Birthed from lewd camp, schlock shock, and 1990s goth styles, Bottoms’ blunt take on issues like HIV and body horror are neither shy nor tame. Self-described as a “gender-problematizing goth dance band” that produces “shitty house music [...] for faggots”, the three-piece electronic punk outfit is both celebratory and confrontational in nature. Formed by Simon Leahy, Michael Prommasit and Jake Dibeler, the Brooklyn-based three-piece was quickly swept up by JD Samson’s Atlas Chair label with a six-track EP titled Goodbye. Listening to Bottoms is much like the act of bottoming itself; a wondrous, visceral, intense pursuit of pleasure that entails degrees of vulnerability, pain, and innovation. What is it to be a bottom? “Cathartic” and “exuberant” are the terms shaping their live gig reviews, with performances offering an anarchic queertopia devoid of the current conventions surrounding the drag world. In June, Bottoms premiered their debut single’s music video, “My Body”, an alarming NSFW ode to self-love and self-destruction in relation to gender identity. “Clap your hands if you hate your body!” shouts Dibeler, their vocalist whose performance art background shapes his shrill wailing and grrrl-inspired meltdowns. The cinematic, high-trash, erotic nightmare features rising star Macy Rodman and came about from Simon Leahy’s progressively curated NYC Porn Film Festival. Simon has become an important staple of NYC’s queer scene with his radically successful Bushwig Festival, which Dibeler once described as “essentially where you would go to see the drag queens who were so weird that they don’t get booked anywhere else.” I spoke with Simon and Jake about their band, doing drag, and watching porn, and they surprised us with an exclusive series of nude self-portraits.

The NYC Porn Film Festival had a program built around post-humanism, anime, global diversity and more. Bushwig is infamous for housing acts that can’t be found on RuPaul’s Drag Race. Is there a correlation or connection between running these festivals and your music project Bottoms?

SL: I have a natural non-academic/anti-intellectual/anti-institution interest in deconstructing gender and sexuality. It's hard for me to pinpoint exactly where this stemmed from, but one of my earliest memories from childhood was when a girl asked my 5-year-old self if I was a boy or a girl. It really freaked me and I couldn't answer. My stance on being “anti-institution” is what happens on the streets, before it's written in any book. As for the social aspect of what I do, I really get off on mixing things up; scenes, communities, genders, ideas, and bringing people together, or making ideas sit together that are composing of seemingly opposing ideologies. There is a real magic to this, as once the work and organization is made, it's the best feeling to just stand back and watch it unfold. For me, this relates back to the queer scene and that many complexities can co-exist together without boxes or societal constructs of what "should be".

How did Bottoms come to be? 

SL: Bottoms came from a need to talk about gay experience even before Jake Dibeler joined the band, this was very much the driving force for the songs. Although our earlier unreleased stuff took on a more Smiths/Joy Division style, the noise aspect was very much there. Jake complimented and has a great experience which just fit right in.

What were your first drag experiences as both performer and audience member? 

SL: My first boyfriend was called “Elvis” and painted drag queens, Divine David, etc. So he had a huge influence on me. I like anarchic, experimental drag.

JD: I’ve basically been doing some form of drag/gender-bending since childhood. I’ve been in a pair of heels since I could wear shoes. I’m from a very creative, liberal family so I’m lucky to have been raised amongst the arts. My mom would rent John Waters films from the library for us to watch. This being said, it’s hard to really pinpoint a “first”, since performing, specifically in “drag” has been a part of my creative process since I first started making art.

What type of porn do you like and what sex acts do you enjoy watching?

SL: I don't actually consume so much porn. But, when I'm self-loathing, I like (doing and watching) threesomes, group sex, ass-to-mouth, pissing, bareback, felching… the usual stuff. Sex with my partner…  I'm into loving sex, lots of kissing and communication.

JD: I only watch bareback porn because duh.

On the band name, Simon stated, beyond its place in gay terminology, “like being the bottom of society”. Do you think celebration of the role of “the bottom”, the receiver of penetration, regardless of gender, is socially threatening?

SL: There is still – maybe not in my community – issues around butt sex! The straight boys are getting into it more though, it's like your ass is super pleasurable, and it was made that way... So use it.

JD: To be honest, I don’t really think sex in any form can be socially threatening anymore. Which is great, because sex shouldn’t be threatening, but I think specifically in America it’s for the wrong reasons. Americans are desensitized to sex, but, on the other hand, also police sexuality. In the Netherlands, sex workers have rights, sex clubs are legal. It’s not treated as a subversive act.

On Bottoms’ video, “My Body” … The films that inspired it, Repulsion, Perfect Blue, The Shining, etc. all hold a special place in the heart of outsider culture. The obsessive self-love/self-loath discord born from identity issues reflects social attitudes around “the feminine”, both imposed and the personal effects of such imposition. Do you think queer culture finds solace in images of self-destruction, particularly with femininity? I mean “find solace” in a positive, cathartic, exploratory sense.

JD: With destruction comes power, and I think the same for self-destruction, self-mutilation… I’m really interested in horror in general, so that’s really where the “My Body” video comes from. I think my interest in horror probably stems from an almost masochistic place. When I was a kid I was terrified of horror movies – they would totally fuck me up. I would watch them anyway. The terror I felt was so real, and, in turn, exciting. Pain is pleasure, pleasure is pain. I don’t think we find catharsis necessarily in the destruction of femininity, rather I think we find catharsis in the destruction of ourselves. It’s like someone who cuts themselves to release pain. Pain for the sake of overcoming pain. A lot of the time in the queer community, the negativity comes from the outside, and in turn is internalized, and turned into self-loathing, where it more than likely wouldn’t have been before.