That’s Action Bronson, the mastermind behind Viceland hit Fuck That’s Delicious and a wildly successful music career.
He often surrounds himself in his own animated ‘munchies’ bubble, mixing it up with a childish cheekiness disarming you with his New York bravado humour. In fact, half the time you never know if he’s serious or just playing with you. Always keeping you on your toes.
For the last few years, he’s travelled the world for youth network Viceland meeting and greeting some of the world’s most famous chefs including Michelin starred Mario Batali, Ben Shewry and Michael White. His fascination and curiosity of life is infectious, which is why his food shows and LPs have gained such an astronomically wide and varied following. He calls his food show ‘the anti-food network’ option, and this convention-defying approach could no doubt apply to everything he does.
Bronson has mastered the art of enjoying life at full pace and on his own terms: making music, writing cookbooks, eating his way around the world, touring and talking about aliens all at the same time. He will eat practically anything put in front of him, but also learn as much as he can along the way. Remember this was a guy in his twenties from Flushings who stumbled into music by accident, after trying his hand as a cook and selling drugs. His music like his love of food is boisterous, cheeky and infectious. Larger than life. Or as he might put it, Fucking Delicious.

Started off with a coughing attack.

How are you feeling today?

I feel good…

Ok, let’s start over totally, how are you?

Good.

You were just having a coughing attack?

Absolutely I was having a coughing attack. I was under siege, I didn’t even realise.

I’ve noticed that you have had a couple of coughing attacks in your videos. Is the smoking something you can still handle?

Of course I can handle it, I’m not a little sissy. I deal with it. I’m not smoking weed anymore, I’m hitting the pipe. Not a crack pipe. I’m hitting up some handmade glass rigs made for oil smokage for concentrated THC.

Sounds organic. I actually walked past you at the Symposium conference in Stockholm earlier this year. You were walking with Mario Batali.

You should have said what’s up.

I would have, but I find you both very intimidating individuals.

I’m the most personable person.

 I always thought if I met you, you would be a cartoon character of sorts. You come across so incredibly animated and larger than life. Is that something you hear a lot?

I mean, of course. I’m just me. I take on the world and whatever is around me with my personality. I don’t even know what the hell I just said.

Do you have any weak spots, are you insecure at all?

Am I insecure? I would say everyone is insecure about something or other. Me, I don’t like it when I get too hot and my shirt clings to me.

I don’t like when things cling. Like, no matter what, I’m fat. But when shirts start clinging it makes you feel even fatter and it looks like you’re fat. It’s a crazy psychology because I already look fat – I am fat. You know what I’m saying?

Well, I don’t tend to get that feeling of something sticking to me. On our side of the pond, the climate tends to be cooler.

It’s fucking 90 degrees right now, in September. I’m sweating up a storm.

Do you think your life would be different if you weren’t fat?

I’m not sure. I’m sure people look at each other differently. Everyone judges you by your outside appearance or whatever they see first. I don’t really know how to answer that.

I think that maybe your weight is part of the full Action Bronson package; part of what makes you lovable and animated?

[Laughing] That’s funny. Nah, I mean I don’t know, I’m in tremendous shape to tell you the truth. I don’t know what your talking about.

So let’s talk about food.

Nah fuck that.

Ok. Before you started your music career, you spent some time selling drugs but I know you also spent ten years as a chef. So you had another life that involved food?

Yeah man, I’ve lived many different lives. I’m a man of many different tiers and lives and things that have happened.

Reincarnation?

I’m an old soul. There’s no doubt about that.

You think so?

I know it.

So you believe in reincarnation?

I do. It’s kind of like when you start the game over on PlayStation and you fuck up and you press reset. It’s kind of like that. So shit happens – boom boom boom – and then you start over. You kill yourself and you come back as a fucking ant or a chicken.

What would you come back as?

I think I’d come back as the most incredible collegiate athlete to ever come out of New York City.

Like who?

Like me. I’m just saying, if I come back at all, I’m going to come back as a star athlete. 6”4, I could jump out of the gym. It’s just what I was meant to be.

I know from watching a couple of videos that you are of the Jewish faith. It’s the high holidays right now, so are you celebrating at all?

I’m offended by that question.

Why?

That you ask whether I’m Jewish or not – why does it matter? I’m just fucking with you. I don’t give a fuck about holidays. My mother is a Jew but I don’t believe in God. If you must know, I believe in the stars.

Yeah, I’ve heard you say that. You’re a real polymath; you do alien videos, LPs, books, late night shows and your food. Do you have an assistant or a team, or are you running this show on your own?

I have a lot of good people that work around me but I’m pretty much a one-man gang.

That must be a lot of work?

It is a lot of work, I take on a lot of things. I feel like I need a lot of things going on at once.

Do you get bored quite easily?

Yeah, I have ADD I imagine.

That’s not a real thing.

Well, I have a rare version of it then.

Do you ever think about your long-term health?

Yes, I think about it. What do you want me to say? What magazine is this, Men’s Health? Muscular Development?

I just mean in the way that you take on life at such an incredible pace. Do you ever wonder if you can keep that up?

You’ve got to understand this: when things are brought to you on TV, and you see me eating things, it doesn’t mean I eat the whole thing.

Ah ok…

I eat a lot of little things, or I eat a little bit of a lot of things. I love to indulge in many different foods and flavours at once. I’m not the type of guy who goes to a restaurant and orders just a steak and goes home, I’m going to order 7-8 different dishes. Pick and taste each one and then leave a bunch of it on the plate. I just need to have an abundance of things in front of me.

I’ve always wondered how they do that on TV food shows. I’m a big fan of Anthony Bourdain, who we spoke to a while back. Do you think that’s how they all do it?

Of course, nobody eats all of it. I mean, there are times when we eat it all but this was a lot of hard work, and it didn’t come from being on TV.

What was a lot of hard work?

This fucking body. This has been years of weight training, powerlifting sports, laziness, happiness, depression. This is life, man. You wear your life on your sleeve.

Talk to me about music and food. Is there any overlap in the culture?

I mean I think art overlaps art, so I imagine yeah.

So you see food as art?

I call everything I do art. When I walk it’s fucking art, when I take a shit it’s art. So if anything I feel is art, then it all overlaps and intertwines – it’s all relative. Everything in the mind is relative. Everything on the earth is relative. You know what I mean?

Well yes, I guess. We do a lot of articles about LSD if that helps.

I like to hear that. I have some LSD in my fridge.

What I like about your food show is that it’s like the total opposite of some stiff, conservative food show. You eat your way around the world in such a fun way. On the one hand, you show an aggressive side but on the other a childish curiosity.

I mean, I guess just my demeanour or my look can be intimidating at times. Or the way I talk. But I’m a fucking teddy bear.

I’m just a sponge of culture. I enjoy soaking up everybody else’s knowledge and seeing what’s going on in their lives and their world. I have one million percent respect and I feel like that’s just me and that’s the way I come off.

If you can’t find it in yourself to like me or get along with me, then you’re a fucking piece of shit.

Do you often not get along with people?

There are times, like everyone has. But I get along with everybody for the most part.

Are you happy with the way that Munchies or Fuck, That’s Delicious comes off?

I think that we’ve done an incredible job with Munchies, really pretty much showing it like it is. There is nothing scripted, it’s all just spur of the moment shit. We don’t do anything twice so I feel like it’s a total representation of me. I go to great lengths to make sure it always stays that way because I invented this show and I am this show – it is my life. I don’t think I would change a thing besides making it an hour long, and signing up for another fifty seasons.

Do you think you have presented food to a cultural group that was potentially closed off from it? Perhaps a food show wasn’t the first show these people would have chosen at 4 am when they’re high?

Well, that’s the thing, it is. And that’s why it has become a new generation Anthony Bourdain kind of thing. His was one of the most popular shows growing up and even to this day, but you know there is always a change in culture. People love him because he shows it and tells it like it is. He has been in the dark before, he’s been down those paths like a lot of people have and so they can relate and that’s why he is a success story.

I’ve been through a lot of shit, I’m still going through shit. I feel like the show presents or opens your eyes to the urban world but also just youth in general. And not only youth, it’s a universal type of show where every age can relate because I hang out with the old timers, I know old time shit. I’ve always hung around older people because I like chilling with them, soaking up their knowledge. I just feel like this is a show that spreads across every single age bracket that there can be.

It’s like an anti-food network kind of show. It’s not scripted, it’s real.

Do you think you have developed a way to talk to people uniquely?

I’m just naturally inquisitive – I like seeking out answers to things and I’m always coming up with different questions in my head. I have a bunch of people around me who talk about food and life and are able to stimulate my brain. I feel like the art of conversation has been lost in this generation with all this technology. We go to dinner and no one even looks at each other or says anything, everyone is looking at their phones, liking each other’s pictures that we all put up whilst we are sitting at the table together. I feel like just being able to talk to someone and learning about them needs to go down more in this world.

I feel like the art of conversation has been lost in this generation with all this technology. We go to dinner and no one even looks at each other or says anything, everyone is looking at their phones, liking each other’s pictures that we all put up whilst we are sitting at the table together. I feel like just being able to talk to someone and learning about them needs to go down more in this world.

Do you think it’s just about being real in anything you do?

I mean, it’s hard for a lot of people to be themselves. But for me, that’s all I know how to do. I came to a point in my life where I was just like, I don’t know what’s going on, but I know who I am at this point. So I could only be that person and ever since then I’ve been making great decisions and I’ve been able to live a much better life.

When was that?

At age 27.

Around when you started your music career?

Yes. When I broke my leg that was the turning point.

Are you putting all your weight, excuse the pun, in both music and food? Being in the kitchen seems to make you so happy, so do you have aspirations to keep making music?

I would drop music in a heartbeat to go in a kitchen, but equally, I feel like it’s my life. The music brought me here. It brought me back to where I was able to just create a life that I wanted to live. I’ll always be making music. My new LP Blue Chips 7000 is out now and it’s been a good month for me. I feel great, everyone loves the project and all I’m getting is great feedback from the shows. I look forward to performing and coming out to all these places and giving it my all. But I also plan on eating, so it’s like my life is set up to where I’m comfortable doing what I like to do.

On your first album, there was this lyric “An hour later, eat the burger with my drug dealer/ Then add the butter to the fudge to make the fudge realer.” Do you remember that?

I do.

So you were mixing food and music even back then?

I was in the kitchen writing that shit. I was consciously making an effort to bring a lot of the cooking and food techniques into rap.

Do you still have a drug dealer?

No, I don’t have a drug dealer.

So I love the idea of you doing TV and music, but what about film? Who would play you in a biopic, yourself or someone else?

I’m not sure who would play me. It would probably be Bokeem Woodbine.

Who is that?

Bokeem Woodbine, he’s a great actor.

So Action whats next for you? ….Action, are you there?

All images courtesy of © 2017 Jack Newton and © 2017 Gabriele Stabile

 F*ck, That’s Delicious: An Annotated Guide to Eating Well by Action Bronson with Rachel Wharton (Abrams, £20.99)