Fragrance Genius on creating erotic fan fiction and turning 40

The FADER: Fragrance Genius, welcome to the FADER podcast.

Fragrance Genius: Hello.

Thanks so much for being here. The motive I wished to job interview you is mainly because you’ve started out a Substack as, like, an outlet for other innovative endeavors. Can you speak a little about why you started out that and what you happen to be utilizing it for and that sort of matter?

I indicate, for a bunch of different motives, I guess effectively just about every time we make a file, there’s a whole lot of points that are left behind. I write and history a ton, but incredibly couple of of them conclusion up generating it to the album, but I continue to have a good deal of music and concepts that come to feel shareable, but don’t definitely function in an album format. And I’m earning movies for them even now and thinking about them. And from time to time they’re items that I even individually hear to a whole lot, which is extremely weird. I do not hear to my records at all. I believe that’d be bizarre if I did. But I listened to some of my demos simply because they are so comprehensive to me and they capture like a precise electricity so perfectly, probably I could not increase on it or it’s possible it will not make sense as a record track, but I continue to want to share them.

So, that was 1 of the concepts. And also I make video clips for them. I want to be ready to share these. And then I needed it to be a spot that I could chat about generating items a little bit far more, which finished up remaining a tiny a lot more tough than I imagined. I believe I make points since I really don’t know how to communicate about it. So, that section is just not likely as very well, but I am still going to push to test, mainly because it truly is anything that’s definitely handy to me. And then it really is also a spot for me to do stupid shit, which is the 90%, the rest of my brain it can be just staying silly, but in a very intentional, rigorous way.

Yeah. And so much it really is, as you said, it really is not just been out there for creating, but for visible art and all this other things. How does non-musical artwork determine into your lifestyle and do you have fairly a significant archive of function over and above the music you have produced?

I would like I had a larger archive. I really don’t seriously help save a large amount. I imply, this is a way for me to have a document of things, because I just do stuff on … Like I’m suitable now, I’m recording this audio for this interview on a actually aged laptop computer that is most likely heading to die genuinely before long. And I have not backed something up on it. It really is likely all heading to just go. And there is certainly yrs worth of songs which is occurred to me many occasions. I don’t know why I will not document. My mom laminates points. So, from time to time I will send her things and she’ll laminate them and keep them, but I am not really very good at it. But I did find some previous paintings that I designed that I preferred. And I shared people recently on the Substack. Also, I just make matters all the time and I like stuff. I indicate, that’s just how I get by, I guess. It is listening to songs and observing flicks and looking through and it is really exactly where I get a ton.

Why is now the appropriate time for you to be sharing this ephemeral, properly, not ephemeral, but you know what I mean. This added artwork and why Substack medium?

I suggest some of it, I guess, by the nature of how we are talking about, it appears to be like it’s more, but it doesn’t sense inconsequential or a little something. It really is just more. I consider everything’s turn into extra official too. I will compose a tune and then I go to the studio and then we document it and then I wait around like a yr and then there is certainly a big fuss about every thing. And this is a way for me to share stuff without having that. I imply, it really is a little naughty, truthfully, since it truly is gone all right so far. But I truly feel like some individuals are heading to be mad at me about how very easily I’m just placing things out. But I miss that, like in the beginning, when I was writing songs, I was just composing them. They are all just one will take and then I’ll make a video clip for it. And then I would just upload it and share it.

And it was extremely satisfying to me. And it felt like how it must be performed. I like to make big ass new music video clips. And I like creating the data that I do. And I couldn’t with no that format, without the need of all my folks that I collaborate with, none of all those matters would materialize and they wouldn’t be as magical as they are, but there is something I definitely skip about just sharing issues to other individuals straight with out getting to go as a result of any other channel. And it is a way to do that. I necessarily mean, Twitter is a way to do that with a considered. Anything else has its very own id. There is certainly other means to share things, but they’re generally framed by the system and Substack just feels like a way, not like its have identity, genuinely. I get to make it up and I get to share points immediately.

You pointed out your Twitter and I guess any person who follows that, it will nearly not be astonishing that you have a lot of personal writing or that you do publish creatively, because I guess your Twitter is fairly literary and quite fascinating syntactically. This is maybe a silly problem, but do you look at tweeting to be an extension of your artwork or a producing artwork kind?

Often. Even like getting a discussion with you, I am never likely to be capable to tell you just what I signify. I am not very superior at it, but with framing like a music or some type of container I’m capable to do it a lot improved. No matter if I’m proper or not, I at the very least truly feel like I am communicating what I intended. And it is containing a total bunch of stuff that I would not be able to articulate in one more way. And so at times Twitter feels like that in a extra, I will not know. I retain making use of the term stupid. Stupid is superior. And also there’s some truly funny people today on there and some seriously innovative, strange, exciting people. It’s gotten even worse and worse and even worse and even worse more than the several years, but there’s even now some men and women that are just weirdos and make me chortle and are wicked wise.

On the platform you have this Patricia Lockwood factor likely on and it feels from time to time that your Twitter is so huge. You have a million followers on Twitter and then like a 10th of that on Instagram, for example. Do you at any time fulfill persons who only know you from Twitter or do you sense like your Twitter is some individual entity?

I never know, simply because I will submit about my tunes and nobody’s truly intrigued in that, but then I will put up a factor about like alien queefs or a little something. And it’ll go as a result of the roof.

And then the other day, one thing random transpired. You posted this incredibly humorous and also very wonderfully published Substack, I guess, Supernatural admirer fiction about owning sex with every single character from Supernatural and all these Supernatural enthusiasts variety of came for you on Twitter.

Yeah, I necessarily mean, I realized that there was a community and I had recognised that fandoms are fucking nuts. I necessarily mean, I have hardly ever read any lover fiction. And I have seen the display, but I am not super into it. It is just like I wrote the very first sentence, like I have had sex with each individual … It was just an idea. It was almost like a tweet. You know what I imply? Like I have had sex with every solid and crew member of the Television set exhibit, Supernatural. It just saved heading. And which is how I normally make factors. I you should not definitely know what I’m carrying out right until I am doing it. I just preserve likely where by it would like me to go. But I also knew that I was trolling. I guess you could phone it.

I do not even know what it is. It really is shitposting. These are all phrases that the youngsters have taught me. And then the youngsters, soon after I posted that tale, they showed me all these new words for what type of supporter fiction it is. I experienced no plan. It can be self-insert, which is the place you place oneself in it. And then it is really like, R one thing RPF. I think it truly is where you you should not write about the character, but you create about the actor playing that character, which is also what I did. And then 4, which is when you are ingested by anyone, which is also what I wrote about.

Yeah. I was pondering, could you examine a part of that piece or any of your Substack parts?

Yeah, I can study some. Perfectly, I guess I am going to give a small context for the place we’re likely to get started in this story. I never know who’s listening to this, but in the story I am operating at Zales, which is like a truly well known jewellery restore in malls in The united states. And Jensen Ackles, who’s the actor from Supernatural plays just one of the model brother fellas. Comes in, has a seizure and I go to consolation him. And then he starts off to eat me. And I will get started all over that consuming, I guess.

“I was no for a longer time in the middle of my change at Zales. The whole mall appeared to vanish around us until just he and I remained. Jensen cuffed my trapped hands at his face and threw them closer. Bit by bit, but with out any strain, he took every just one of my fingers down his throat. I felt no stress from his jaw. His mouth gave with out hard work and kept providing right until he had taken me to the elbow on each individual facet, the arrangement really should have brought pressure to my joints as effectively, but I felt no this sort of matter. I appear to be pooling, my flesh arranging seamlessly as he collected me deeper nonetheless. Slick, he sucked me up to the shoulders just before widening until the crown of my head was far too pulled in. Miraculously I could see. My eyes open up, I noticed just about every tender vein of his esophagus as I created my way even further down. His teeth gently grazed my back again as he swallowed, easy nevertheless right until stopping at the belt of my denims. This was the only position of rigidity. I felt him navigate the buckle with his tongue and bottom incisors until eventually it unlatched. My denim fell absent. Briefly I envision it meaning my rag on the ground. And introduced back again to the moment lit as if by some divine headlamp, I ongoing to slide and look at as I entered Jensen’s upper stomach.” That was quite excellent, right?

Yeah, it was really superior. I would likely listen to like some broadcast where you read out the items as effectively. I imagine it provides a thing to it.

I enjoy that, forever now, some people will just believe I’ve genuinely intended all that and that I am just a big supporter of Supernatural and that this is just one thing I cooked up in my mind, because it can be definitely satisfying to my urges. And I necessarily mean, in a way it is, but it is really just not as distinct to that demonstrate. I mean, I surely was therapeutic or anything. I was obtaining something out of it to continue to keep writing as substantially as they did. And then if I do it all over again, I am just doubling down on that and just building extra prospective persons to just associate me genuinely with Supernatural supporter fiction.

Did you feel a sense of ‘when will these Supernatural admirers chill out?’ Did you get that feeling of I want persons would just acquire the joke? Or do you variety of, I guess you described it as a like trollish gesture, do you just delight in any response?

I’m not a pretty great troll. I just hope most people is acquiring a kick out of it and wondering issues are funny. And so if men and women are not, then from time to time I get a tiny delicate, because I just want individuals to have exciting. Also, I necessarily mean, I am weirdly significant when I am writing it much too. I indicate, I am quite intentional though I’m crafting. I do not truly know what the elements are to that or the substances that I am making use of to prepare dinner up all this things. But I am oddly really serious about it. There is certainly a great deal heading on, I guess. But in essence, I just think it can be genuinely amusing.

You described currently being a supporter of the exhibit and I was reading an interview with you from 6 or 7 years back the place you had been speaking about getting a lover of Gossip Girl and producing gags about how you would adore a tune put in Gossip Lady. And then past 7 days “Without the need of You” was in the reboot. Did you check out? Was that a large second for you?

I haven’t observed that episode nonetheless, but I’m on the lookout forward to it. I like any teenager drama. I never know what the networks are across the globe, but the CW is like the principal 1 in this article. They do Riverdale, which is fucking insane, for the reason that they’re not taking part in online games. There is a whole lot of exhibits, they try to act like they’re not just mellow traumas since some outdated person with a beard or something’s in it, but they are accomplishing the same as all the teenager dramas, who’s just tedious as hell. And it really is like in the Pentagon or something, it really is still drama bitch.

Your audio has times of levity, but it truly is not often “humorous”. Do you truly feel like there is a more humorous facet of you that begs for an outlet?

I think so. Everything’s coming from the exact place. It’s just different filters. It can be in essence the similar exact thing. I mean, I was just chatting about this, there is certainly some audio like Xiu Xiu, who I like, wherever their tracks are so powerful and visceral and above the major that one working day I’ll hear to it and it’ll be like really devastating to me and it will make me genuinely sad. And then the up coming working day I will pay attention to the exact similar track and consider it truly is actually campy and amusing. The music has not changed. It’s just my reckoning with it has. And so I assume I just have a ton going on, like all people. And I just decide which factor feels the finest way to course of action points at the minute. I would say 90% of the time, I am just like laughing and then I am actually not.