The drag king collective brings music, animation, and other elements of visual and performance art to their exhilarating shows.
To call what The Cake Boys do “ embroil ” would be a porcine oversimplification . A staple of the NYC conniption for years , the puff king collective includesMuscles Monty , Senerio , Richard , andSweaty Eddie ; and their employment incorporate medicine , cease - motion animation , and all manners of visual andperformance graphics .
We get up with the grouping of late for a giggle - filled confabulation about pandemic silver lining , the challenge of performing alternative drag , and the chaotic way they got their name .
Thrillist : How long have you been execute as a radical under pandemic conditions ? What ’s that been like ?
The Cake Boys in New York City|Cole Saladino for Thrillist
Muscles Monty : January 2020 was our first show , so that give us a lot of amazing leeway before the pandemic started . We take off with the intent of having puff shows that were a little bit gravid than life and went beyond your normal Thursday Nox at a homophile stripe . The inauspicious Ag lining to the pandemic is that we were able to expand on that . We all number in with awing talent that go beyond the drag microscope stage . Sweaty is a phenomenal vitalizer , Senerio is a phenomenal musician , Richard is a phenomenal graphic interior decorator — and I ’m a safe supporter with all of that , I guess [ laughs ] . The pandemic allow us to grow into what we ’ve become now , unfortunately , but fortuitously .
Sweaty Eddie : I ’ve always been interested in compound multimedia forms with springy performance . When I individually started doing drag , I was interact with video and things like that , but that ’s operose to sustain from venue to venue . Having time to work on thing remotely forced us to work collaboratively in a manner that really utilized what everyone ’s capabilities are .
It also allowed citizenry to be a part of what we were doing whether determine from afar or participate from afar , and we curated it into this cohesive experience . Our first show during quarantine wasCake Night Show , and it incorporate some specific moments that were shoot for the show as well as single people from our net sending in digital pieces . It allowed us to be a morsel more expansive than something we would have done for an in - person show .
Were you all performing individually before becoming the Cake Boys ?
Richard : ab initio , yeah , we were all single performers , and the lack of drag King in the conniption made us need to start something like this . I remember sliding in Muscles ’ decimetre being like , ‘ Do you wanna do this ? ’ And Sweaty Eddie is my cooperator , and Senerio came in and was part of our second show , The Dude connection , and we just all click and it made sense . It ’s been a raving mad ride .
When we first start up , we just want to make a platform to highlightdrag kingsand drag things and alternate types of performing artist . So we just kept going and now we ’re here .
Clockwise from top left: Muscles Monty, Richard, Senerio, Sweaty Eddie|Cole Saladino for Thrillist
Senerio : The Cake Night show really took it to that next level . I have been call it out since I amount in : There ’s nobody , literally nobody in the local scenery , doing what we ’re doing between the four of us , who have all these skills under one ceiling . And there ’s plenty more where that came from ! It ’s a seemingly endless initiation that ’s happen justly now , and it ’s such a delight .
Sweaty : Our intent was always to create an ensemble operation that generate everybody space . [ It ’s ] this other - temporal blank where people bring a wide variety show of puff and it all sort of feels cohesive and it does n’t call for to alter what they ’re doing to fit in . So much of the Cake Boys is n’t the four of us , it ’s this world where the kind of pull that we desire to see makes sensory faculty , as much as “ make horse sense ” is not really our top priority . We ’re all about topsy-turvydom .
Senerio : It bring out how much new gift there is when you come to a Cake Boys show . There are a peck of people who were capable to do things that they have n’t been able to do on stage . And it stimulate me because I just need to see more of that at this point .
‘Our intention was always to create an ensemble performance that gave everybody space,’ says Sweaty Eddie (center)|Cole Saladino for Thrillist
How did you come up up with the name ?
Senerio : We get fatty nookie ! [ express joy ]
Richard : I put a circumstances of trust in lot and the world telling me what to do . So I went on Urban Dictionary and hit shuffle , and “ cake boy ” came up , and the meaning of it is a womanly man , and it made gumption .
Muscles : I mean , besides the fact that we all have majuscule fuck , it ’s find some subconscious fun connections to trail power in the ‘ 90s at Cake Bar . And also , we always get befuddled for a bakery in Brooklyn .
The innovation of what is “ puff ” can sometimes be narrow . What do you wish more people have it away about being puff kings ?
Sweaty : As evidenced by how salient retarding force has become , drag has never been more popular , but at the same time many multitude have the theme that pull has to mirror what ’s on video . Playing within the limitation of what masculine puff can calculate like and playing with the expectations of that is very much at the core of what I ’m interested in .
muscle : I in spades palpate more comfortable performing now than when we commence . But there ’s press to fit into a box and attract to a large audience . We ’re seeing more display produced by drag kings but I bid more people knew that there can be two of us in a room and there ’s no cosmic burst .
Richard : hoi polloi still bring up to Richard as “ she . ” Out of drag , I use any pronoun , but in drag it feels like an vilification almost . A lot of times , even after do for so long , we ’re still offer lower rates than queens .
What ’s on deck for 2023 ?
heftiness : We ’re in the heart of a vast drag competition and January 29 is our big finish .
Sweaty : It ’s calledTakes the Cakeand , to our noesis , it ’s the first drag mogul contender in New York . Is that unfeigned ?
Muscles : They used to do them in the XC but ours is the first in 30 geezerhood . This is definitely one of the biggest drag baron contention in a while .
Richard : We had 86 masses sign up for it , and we only had 40 spot . It made me sad to have to narrate people no , but we had people applying from all over — Germany and South Carolina … People are excited about it . We have some exciting ideas of what we want to do in the futurity , but they ’re still in the babe beginning stage . People will have tofollow us on Instagram .
