Image via Charlie Knepper
Sophie Steinberg reflects the ideals laid out in the Hackers manifesto.
cumgirl8 are waiting for me on 1st Ave and E 6th Street, scoping out a pet-friendly café for guitarist Veronika Vilim’s pomeranian, Pritney, who also doubles as the band’s “manager.” I join the girls while guitarist Avishag Cohen Rodrigues searches for somewhere to lock her bike.
As we settle at a table on a corner of Avenue A, the self-described “sex-positive alien amoeba entity” disguised as post-punk futurists seem like a part of the cityscape. I notice bassist Lida Fox wears two skirts, one of them being from the x-girl x MADE ME collaboration, a dream Depop find. Drummer Chase Lombardo is growing out her bleach blonde cut, reminiscent of L7’s Donita Sparks, who cumgirl8 opened for on the Atlanta stop of their US tour. They remind me of girls I might’ve passed on St. Mark’s in high school, but was too scared to talk to.
Before we dive into their upcoming album, the 8th cumming, Chase offers me a HI-CHEW. Sitting with them, I begin to feel like a “cumgirl” myself, a term they use to describe people who belong in their high-tech, divine feminine vortex.
Pritney barks at a shih tzu that Chase leaned out of her chair to pet. “Bam-Bam,” the owner told us.
“It’s not about you!” Veronika tells Pritney.
“She doesn’t like it when they’re small,” Chase, the insightful godmother, told me.
The girls are in sync, finishing each other’s sentences and nodding in unison when someone makes a good point. They reminded me of a small, Olympic team if their event was shredding in avant-garde looks.
cumgirl8 legend says the girls met in the metaverse, 8,000 years ago, when the stars aligned to create their neon realm. Lida and Veronika originally came from the modeling world, where they connected over their love of music and self-expression at a job that often requires leaving your authentic self at home. When Lida was given access to jam at a friend’s studio space, Veronika joined her. The two played together and soon after, became connected with Chase, who named their new band cumgirl8. They began releasing music, taking sonic inspiration from The Breeders, Babes in Toyland, and Throbbing Gristle. In late 2019, Avishag joined the band, a few years after meeting Chase in Switzerland. As a foursome, the girls began to concoct their psychedelic Myspace universe.
With their eccentric fashion and sex positivity, cumgirl8 rooted down in the NYC punk-scene, giving out abortion pills at their shows and playing on the 14th Street platform. The cumgirls move seamlessly between the fashion world and the punk scene, performing at gigs like the Collina Strada afterparty and the “Haunted Hop” at The Knockdown Center alongside Christeene and Black Lips. In 2021, cumgirl8 released a fashion collection, hosting a runway show on the sidewalk in the Lower East Side as models sported Furby thongs and a Pink Panther-inspired top. Recently, the band played at Greenpoint’s Warsaw opening for Bratmobile, an original 1990s riot grrrl band, at their first show in NYC in over 20 years.
The band released their first self-titled album in 2020 and their EP, phantasea pharm, in 2023. cumgirl8 is more instrumental and passionate, reminding me of Hole if they lived in Bushwick in 2024. On phantasea pharm, the cumgirls indulge in their passions, celebrating Pritney and their shared idol, Italian porn star-turned-politician, Cicciolina Ilona Staler. With hypnotic bass and Kathleen Hanna-esque exclaims, cumgirl8 fangirls on “cicciolina,” a powerful ode honoring the iconic sex-worker and cyberfeminist.
Expanding their universe, cumgirl8’s debut studio album with 4AD, the 8th cumming, comes out on October 4th. Their first single off the album, “Karma Police,” is not a cover of the Radiohead song, but is all warped guitar chords and synthesized bass. The band verbalizes their hangover woes and turmoil after having their suitcases and passports stolen on tour. At the end of cumgirl8’s AirTag scavenger hunt for their belongings, the band sings, “Karma is, Karma is real” as the song decrescendos before Lida lets out a final, exhausted scream.
the 8th cumming was recorded directly after cumgirl8’s international tour, at Gonzo’s, a recording studio on St. Mark’s Place, in the throes of a New York winter. They had a limited window to record music, channeling their post-tour telepathy to write songs on a deadline.
“Our universe was voicing their words to us,” Veronika said. “We were vessels at a moment in time.”
The cumgirls saw the 8th cumming as a “digital apocalypse,” marking the start of a new “post-reality” that has accompanied the rise of AI in art and all aspects of our lives. Leaning into technological imagery, the “Karma Police” music video features nods to early 2000s computer graphics and a robotic voice reading the collaborative manifesto from VNS Matrix, an Australian art collective that coined the term cyberfeminism. While many artists ignore or actively fight against AI, cumgirl8 remains self-aware of it, finding ways to incorporate it in their aesthetics and celebrating the chaos of the “new world disorder.”
Taking inspiration from John Carpenter and Björk, the 8th cumming blends elements of 1980s and early 2000s electronica. As the album continues, the girls become more vulnerable as they open up over synthwave beats. Behind their computerized exterior, the cumgirls are still girls, asking to be seen and treated as humans. The sexual energy they harness throughout their work does not give anyone permission to see them as objects, as challenging the patriarchy remains at the core of their ethos.
In the belly of the album, I found myself in a sonic house of mirrors, anxiously waiting for Lida’s deep whispers to turn into shrieks. Haunting piano and synthesizers intensified emotions, disorienting listeners before they travel back to their own dimension. “simulation” is a post-punk ballad, documenting the self-doubt that permeates new relationships. “ahhhh!hhhh! (i don’t wanna go)” is the perfect scream queen soundtrack, while “ny winter” is meant for wallowing in your room.
“The human voice is the saddest instrument,” Lida said.
In direct sunlight, the cumgirls and I sweated it out on the hot, late August day. Bonded by our love of the movie Hackers, no subject was out of bounds as we discussed telepathy, their Hologram Lenticular Vinyl, and navigating post-reality.
I know you guys all met in a sex chat, in a different metaverse, 8000 years ago, but it seems like you guys travel to a lot of different metaverses. Between fashion, music, internet subculture and memes, how do you balance all of that?
Chase Lombardo: We don’t.
Lida Fox: It’s chaotic.
Chase Lombardo: It’s not very balanced.
Veronika Vilim: We’re here, just trying to spread word on our universe. It’s a world, obviously, so it has it all. It has passion, music, and internet culture. It started in a metaverse, so internet culture is really prevalent.
Chase Lombardo: It’s boundary-less, so we don’t really have to balance it.
Veronika Vilim: We’re just here telling the story.
Lida Fox: It all flows into each other.
Your lead single off the 8th cumming, “Karma Police” is awesome. I loved all of the synthesizer beats. I was wondering if you guys have seen that movie, Hackers? I was thinking, ‘This is what Angelina Jolie’s character listens to when she hacks,’ right?
Veronika Vilim: Yes! Wow, that’s a good reference.
Chase Lombardo: TikTok content!
Veronika Vilim: What was that drink that they were drinking [in the movie]? I was gonna say Squirt.
Chase Lombardo: Not squirt, not sparks. Balls?
Veronika Vilim: I remember them seeing it somewhere. It was like a Monster energy drink-style. What was it?
Chase Lombardo: The guy who did the wardrobe, he’s in London, he was really cool. I want to find him.
Veronika Vilim: I’m obsessed with the actor that played Shaggy in Scooby Doo. I love him.
Chase Lombardo: What a range!
Veronika Vilim: He’s so freaking funny. I feel like I relate to him a lot, with Shaggy and Scooby Doo with me and Pritney [Veronika’s dog and cumgirl8’s manager].
What was your writing process like as a group for “Karma Police”?
Veronika Vilim: We actually wrote around the corner from here.
Lida Fox: We practiced at a spot called Gonzo’s just down the street on St Mark’s.
Veronika Vilim: Right now, Interpol is recording there.
Chase Lombardo: The process was like, I don’t know if you know about the story behind it?
Your crazy tour story?
Chase Lombardo: Yeah, about getting robbed. We wrote it as soon as we got back–
Veronika Vilim: From six months of touring.
Chase Lombardo: We were just locked in this studio and we had to make a record really quickly and just said yes to every idea. That was one of the ideas that came up.
Veronika Vilim: It was also winter here, so it was just very cold and dark for most of the days and most of the hours of the day. [We were] cooped up in this four by four room.
Chase Lombardo: [Laughing] We were actually laying on top of each other when we recorded the song. There was more room vertically than horizontally. That’s why there are so many synths. It’s hard to fit the drums, but it came out!
Lida Fox: Four by four inches.
You guys all shrunk down and recorded?
Chase Lombardo: Yeah we went to our bit form.
Veronika Vilim: Honey, I Shrunk the Kids-kind of vibe.
Chase Lombardo: We were very small for that piece, significantly smaller than we are right now. That’s where that came from.
The song amazingly captures this wild tale, but also has these harder, darker truths embedded in it too. How did you try and capture that musically?
Chase Lombardo: That wasn’t intentional. I think it was because of where we were in our lives, at that moment in time, was particularly emotional after being on tour for so long and being cold in New York. It wasn’t sad, but it was definitely a vibe.
Lida Fox: We wanted something more upbeat
Chase Lombardo: Yeah we were trying to hype each other up.
Veronika Vilim: In that sense, the album kind of wrote itself. It wasn’t contrived. Naturally, everything fell into place.
Chase Lombardo: We had no time to think about what we were doing, honestly. We had no time.
Veronika Vilim: Our universe was voicing their words to us.
Chase Lombardo: Yeah, we were just vessels.
Veronika Vilim: We were vesseling.
Lida Fox: Very much a moment in time.
Veronika Vilim: We were vessels at the moment in time, yeah.
Lida Fox: I guess in that moment too, it was less angry than some of our previous stuff, at least lyrically.
Chase Lombardo: It was a good tour.
Coming off of the tour, I imagine you were all really tired from traveling, but did you also feel energized?
Chase Lombardo: Not energized.
Lida Fox: No [laughing].
Chase Lombardo: It did feel easy to create though. You know how, when you’re so tired, you can kind of go with anything? It was that kind of feeling. We were definitely resigned to what was happening.
Veronika Vilim: It was also definitely the comfort of being home and in our beds after being away for so long and being with people that we love. There were a lot of heartwarming moments during that time, even though it was so cold. It was very comforting. The space, also, that we were writing in, is a comforting space too.
Chase Lombardo: We were also super locked in because we were together for six months. We were very psychically involved.
Veronika Vilim: We were reading each other’s minds.
Chase Lombardo: There were a lot of silly moments like that: doing the same thing at the same time. We were like, ‘Oh shit, okay.’
Veronika Vilim: It all really makes sense.
I love the line “mental masturbation.” I was wondering what that means to all of you? Does it mean the same thing or different things?
Lida Fox: I guess literally masturbating your mind? Whatever you’re doing to make it feel good.
Chase Lombardo: I don’t want to think too much about it, because it’s kind of not really a verbal sensation.
Lida Fox: The line before is “communication vacation” and it’s like being in your head and letting your thoughts run wild. Very ADHD, going from here to there, whatever comes to mind, you do it.
Chase Lombardo: Indulging in every thought.
I really loved your music video for “Karma Police.” It had a trippier, more sex-positive Dark Crystal aura. How did you guys decide on the theme and story of the video?
Lida Fox: Oh my god. It was shot during our album artwork shoot.
Veronika Vilim: It was the definition of chaos, if we were to define that word in a physical form.
Chase Lombardo: There was a whole concept going into it, but we just had to kind of push away the storyline and just let it unfurl [based on] of us being wild in the woods.
Veronika Vilim: We hiked for two and a half hours at night into the middle of the forest with 20 10-inch frogs, in the middle of the night.
Chase Lombardo: We had to hide all the frogs at the top of the mountain, because we didn’t want to take them home. Also, the wagon broke.
Veronika Vilim: It was in upstate New York.
Lida Fox: [We had] a visual concept more so than a storyline. We just went with that, and then pieced together bits of the footage after, and tied it into the concept of a digital apocalypse, the 8th cumming.
Veronika Vilim: It’s the story of our rebirth in a way. [We also liked] the idea of viruses and joining our internet vibe.
Chase Lombardo: It was kind of like a philosophical shift. With artificial intelligence taking over a lot of how we perceive the rest of the world, [there is] the idea of truth being obsolete. We are leaning into this post-reality and having almost a positive look on it. It’s actually really freeing not having as many rules.
Veronika Vilim: It’s more of a lifestyle, rather than being like, ‘You have to follow these rules.” It’s more of a way of being and accepting and loving.
Chase Lombardo: It’s navigating post-reality, because that’s fully what’s happening right now. You have to trust something else versus [the] sensual experience of how humans have navigated consciousness. It’s no longer applicable.
Veronika Vilim: There’s this concept that was also talked about with the artwork– this idea of us all being like pests on this planet. People believe that they are so much higher than, when, in actuality, we’re all just here, trying to make things work for ourselves. We are pests. Even if you recycle and you’re a good person, you’re still putting a carbon footprint on this planet. It’s also the idea of being able to make fun of yourself. People take themselves so seriously, and in actuality, we’re so little in the grand scheme of it all.
Do you feel like the 8th cumming is a verbalization of the idea that we’re pests, or that we need to reassess our reality?
Veronika Vilim: Exactly, [we need to] realize where we’re at and what we can do, rather than like, ‘I’m the difference.’ We can all work together here.
Chase Lombardo: In our manifesto, we talk about having this “sonic cum piss” to navigate this new world or new world disorder, actually. We derived a lot of that from the cyberfeminist movement.
I really loved the collaborative manifesto from VNS Matrix. I was reading more about them after watching the “Karma Police” video. Why was that really important to include at the beginning of the video?
Lida Fox: It just aligned with everything we were already interested in. When Chase found that manifesto, it was like, ‘This is perfect.’
Chase Lombardo: It was fucking freaky. We were already using this slime imagery. We were already talking about disorder. Cyber feminism as a whole – they started with doing radical porn, right when the internet was developing. It was this third, fourth wave feminism in the confines of the cyberworld which is totally what we’re on. It’s the same tip. With the verbage being the same, it was like, ‘All right, let’s go.’
You guys also wore pieces from Collina Strada in the video?
Lida Fox: Yeah!
Chase Lombardo: The shoes, at least.
Veronika Vilim: The clothes we made ourselves.
That’s awesome. The clothing also felt similar to the shoes too.
Veronika Vilim: That was the whole thing. I had already actually owned a pair of those shoes, and I work with Hillary Taymour [Creative Director of Collina Strada] a lot. She’s a good friend of mine. When we came up with the concept of it, I was like, ‘This aligns perfectly,’ and now we’re actually working with her. We’re gonna be playing the after-party for the Collina Strada [fashion week] show. I think her clothes and style and vibe really align with what we feel artistically and visually. It’s very colorful, it’s very light, but it has some dark elements to it. One thing, when I work with her, that we talk about a lot is this maximalist idea. I feel like people are very into being minimal,and are afraid to take things to a level of being more maximal.
Lida Fox: Just not being afraid of doing too much.
Chase Lombardo: Anti-demure.
Veronika Vilim: Very anti-demure.
Chase Lombardo: There are no Skims, flesh palettes going on.
Veronika Vilim: Speaking of AI as well, [Collina Strada] does a lot of stuff digitally with their prints. There’s a lot of things that just artistically align, so coincidentally, the collaboration she did with Melissa, with these shoes, happened to align with the story for our album art.
I was wondering, in the world of the 8th cumming, if you would be wearing Collina Strada?
Chase Lombardo: Definitely a combination. We made our clothes, but Collina is definitely a cumgirl.
Veronika Vilim: Especially with the color palette and the attitude.
Chase Lombardo: The show we’re about to play, there’s going to be these girls on “hobby horses,” right? That was our concept from our last music video, so we definitely inspire each other. There’s a big exchange there.
Veronika Vilim: Unintentionally and intentionally. I don’t know how intentional it is on their side.
Chase Lombardo: I mean with the cyber films, the manifesto, I think we are in the same little vortex. There’s a reason why people flock together.
Veronika Vilim: It’s a good group of creative people.
Speaking of anti-demure and maximalism, I want to talk about your song “cicciolina,” based on the Cicciolina Ilona Staller, the Italian porn star turned politician, and your EP, phantasea pharm.
Veronika Vilim: Definitely not demure!
I loved the “cicciolina” music video which had a 1980s, burlesque-vibe mixed with politics. Musically or energy wise, what’s the biggest difference between the 8th cumming and phantasea pharm?
Lida Fox: I feel like they’re related. I guess in the 8th cumming, we lean more into the electronic stuff. There’s only three songs [on the album] where I play bass, and everything else is really synth bass. We also switched instruments a lot this time, which was fun.
Veronika Vilim: I think the difference is developing and growing, mainly, between phantasea pharm and this. It’s a rebirth. Sonically, obviously, there’s going to be changes.
Chase Lombardo: It’s a different record in time.
Do you think Cicciolina Ilona Staller is a cyberfeminist?
Chase Lombardo: Totally.
Lida Fox: Yes. I don’t know how online she really is but I think she aligns with it.
Did you ever get the chance to meet her?
Veronika Vilim: Yes! We celebrated her 72nd birthday with her in Rome. She was on stage with us, actually. We got her a limo–
Chase Lombardo: And a pussy cake.
Veronika Vilim: We met her in the limo and did a photo shoot.
Chase Lombardo: She gifted us presents on her birthday.
Lida Fox: Did she ever get the dress?
Chase Lombardo: Yeah, she said she loved it. We sent her some packages. She’s just really beautiful. Actually, she’s super hot. She’s stunning. She’s always using these filters, which are so cute, we love the filters, but when I saw her in real life, it was like, ‘Oh my god.’
Avishag Rodrigues: She actually looks like that.
Chase Lombardo: Even better than the filters.
Are you still in touch with her?
Veronika Vilim: Oh yeah.
Lida Fox: It was so funny. In some of the photos, we all look like shit and she’s just glowing.
Veronika Vilim: She’s the most hardcore human being I know, for sure. [She’s] the most rounded, thankful human. You know the saying that Kim Gordon said, ‘Don’t meet your heroes’ or whatever. So many people that I’ve met throughout my life that were inspirations, after I met them, I was like, ‘Damn it, I kind of wish I didn’t meet them.’ [Cicciolina] was actually one of the people where I was like, ‘Wow.’
Lida Fox: She was more than what we expected.
Chase Lombardo: She was just sitting in front of the symbol too, being very stoic. I was like, ‘Are you sure?’ Our show was in a basement, and I was like, ‘We can just hang out and then she can leave. I don’t want her to feel pressure to stay.’ And [her team] was like, ‘No, listen, Cicciolina is a punk at heart. She loves your music.’ They told us that when they’re hanging out, she’s like, ‘I saw the cumgirls, they did something. Show me on your phone what they’re doing today.’ She keeps in touch. She was just on stage, the whole time, right up with the speakers, just titty out and everything.
What should fans know about the 8th cumming before it’s out?
Chase Lombardo: There’s a lot of good songs. I think it’s good to sit down and listen to, from beginning to end.
Veronika Vilim: We really spent a lot of time on sequence. It’s very heartfelt and very brave.
Chase Lombardo: That’s what we can say. It’s the bravest thing we’ve ever done.
I really love the track titles, “uti” and “new york winter.” Can you share a little bit about what those tracks are about?
Lida Fox: “uti” definitely feels like a UTI when you’re listening to it.
Veronika Vilim: Sonic UTI.
Chase Lombardo: Yeah, it’s hardcore. It’s really fucking hardcore.
Lida Fox: And then I’d say “new york winter” is kind of like seasonal depression. S.A.D.
What instruments or sounds best capture seasonal depression, if any?
Lida Fox: I mean, with that one too, we stuck to a pretty traditional, bass, guitars, drums structure.
Chase Lombardo: Singing our hearts out. The human voice can really capture depression [laughing].
Lida Fox: The human voice is the saddest instrument.
Obviously, the number 8 is in the name of your band and in your album title, are there other significances of the number eight for you all?
Veronika Vilim: Infinity, spiders have 8 legs. Octopuses?
Chase Lombardo: It’s the number of the divine feminine in numerology.
Lida Fox: So many iconic animals have 8 legs. Also, ‘we 8.’
Veronika Vilim: Eating, period.
Lida Fox: Infinite ‘8ing.’
I know some groups and artists that you guys have noted as inspirations include Suicide, John Carpenter, and Deli Girls to name a few. How have they influenced the 8th cumming?
Veronika Vilim: It’s just kind of what we douse ourselves in, sonically. We always say that we like to make music that we want to listen to.
Chase Lombardo: We like listening to those songs. We are trying to make songs we also like to listen to.
Are there any shows or venues that stood out to you while on tour?
Veronika Vilim: We played a guerilla show outside of The Palladium where they came and kicked us out.
Chase Lombardo: Playing the 14th street platform. We played a gig on a boat going around the Statue of Liberty.
Lida Fox: I really liked MELT Festival. It was in Berlin on this abandoned, industrial field. They have giant machinery everywhere.
Veronika Vilim: Brutalism 3000 played also and they had this giant Emoji balloon that was on stage. When it would get knocked around, one side was happy, and the other side was mad.
Avishag Rodrigues: It was “the angry one.” We could see their show from the stage.
Chase Lombardo: Roskilde was really cool. That festival is 100% volunteer. Every single staff member there is a volunteer so it’s the best vibe.
Veronika Vilim: We saw Charlie XCX and Kim Gordon. There was an amazing lineup.
Chase Lombardo: They also don’t care that it’s cold.
Veronika Vilim: Also during this time of year, it’s only dark for two hours. We happened to play for one of the hours when it was dark.
Chase Lombardo: Doja cat played the festival, and so we painted our faces just like Doja Cat when she said that she was a “cumgirl.” There’s this interview she did at a fashion show–
Lida Fox: She’s in this amazing makeup.
Chase Lombardo: She painted like a cow or cum [on her face]. We did that same makeup, and we were really trying to get a hold of Doja Cat, but I think she left right before we played. We made this whole video montage too, playing in front of her saying, ‘cumgirl,’ over and over. The same makeup as her.
Lida Fox: The question [in the original interview] was, like, ‘If you were a super villain, who would you be?’ And she said, ‘Cumgirl.’ I don’t think she knows who we are.
Chase Lombardo: But yeah, what the fuck?
Veronika Vilim: Then we were like, ‘We have to do this makeup, and we have to.’ I’m sure that one day she’ll end up seeing it.
I believe it because I feel like she also could exist in cumgirl’s universe.
Chase Lombardo: I think she has a moon.
What can fans look out for from cumgirl8?
Veronika Vilim: We’re gonna have a bunch of merch dropping and we’re gonna be doing some drops of our vinyl. We made Hologram vinyls.
Lida Fox: We have a lot of special editions or our vinyls.
Chase Lombardo: We’ve got sweatsuits, rhinestone tank tops.
Lida Fox: We got a Bible.
Veronika Vilim: We have bras and a bunch of really special shit.
Lida Fox: And we have period panties. Somehow we ended up getting so many of those.
Chase Lombardo: They’re great.
Lida Fox: Some people have gotten multiple pairs because they want them for every single day.
