Naked Men Talking: On Mekahel
In the conversation, we talk underwear, LA body standards, and why he always collabs with his husband.
For our podcast, Naked Men Talking, I caught up with On Mekahel - recording artist and underwear designer.
His latest single is Pussy.
In the conversation, we talk underwear, LA body standards, and why he always collabs with his husband.
Congratulations on the new single. It's the follow up to Dose. You've described this as your party-boy era. What does a night out with On Mekahel look like?
Every night is different. My husband and I go out and we don't know how the night will end or what time - that's our approach to life.
You're based in Los Angeles - what's a typical night out in West Hollywood look like for you?
We're not really bar people. We will do the bars in Wieho on Sundays once in a while, but we're more circuit party boys - warehouses parties.
You've said that music has always been a creative outlet for you, but it's only in recent years that you've been focusing on recording and releasing tracks. You write the tracks with your husband, Dave. What are some of the challenges of collaborating creatively with your husband?
Honestly, we really don't have challenges. From day one, we were kind of like one.
People think that we're the weirdest couple ever because we do everything together.
Creatively, we love each other's ideas.
When you met, did you know that you were creatively compatible in that way?
We've been together nine years now.
At the beginning when we met, he had his jobs and I was focusing on the underwear brand. We didn't really work together but I would always ask him for his advice and opinion about everything I was doing.
We started working on these projects together and we've built our life into what we are now - everything we do, we do together.
How do you balance working together with the day-to-day realities of the relationship?
We never stop working. Even when we're doing regular things, we'll talk about work. We do what we love.
Your underwear brand - Mounderwear - is one of your other creative outlets. Who is the customer that you're designing for?
I was never one to wear very colourful underwear - I'm a simple man. I wanted to keep it simple but push the limits a little with things like sexier cuts.
I wanted my customer to still be also my straight brothers back home. They're forty years old, married with kids, but I wanted them to also feel sexy and not just wear floppy underwear that old people wear.
I wanted to find this balance. You don't need to do so much - the underwear just needs to lift you up show how sexy you are as a person.
What's in the pipeline for Mounderwear?
We're making the classic boxer-brief a little sexier, a little shorter. They're going to hold you better. They're going to look a little more shaped.
What style of underwear do you prefer to wear?
My everyday is boxer-brief because it's the most comfortable for me. If I want to feel a little sexier at night, I'll wear just regular briefs - that's my classic go-to because I feel like you look sexy, you look mainly, you look hot, and you don't try too much.
What about your husband - what sort of underwear are you putting him in?
Everything I wear. We are this weird couple that match everything because he can stand in front of the closet for hours and I'll be waiting for him to go out. It became a thing - eventually he said, whatever you buy for yourself, just buy two.
I get dressed in the morning and I leave him a pair of underwear, socks, pants, and a shirt. It's always the same as what I'm wearing.
Are you the same size? Are you wearing the same clothes?
No. He's huge. I'm small.
What your relationship with your body like when you were growing up?
I had so many problems when I was a kid - I wanted to be a model but I was always short.
I moved to New York when I was twenty. I thought that being skinny would make me successful, but I always hated my body.
Then, I met my husband - who is a personal trainer - and everything changed.
Did you meet because he was your personal trainer?
No. We met on Tinder. I was in New York. It was midnight and I was Tinder. I swiped and he swiped back. We talked and he said, if you want to meet, you need to come to my house because I'm on parole.
As an Israeli boy, I didn't know what parole was, but he was so hot so I said I would go to his house.
He was in Jersey. On the uber ride, I Googled to see what "parole" was. He met me at the door wearing an ankle monitor. I said, just tell me you didn't kill anybody. He said he hadn't, that he had been selling week. I was like, okay, that's fine. Let's continue this evening.
How did that shift from New York to LA shape your relationship with your body?
We lived together in Jersey for a few months because of his situation and then we moved to LA. Soon after we got here, COVID hit.
We worked out a lot at home in our complex, because there was nothing else to do.
When we went to our first circuit party, we saw all these crazy bodies. It's LA. We didn't know anything about this world - the steroids, the injections.
It's a constant pressure. We feel very comfortable with who we are and how we look, but then you still go to these parties and you see these beautiful people and you think that you need to do better.
But we've got to a point where we love the way we look and know that we are enough - they're doing too much.
What's on your vision-board for the months ahead?
There are more songs coming. The next song is called Boys and it's going to come out at the end of September. We're also recording a track called Toxic.
We're working on the next collections for Mounderwear.
There is so much going on right now, as well as trying to live life and do some fun things along the way.
Given the journey that you've been on and the work that you do, are there any insights or lessons that you wish that you'd learned earlier? Anything that you wish that you could tell your younger-self?
Stop worrying so much and stop being so nervous and afraid.
I was so hectic and I always wanted to do more and I was so hard on myself.
Eventually, if you stick to what you love, eventually you're going to be successful in what you do. Timing is everything.
Gareth Johnson