , a detective novel set in Delhi.
Time of India
06-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Time of India
"That was 100% wrong": Marlon breaks silence on controversies for the first time
Image via: Instagram/Marlon Streamer admits past comments were '100% wrong' Facing fire from fans and family, Marlon responds to everything Twitch streamer Marlon Lundgren Garcia held a candid livestream on May 5 for addressing a very explosive allegation and resurfaced videos. This is the first time the Swedish-American person directly responded to the backlash that has engulfed him a day before, a viral clip had an ex-former associate accuse Marlon of using a fake persona to charm the world into fame- lies involving being homeless and questionable acts for money. That same person also went on to say how he helped Marlon delete incriminating evidence from the internet, painting a rather negative picture of deceit and who had heavy polarizing content and a very intense online personality, in an hour-long stream gave his apologies and also a defense. He spoke to thousands live wherein he claimed that a majority of the crazy comments he made in his earlier broadcasts were made strategically-they were meant to go viral and not really to be taken as his own beliefs.'When I said those things, I thought it was okay to say those things,' Marlon said. 'Because I wanted to blow up... I thought if I say the most ridiculous stuff ever, the Internet would snap it up.'One resurfaced clip from his early content had Marlon saying extremely graphic and fairly inappropriate things. Although he didn't refer to the clip directly, he did admit that he had crossed the line in trying to be darkly humorous:'It's not okay to joke about, it's not okay to say these things... And I'm sorry for it, I take full accountability, that was 100% wrong, and I would never do it again.'However, Marlon's contrition was complicated by his unapologetic attitude in response to other accusations, chiefly that he sent out explicit photos online for money. He confirmed these accusations during his livestream, and maintained the stance of considering these activities within his own personal hustle. "Look at where the f**k I am at right now. And I would do it again tomorrow," he said defiantly, claiming that he has also been candid about this within his long-term also argued against the alleged faking of his homelessness experience, which has traditionally constituted his streaming persona. The accuser identified himself as Marlon's brother in a viral video wherein he also contradicted Marlon's own account of events. Marlon, though, merely repeated that he had told that story communities have become split by this genesis of broadcast. Some fans admired his honesty; others were left disappointed by the discordant blend of remorse and bravado he Marlon can weather the storm remains unclear, but the livestream indicates one thing: He is far from stepping out of the public eye just yet.
Daily Mail
01-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
Paulina Porizkova, 60, reveals what part of her supermodel body she loves the most
Paulina Porizkova, 60, reveals what part of her supermodel body she loves the most Have YOU got a story? Email tips@ Paulina Porizkova revealed the part of her body that she has grown to love more at age 60. As a supermodel, she said she had always been taught to sell a 'vision of beauty inextricably linked to youth' but is now embracing growing older. She also opened up about the 'best part' of aging in a Harper's Bazaar interview published on Monday — just shortly after she rang in her milestone birthday in a bikini earlier this month. She talked about her newly rekindled partnership with Estée Lauder — over three decades after she served as the face of the brand in her 20s — and talked about how she wants to now spread the message of positive aging. And she added that her favorite part of getting older was her hair. 'I love my gray hair,' she admitted to the outlet. Paulina Porizkova revealed the part of her body that she has grown to love more at age 60; pictured in April 2023 As a supermodel, she said she had always been taught to sell a 'vision of beauty inextricably linked to youth' but is now embracing growing older; pictured in March 2023 'It still requires maintenance, believe it or not,' she continued. 'But I feel very good about my hair.' The Swedish-American model also discussed the 'best part' of aging overall and explained that it is when 'you finally turn into the person that you were meant to be all along.' She added: 'And perhaps that's not always a happy finding. 'But I think if you try to live your life with an understanding that other people matter, that connections matter, and that love matters, then you won't be disappointed with who that person is that you truly are.' She also told the outlet about how old she feels now since she marked her milestone birthday earlier this month. 'Do I feel younger? No. But every year I feel smarter, wiser, and better. So, I guess that makes me 60!' When asked about what keeps her feeling 'vibrant and youthful,' Porizkova poked fun at her own answer and called herself a 'meme.' 'Hope,' she responded. 'And how do you cultivate hope? Gratitude. I sound like an Instagram meme, but unfortunately, it's kind of true.' She also opened up about the 'best part' of aging in a Harper's Bazaar interview published on Monday — just shortly after she rang in her milestone birthday in a bikini earlier this month And she added that her favorite part of getting older was her hair. 'I love my gray hair,' she admitted to the outlet. 'It still requires maintenance, believe it or not,' she continued. 'But I feel very good about my hair'; pictured in January 2023 Porizkova continued: 'Because I've gone through a part of life where I utterly lost hope, I understand what it's like when you're living a life you don't want.' She continued: 'And it's a horrible feeling. It robs you of everything. So, hope is really the most important thing there is.' She also brought up a similar message she had shared in her 2022 memoir, No Filter: The Good, the Bad, and the Beautiful. 'Because if you have hope, even that just tomorrow is going to be a better day, then you've got it,' she said. 'And I have hope. I've had hope for a while that tomorrow will be a better day, and now I have the gratitude that it is better every day.' She also previously talked about another aspect of aging she likes in her post-menopausal years. The Swedish-American model also discussed the 'best part' of aging overall and explained that it is when 'you finally turn into the person that you were meant to be all along' 'One of the incredible things about aging is that you care less and less about what other people think,' she told People in October 2023. 'You're like, "You know what? I've done my bit. I've been serving everybody else for 50 years — now, it's my turn."' At the time, she also said that she is sure 'without a doubt that I am the best that I've ever been.' 'Why do I need improvement? I'm in my prime right now,' she continued. 'I'm sorry that you think my wrinkles dismiss me from being in my prime, but as a person, as a fully formed woman at the height of her power, this is it.'
Telegraph
01-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Telegraph
Why Greta Garbo really disappeared – and her five films you have to see
No star has ever retired as successfully, completely, and without fuss as Greta Garbo. This Swedish-American icon of the silver screen didn't even make a formal announcement when she decided to hang up her hat. Still, it was an impressively clean break which lasted far longer than her stardom itself. Compared with today's celebrities, forever issuing self-conscious statements about scaling back their careers, Garbo's scorched-earth disappearance is a model, not of talking the talk, but walking the walk. Away. She was everywhere – and then, quite suddenly, nowhere. The year was 1941. Garbo was only 35, and her disillusionment with Hollywood's creative process would brook no more disagreements. All she had ever wanted to be was globally renowned as an actress. She had achieved that fivefold, becoming the most famous woman on the planet, not to mention known as the most beautiful – something like her era's Princess Diana, if we go by the relentless press coverage. In the process, though, she developed a crippling case of buyer's remorse. 'I want to be alone,' she remarked in Grand Hotel (1932) – the line that first became her most famous catchphrase, and then, seemingly, her life's motto. A 2025 documentary on Sky, Garbo: Where Did You Go?, tackles the identity crisis she went through in creating Greta Garbo, then turning her back on that very persona. She was born Greta Lovisa Gustafsson in 1905, the third child of factory workers. Their flat was in Södermalm, known then as the 'slum' of Stockholm, and there were no expectations for Greta to amount to anything. She might not have done, if it weren't for a fascination with theatre at school, and the first job that got her noticed, as a department store's fashion model. The Svengali who propelled her to fame was the Finnish filmmaker Mauritz Stiller, then the second-most important figure in Sweden's burgeoning silent cinema (behind The Wind director Victor Sjöström). Garbo's relationship with Stiller was fraught, both professionally and romantically. (Both were bisexual.) He plucked Garbo out of drama school and cast her in the romantic epic The Saga of Gösta Berling (1924) – not playing the lead, but in an emotionally demanding supporting role. Her screen presence proved so electric that a private viewing of the film enraptured Louis B Mayer, who brought her to Hollywood with Stiller, and enlisted his second-in-command at MGM, Irving Thalberg, to sculpt her into the star she became. She was told to lose weight and get her teeth fixed – easily done. As Annette Talpert wrote in a book about Golden Age Hollywood glamour, 'Garbo's face was so well proportioned that for years plastic surgeons proclaimed it the hallmark of perfection.' From the start, though, she was unhappy with the roles MGM foisted upon her. According to Norma Shearer (Thalberg's wife), 'She didn't like playing the exotic, the sophisticated, the woman of the world.' After all, she was barely 20 when she got top-billing in such racy entertainments as The Temptress (1926) – a chaotically expensive romp, which saw Stiller replaced by another director – and Flesh and the Devil (1926), which paired her for the first of three times with a male megastar of the day, John Gilbert. Their scorching love scenes were much talked about, and gained scandalous voltage because everyone knew Garbo and Gilbert were entwined off-screen, too. By their third vehicle, A Woman of Affairs (1928), Garbo had replaced the silent doyenne Lillian Gish as Hollywood's top-grossing star. MGM's main worry was that Garbo's Swedish accent would be her undoing. In fact, though, she was among the few, lucky silent stars who survived the transition to sound with their marquee value only boosted. 'Garbo Talks!' trumpeted the ads for her first sound film, the stagey Eugene O'Neill adaptation Anna Christie (1930), which cashed in on that slogan to become, bizarrely, a major hit: she was playing a downtrodden Swedish ex-brothel-worker getting soused on a barge in Provincetown. Her first line sets the tone: 'Gimme a whiskey, ginger ale on the side, and don't be stingy, baby!' Critics rhapsodised about her command of English – fluent by now – and how ideally her speaking voice, a husky contralto, fit her established persona. Indeed, she was so comfortable in this second tongue that Anna's Swedish accent needed beefing up in retakes. She'd score her first of three Best Actress Oscar nominations. These were Garbo's glory years – the years of Grand Hotel, of renegotiating her MGM contract, and insisting on the lavish period drama Queen Christina (1933) ('Garbo Returns!') as her next vehicle. She would flex her power in the industry for as long as it lasted. MGM wanted Charles Boyer or Laurence Olivier as her leading man. Over her dead body. She demanded they bring back her ex-lover Gilbert, even though his career was in serious decline, his fourth marriage a year off divorce, and his health succumbing to the terminal alcoholism that would cause his death in 1936. Playing Sweden's 17th century monarch was the type of serious acting challenge Garbo most relished, letting her play a strong-willed woman of destiny in modishly masculine attire. And yet even this experience was dismaying. She fretted about how the film would be received in her native Sweden, paranoid about historical absurdities. 'Just imagine Christina abdicating for the sake of a little Spaniard!' she wrote to a friend. Garbo's aversion to publicity was already infamous. There's a picture of her in New York in 1938, surrounded by a pack of scribbling reporters. Her gaze, somewhere above their heads, is as trapped and tragic as many of her major characters. On her infrequent return trips to her beloved motherland, the situation was even worse – as a national icon, she ignited a frenzy of well-wishing curiosity. Achieving any kind of privacy was next to impossible. At the outset of her career, Garbo was content to be photographed in controlled circumstances, accepting this as a necessary aspect of stardom. But she couldn't deal with the stalking, scandal-mongering attentions of photojournalists out on the streets. While the term 'paparazzo' wasn't coined until La Dolce Vita (1960), the profession certainly pre-dated that. Indeed, the mass production of compact Leica cameras, which became all the rage for snooping freelancers, coincided with the very years that Garbo's stardom peaked. Nothing triggered demand for 'candid' Garbo snaps more than her obvious loathing for having her privacy invaded. Much like Diana, she faced relentless pursuit and harassment that was very real, and irrevocably soured her relationship to celebrity. The more she was labelled a 'recluse' – especially in her post-retirement years, when she became a US citizen and settled in New York City – the more value these stolen images of Garbo began to hold. If they fed into the myth – say, showing one hand held up to block the lens, and one displeased eye peering out – so much the better. There was no waning phase of Garbo's acting career. One of her brightest hits, Ernst Lubitsch's jaunty romcom Ninotchka, delighted everyone ('Garbo Laughs!'). If Ninotchka hadn't had the bad luck to come out in Hollywood's greatest year, 1939, she'd surely have won that elusive Oscar. (She lost to Vivien Leigh for Gone with the Wind.) It would prove her penultimate film. The last one was George Cukor's poorly received Two-Faced Woman (1941), because a purported comeback in 1949 with The Duchess of Langeais amounted to nothing when she simply changed her mind. After that, she reverted as far as she could to being Greta Lovisa Gustafsson – albeit as a New Yorker, since the residents of Södermalm would never have left her alone. For all that the 'recluse' label was stamped upon her for the next half-century, Lorna Tucker's Sky documentary argues that this was largely a media fiction, and that Garbo's private life was more hedonistic, and sillier, than anyone knew at the time. Indeed, it was often happy. She had long affairs, including with the fashion designer Cecil Beaton and the playwright Mercedes de Acosta. She partied – privately – with the likes of Charlie Chaplin and Truman Capote. She simply avoided the press, turned away from every camera she spotted, and walked the streets of Manhattan incognito in trench coats and broad-rimmed hats. 'I want to be left alone,' she once clarified about what she had really said in Grand Hotel – the suggestion being that she merely wanted to choose her company, and live in a protected bubble. The difference may be subtle, but it's everything. Greta Garbo's five essential films 1. Grand Hotel (Edmund Goulding, 1932) In this Best Picture-winning ensemble stunner, Garbo ruled the roost as the prima ballerina Gruzinskaya, whose career – ironically – is on the descent. She's the most famous permanent resident of Berlin's Grand Hotel, with fellow guests played by the likes of Joan Crawford, Wallace Berry, and both Barrymores (John and Lionel), making this the starriest attraction the early talkies had yet seen. It also set the template for all films in which narratives converge around a single location, paving the way for the likes of Murder on the Orient Express and, naturally, The Grand Budapest Hotel. As an aloof diva who contemplates suicide, Garbo found a role which let her express the alienation of being so famous. Available to rent on Apple TV, Amazon Prime and Sky 2. Queen Christina (Rouben Mamoulian, 1933) This was the role she simply could not be refused: after a sojourn home in Sweden, and the end of her original MGM contract, she demanded $250,000 per film, and chose this risky project to mark her return. Christina, Sweden's most celebrated female monarch, is perhaps Garbo's single most defining character, a monarch as steely as Elizabeth I for different reasons: her refusal to marry, secret conversion to Catholicism, and eventual decision to relinquish the throne. While Garbo was never happy with the love story – despite enlisting John Gilbert to help her through it – the pageantry is top-notch, and the final close-up of Christina facing her future on a ship's prow is immortal. Available to rent on Apple TV and Amazon Prime 3. Anna Karenina (Clarence Brown, 1935) This was very much Garbo in her peak 'tragic women of destiny' phase – outstripping her peer and close friend Katharine Hepburn, who was busy making a string of flops along similar lines. It was Garbo's second stab at playing Tolstoy's doomed adulteress: she had made a silent version called Love (1927), opposite Gilbert as Count Vronsky, which was a huge success. So was this, pairing her with the infallible Fredric March, but focusing more intently on her private anguish. It compresses 900-odd pages of plot into a tidy 95-minute frame – not one for purists, but alluringly moody, with striking use of steam, shadow and the train's rhythmic chuffing, all beckoning Anna to her fate. Available to rent on Apple TV and Amazon Prime 4. Camille (George Cukor, 1936) Cukor may have directed Garbo in her swansong – which he later castigated as 'lousy' and 'most unfortunate' – but he also coaxed her most heart-piercing turn in this classic example of a 1930s 'women's picture'. Pedigree, again, was key: it was the umpteenth adaptation of the book and play La Dame aux Camélias by Alexandre Dumas fils. Garbo glowed as the courtesan heroine Marguerite Gautier, who falls for a low-born charmer (Robert Taylor) but is struck down by consumption before she can find true happiness. The star left no dry eyes with her coughing demise at the end, and was Oscar-nominated for a second time. 'Garbo Dies,' they might have quipped. Available to rent on Apple TV and Amazon Prime 5. Ninotchka (Ernst Lubitsch, 1939) This was the three-sentence story idea that dramatist Melchior Lengyel pitched to MGM at a poolside meeting. 'Russian girl saturated with Bolshevist ideals goes to fearful, capitalistic, monopolistic Paris. She meets romance and has an uproarious good time. Capitalism not so bad, after all.' Beyond the satire, it was a perfect chance to show off the funny side of Garbo audiences had never seen – especially with Billy Wilder taking a hand in the script, and Lubitsch, a master of sophisticated comedy, calling the shots. The plot revolves around jewellery stolen during the Russian Revolution, until Garbo's frosty Soviet envoy Nina Yakushova melts, gloriously, under the attentions of Melvyn Douglas's suave Count Léon. Available to rent on Apple TV and Amazon Prime
The Guardian
21-04-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Swedish punks Viagra Boys: ‘It's freeing for people to see a dude let his gut hang out'
Slouched on a sofa in a former cement factory in Stockholm, Viagra Boys' Swedish-American frontman and lyricist Sebastian Murphy is recalling a low point in his life, several years ago. He points to a tattoo on his heavily inked torso that sums it up. 'It says 'You need me',' he explains in a tobacco-stained California burr. 'When I did this tattoo, I was such a piece-of-shit drug addict who only cared about himself. I thought it was funny. I don't need you guys – you need me.' It inspired You N33d Me, one of the best tracks on the sax-blasting post-punk band's electrifying, sort-of-self-titled fourth album Viagr Aboys. Hooked on amphetamines, pills and Valium at various points in his past, Murphy has been, by his own admission, the last person anybody needed around. But the strongest thing Murphy is consuming when we meet on a recent Thursday afternoon is black coffee. We're in the lair of Shrimptech Enterprises, the independent label and umbrella company for the Swedish band's increasingly hectic operations: they've gradually climbed out of the toilet circuit over the last decade, and business is booming. This is where Viagra Boys write and record, design merch and poster art, all six members punching in for regular hours most weekdays. Our chat is soundtracked by the insistent chime of a piano being tuned. Here, Murphy is a cog in an increasingly smooth-running machine. Born in the small city of San Rafael, California, to an American father and a Swedish mother, Murphy's upbringing was strict. 'They were very obsessed with healthy foods,' he says. 'I never drank soda, didn't watch TV, all that stuff was kind of banned.' Would it be fair to say the rest of his life has been a reaction against that? 'It really has.' A bored, unruly skater kid in his teens, Murphy began drinking and stealing from his parents to buy whatever drugs he could get his hands on. He was arrested for the first time aged 15 and was in rehab for drug addiction by 17. In an initially successful bid to get sober, Murphy then moved to Stockholm to live with his aunt and ended up staying. He dropped out of high school and became a tattooist, but sobriety didn't last, especially after rock'n'roll, he says, 'swept me off my feet'. The other Viagra Boys, Stockholm punk scene veterans, recruited Murphy after seeing him sing a Mariah Carey song drunk at karaoke. He had never been in a proper band and felt out of his depth, but he pressed on with the attitude of: 'OK, rock'n'roll, let's go. Let's do this until we're dead. I maybe thought that would come sooner than later.' Viagra Boys' 2018 debut single Sports was an addictively funny satire of hypermasculinity (their name drew from similar inspiration); their debut album Street Worms, released that year, railed against Sweden's growing rightwing populism with wit and muscle. But the band's steady rise has been built chiefly on relentless, riotous touring. Murphy, shirtless and tracksuit-trousered, stokes the crowd into rising levels of derangement – at their 2023 Glastonbury set, someone in the crowd was tossing their toddler into the air – as saxophone player Oskar Carls writhes around the stage in outrageously short shorts. In an uptight world, a group dedicated to getting loose like this – so loose Murphy has the word tattooed on his forehead in Swedish – has major appeal: last year Viagra Boys played US arenas supporting Queens of the Stone Age. Their biggest world tour yet began this month at Coachella and will end 60 dates later at London's Alexandra Palace. Murphy surmises that a lot of the fans 'are just freaks, you know. Freaks recognise freaks. It's freeing for a lot of people to see some dude that has clearly no muscles and is just letting his gut hang out have a good time.' There was a time when Murphy wouldn't get on stage without taking amphetamines first. But as his bandmates started having kids and settling down, the pace had to slow to remain sustainable. Murphy credits bassist and de facto bandleader Henrik 'Benke' Höckert with gradually tightening things up. 'I would always be so pissed off at him if he decided to stay sober for a tour,' Murphy says. 'I was busy with doing drugs and thinking about myself; he was busy planning shit. Making it work as a viable source of income. Which would not be possible if we were fucked up every day.' At the same time, the crippling hangovers and attendant anxiety started to become too much. 'I still know how to party for sure,' says Murphy. 'But I definitely know my limits now.' Drugs will never be entirely off the menu – 'I can't really help it when I'm on tour,' he admits – but these days he mostly sticks to beer (just the 30 or so a week). He goes to the gym and plays squash to try to stay in shape. He's even stopped getting tattoos because he says he can't take the pain any more. 'These days if I stub my toe I'll be crying for a week.' In 2021, the band's founding guitarist Benjamin Vallé died aged 47, shaking them all hard. They supported each other through the loss: where some men struggle to discuss difficult emotions, Viagra Boys have no such problem. 'We talk to each other about everything,' says Murphy. I ask him if a newfound respect for death prompting him to change his lifestyle. He prefers to think of it as not wasting a good thing. 'I've got a great fiancee, I've got an apartment,' he says. 'I can afford things. Life is really easy and really good. I don't want to fuck it up.' His visual artist fiancee Moa Romanova, who did the artwork for their third album, 2022's Cave World, has a studio next door to Shrimptech. At one point she drops in with their dog Uno – both are subjects of songs on Viagr Aboys. Uno II is a strange tale of conspiratorial anxiety seen through the eyes of an Italian greyhound with chronic dental problems. River King is a piano ballad in which Murphy croons with charming imperfection about Chinese takeaways and calming domesticity. It's a disarmingly gentle end to the album: have Viagra Boys finally gone soft? Murphy smiles a gold-toothed grin. 'We've always been soft. That's been the problem all along.' Viagr Aboys is released via Shrimptech Enterprises on 25 April
