Joyfriend Explores Empowerment with New Single "Suck Me Dry"
Joyfriend just shared new and seasonally-appropriate single “Suck Me Dry”, now available on all platforms. We happily ran into Joyfriend this past weekend at Substance 2022, chatted about the (then-forthcoming) single, and snapped a Polaroid following our conversation. Curious about the origins and background to “Suck Me Dry”, we followed up later and asked if Joyfriend would send some supplementary info, which we are delighted to share here.
Joyfriend on “Suck Me Dry”:
“As a musician there are certain timeless themes that get written about; falling in love, breaking up, finding yourself, and hot steamy sex. I am someone who’s baseline is rather hyper-sexual but I was having an alarmingly very non-sexual summer. I was processing the decoupling of a long term partnership and just not feeling it, but one sweaty late summer night the tides changed. I met a self proclaimed slutty bisexual wearing a fishnet tank top and patent leather short shorts (that had a zipper going from the front alll the way to the butt) and something in me started stirring.
We exchanged information but found our busy lives made it hard to meet in person, so we started a pretty explicit texting saga that left both of us extremely umm, well you know…
…this is where I found myself, late night in my music studio smiling stupidly at the glowing screen in my hand when I realized these sexts were actually really empowering. Like I was just telling this dude exactly what I wanted and he was eating it up. I could sense the slow eroding of patriarchal social conditioning, the one that made me feel small and like my desires were not important. Something about these smutty conversations gave me a new confidence that really opened me up to understanding that I am allowed to be in charge of what I want. So I felt encouraged to write a song about my experience explicitly asking for a sexual act in a commanding way.
I wrote the entire song in barely two hours, once I had laid down the bass line and guitar lick, (that was inspired by The Sopranos theme song mixed with some early Korn) the lyrical innuendo around vampires crept out of my subconscious. It felt very natural to relate my experience to vampires, they are inherently erotic, indulgent, queer, and sexually free. These feelings that were laying dormant in me had risen, no longer repressed in the shadows but ready to be embraced by a new epoch of my sexual liberation. I hope that by listening to my song it sparks in those who feel unseen to reclaim a piece of their confidence.”
Cover photo: WMF
