COBRAH and Amanda Lepore on Raving, Tequila, and the Perfect Red Lip

International blonde bombshell. Varga Girl incarnate. Marilyn Monroe-turned-dominatrix. You know who’s in the building. When the Swedish BDSM pop queen COBRAH introduced former Club Kid legend and NYC nightlife icon Amanda Lepore at her Boiler Room set in London last month, the crowd went feral. As if going global on a world tour for her hit EP SUCCUBUS and dropping the horniest remix with VTSS and MCR-T wasn’t keeping her plenty busy, COBRAH reconnected with the woman who declared her pussy famous in 2009 to serve us the brattiest club anthem, “Tequila,” out this Friday. To mark the occasion, COBRAH left the rolling hills of her native Sweden to call up her mutual muse: “It looks so cool when we’re together because the hair is matching. We’re like opposites, but the same, in a really, really cool way.” While bonding over their shared affinity for playing dress up, the duo talked nightlife, fetishes, and how to nail the perfect red lip.—LILY KWAK

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AMANDA LEPORE: Hi, it’s Amanda. 

COBRAH: It’s Clara. I’m happy to hear your voice again. What are you up to?

LEPORE: I’m working on a dress for my show with Trixie Mattel. It’s the last week of June in Central Park.

COBRAH: Oh, hell yeah.

LEPORE: But I don’t have that much pink stuff and I have to wear pink. I think I’ve worn my only pink outfit.

COBRAH: Do you sew your outfits or do you get them custom-made?

LEPORE: I get them custom made and then I stone them.

COBRAH: Oh, that’s so cool. I used to sew my own clothes as well.

LEPORE: I know how to sew but I live in a hotel, so I don’t have room for a whole sewing machine.

COBRAH: I think it’s harder when you do delicate things. You wear kind of delicate underwear where you see every seam. I want to come to the show. Have you always been in New York?

LEPORE: Well, I lived in New Jersey, but I moved here in 1989. I hated New Jersey.

COBRAH: That’s what everybody says.

LEPORE: It doesn’t accept alternative people at all. That’s how we all end up in the big city. It’s better for people like me.

COBRAH: Where in New York did you move to first?

LEPORE: I had a roommate in Tribeca. I was a dominatrix then.

COBRAH: Did you have guests coming to the apartment?

LEPORE: Yeah, it didn’t work out, so then I got my own apartment. Somewhere along the line I met this guy who was the manager in this hotel that I live in now, and we were really in love. We were engaged and everything, but he was doing a lot of drugs behind my back and we weren’t having sex as much, so I broke up with him. And just to shut us up, because we were fighting a lot, they gave me a room for dirt cheap, and I just never moved.

COBRAH: Wow, really? That’s perfect. 

LEPORE: It was nice to invest in my looks and stuff without having to worry about bills as much. 

COBRAH: Were you, at that point, Amanda Lepore?

LEPORE: Oh, yeah. I had my sex change. The final step in the sex change was when I was 17.

COBRAH: Did you have the same style then that you have now?

LEPORE: I did wear red lipstick. I used to look at drawings of Varga Girls and I wanted to look like that because they had beautiful skin and hair. It was kind of 1940s. I always did a retro thing. Since I was a kid, I loved Marilyn Monroe and all the blonde bombshells, so that’s still an influence. 

COBRAH: I think it’s so cool that you stuck to the style that you have.

LEPORE: For sure. I think I was harassed as a kid so much that I didn’t want to look like a basic girl. It wasn’t my goal. A lot of transsexuals wanted to just fit in, but I had a punk thing about me that just said, “Fuck it.”

COBRAH: I feel the same. I am really into all the leather and I don’t have a single piece of clothing in my wardrobe that isn’t black. I would never wear anything that isn’t black. And I was really bullied in school, so that resonates a lot with me. It was my way to make a mark that said, “I’m not like you guys. I don’t have the same interests. I don’t want to be adjacent to your world. I want to be something else.”

LEPORE: Exactly. I love your style. I love the fetish wear, the blonde, and the alien makeup.

COBRAH: I saw some videos from the Boiler Room and it looks so cool when we’re together because the hair is matching. We’re like opposites, but the same, in a really, really cool way.

LEPORE: Fetish really goes way back, so it’s kind of retro too. I loved a lot of the fetish books with the pinups in the  1950s.

COBRAH: I think people think that when you dress differently, it comes from a place of aggressiveness, but it’s the opposite. It comes from wanting to be yourself. We’re just trying to do what makes us feel good.

LEPORE: It sure makes me happy.

COBRAH: Maybe some people aren’t brave enough to do it, and so it’s so admirable to meet somebody else who you connect with in that way. I have a question. I’m rearranging my makeup kit and I want to know what the best red lipstick is.

LEPORE: I’ll tell you exactly what I do. There’s an independent makeup brand called Dafna Beauty, and they have a really strong lipstick, you can’t get it off. You have to use cold cream or baby oil to get it off. So I use that as a base, but the problem is that it’s really dry, so I put my own lipstick over it because I have a lipstick and gloss that I formulated. It’s really good.

COBRAH: I’m going to look it up. You can’t find a picture of you where the lipstick isn’t perfect. I do my tour makeup and stage makeup, and I think it’s so hard to do. Especially when you do red and you have a drink or you kiss somebody, it just smudges. 

LEPORE: Well, the lipsticks that are comfortable, they always transfer. You have to try my lipstick and lip gloss. It has tiny fuchsia flakes in it, so it has a really nice shine. It’ll stay in place all day. I’ll have them send you that.

COBRAH: Sweet. Thank you. How did you like the Boiler Room? 

LEPORE: Oh, it was so fun. It was like a rave.

COBRAH: Yeah, I was kind of taken away when you came into the room.

LEPORE: The crowd was amazing.

COBRAH: People were screaming. When I was like, “Amanda Lepore in the building, everybody!” It was like their eyes were coming out of their faces and their mouths were just wide open. People were like, “Is it actually happening?” It was so surreal. 

LEPORE: It really was.

COBRAH: It went by so fast because it was only one song, but it was really meaningful. Sometimes it’s extra good if it’s short and sweet. As you know, the beauty of seduction and luring people in is just keeping it short and sweet. I’m so happy that you wanted to make the remix.

LEPORE: Oh, I love your music. I listen to it all the time when I’m doing my makeup. Cherie Lily wrote it, but I liked it a lot.

COBRAH: Did you go into the studio to record it?

LEPORE: Yeah, I think it was with Gomi. He’s a producer in Manhattan. What are you up to now?

COBRAH: Well, I’m back in Sweden, and I’m writing a lot of music again, which is really nice. The whole music industry is kind of centered around New York and London and these big cities. So whenever I get to come home, I’m always really precious of that time. It’s maybe one or two months a year where I can be home. The studio that I work in is really close to where I live, so I just walk on top of the hill and make some music and then I walk home and play some video games.

LEPORE: That’s amazing.

COBRAH: Yeah, it’s cool. I’ve just been trying to prep everything for the summer tour, and we have a new outfit that we’re making. It’s hard to explain, but it’s going to look like my skeleton is coming out of my body. It’s going to be a very spiky thing that my friend is molding. I’m not really sure how well it’s going to work, or how much I can dance in it.

LEPORE: Is it rubber?

COBRAH: There’s two catsuits. There’s a first layer, and then on that one they’ve glued molded skeleton pieces. And then it’s another catsuit on top of it. So it’s going to look like it’s coming out of my body.

LEPORE: Wow, that sounds so cool. It would be cool if you have a skeleton bone as a heel.

COBRAH: That’s so smart. We need to brainstorm more. [Laughs] I think the beauty of what we do is that we’re some of the few people that get to bring fantasy to life. It’s a rare gift.

LEPORE: . That’s why I work in clubs. I love dressing up and I love people that dress up too.

COBRAH: It’s the best feeling in the world. I remember when we filmed “Suck,” one of my songs, I’m naked on this gynecologist chair, and these aliens are putting suction cups on my body and they’re kind of hoovering me in a really cool way. And we had to stop filming every two or three minutes because the director had to tell me, “Stop smiling, stop smiling.” I was having way too much fun. The most beautiful thing that you could do as an artist is have that much fun.

LEPORE: Yeah. I love it. I can’t picture myself doing retail or something. Even when I used to do makeup at Patricia Field, it was fun, but it kind of was almost like a nightclub. People would still come in and want to take pictures and everything, but it’s longer hours. So I was kind of doing both at the time, and then it just turned into doing clubs. I just feel like I belong there. It’s a chosen family thing too.

COBRAH: I see. I used to go to clubs a lot, but now that I do so many performances, I stopped going. I do like performing a little bit more, especially what we did at Boiler Room where you get your own bottle of tequila and nobody’s touching you. You’re the life of the party and everybody just looks at you and you get free drinks. 

LEPORE: I definitely like performing as well. I think that you’re giving more to the kids. You’re more inspiring to them.

COBRAH: Exactly. Yeah, that’s the best part of clubbing, I think.

LEPORE: I was just so happy to do the song with someone that I admire. I definitely want to do another one.

COBRAH: Let’s do it.