There’s been a battle between The Hives and Viagra Boys over the last few days, with the Swedish rockers taking jabs at each other on social media.
Fans of both bands need not worry, however. It’s all in good humour, and a way to plug their show at Stockholm Fields Festival this weekend (6 July).
It began with an Instagram post from The Hives last week, in which the garage punks wrote: “The self described punk rock losers in @viagraboys have been challenged by others described punk rock winners The Hives to some sort of rock contest. Who you got money on?”
In the video, Hives frontman Pelle Almqvist was at a car dealership with an assistant, who gets a phone call from someone asking if the band would be interested in “playing the Viagra Boys at Stockholm Fields.”
“Viagra who? Yeah, we don’t do charities,” he deadpanned in response to his assistant when she relayed the question.
They then made another Instagram video, in which Almqvist was asked by a journalist if he had anything to say about the “upcoming clash” with Viagra Boys. Almqvist wrote in the caption, “The plot thickens! I googled them. They don’t seem that young. Please send liver function test and VO2 max for each member.”
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The band then made another post, complete with a photo of a bus advertising the gig in the style of a fight between the two bands. “Don’t get run over by the Viagra Boys vs The Hives bus if you are in Stockholm,” they wrote alongside it. “Also The Hives’ new Viagra Boys diss track just dropped. Entitled: Viagra Boys keep sucking, we are about to come.”
For their part, Viagra Boys posted a video too, in which they’re offered one million dollars to play “against” The Hives at Stockholm Fields in a phone call. “Fuck those guys,” said frontman Sebastian Murphy, while the band wrote in the caption, “They called from the washed up old poser corporate suit rock factory and wondered where u at @thehives.”
Earlier today, they posted another video in which they were also asked about the “clash” with The Hives and said that the band have “stolen a lot of our material.”
A day after their Stockholm Fields show, The Hives are supporting Bloc Party at Crystal Palace Park in London, alongside Friendly Fires, The Mysterines and Connie Constance – you can find tickets here. They also played a run of UK shows earlier this year, and supported Arctic Monkeys on their stadium tour last summer, something they discussed with NME.
Meanwhile, Viagra Boys are supporting joint-headliners Deftones and System of a Down in a mammoth one-off show in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park on August 17.