After introducing the world to his fursona earlier this year at a Brooklyn Steel show, Car Seat Headrest's Will Toledo is opening up about being a furry.
In a new interview with Brooklyn Magazine, the indie band frontman talked about his decision to wear a fursuit of his furry alter-ego, Mortis Jackrabbit, explaining to the publication, “I wanted more furries in the crowd." As Toledo tells it, “It was very impromptu. My friend tried finding someone else to wear the suit but he couldn’t find anybody. So at the last minute, I asked him to bring it and I wore as much of it as I could.”
\u201cARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME\u201d— dallas \u272e (@dallas \u272e) 1648783924
The choice to don the fuzzy orange suit and gas mask may have been last minute, but Toledo's connection to the furry community has been pretty well documented over the years. From Reddit AMAs to a lyric from Car Seat Headrest's 2010 song, “Portrait of the Artist as a Young Fag,” which alluded to "fetish-based forum/ Of which I am an active member" that fans later connected it to a Fur Affinity account, Toledo's decision to incorporate his fursona into Car Seat Headrest's live show was the most overt connection to date.
“[Brooklyn Steel] was a good show because it was the only time I wore Mortis,” Toledo says. “The costume has been sitting with a friend since I went to a furry convention in February. I haven’t been able to transport the suit back because I’ve been traveling all over.”
The band's drummer Andrew Katz went on to add, “A lot of Car Seat’s music is furry adjacent because, when Will started, it was for that community of people. So obviously a lot of the fans are furries and the rest know he’s a furry.”
Unfortunately, the likelihood that we'll see Mortis Jackrabbit on stage again is fairly slim, as Toledo confesses that the fursuit is just too hot to wear onstage. That being said, Toledo has already been wearing a sort of toned version of the fursona on tour: a similar cartoonish gas mask and orange jumpsuit. Plus, ever since the Brooklyn Steel show, Car Seat Headrest's show have seen a dramatic spike in fursuits popping up in the audience.
“The theme of the tour was Masquerade. It’s about putting on a mask and coming to have fun. We encourage people to come in their fursuits,” Katz says. “It was great seeing someone at the Brooklyn Steel show crowd surfing in a full, multi-thousand dollar fursuit.”
Photo via Getty/Wendy Lynch Redfern/Redferns