Photos courtesy of Vivid Entertainment
Phil Varone’s life revolves around dicks and drumsticks. He played drums in Saigon Kick and the legendary hard rock band Skid Row. After he quit playing in Skid Row, he spent several years dabbling in typical Los Angeles post-fame ephemera – Sex Rehab with Dr. Drew, stand-up comedy – but nothing stuck until he moved to Vegas three years ago and found his true calling: swinger porn.
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Porn was a natural fit for Varone. He claims to have had sex with over 3,000 women, and while on tour, his reputation for discretion allowed him to zip-line down the grapevine into the bedrooms of the swinger elite, regularly sleeping with the wives of rich and powerful men.
The only difference between Varone the porn star and Varone the rock star is that he now films his bedroom festivities. As the host and director of 100% Real Swingers, a porn series for Vivid Entertainment, he serves as an orgy whisperer. In one video, 100% Real Swingers: Kentucky Old Glory, he maintains a laid-back kayak-instructor vibe as he leads a handful of couples through a risqué game of cornhole and shows them how to properly build a glory hole. “No splinters!” he says.
Although Varone starred on Sex Rehab with Dr. Drew (he did it for the money), he isn’t some problematic horn dog. He’s just another example of the forceful trajectory the American dream occasionally enacts on regular people – an easy-mannered rock star who has had several mother-daughter threesomes and is easing into middle age as a porn director in Las Vegas.
This is his story.
VICE: How did your relationship with Vivid start?
Phil Varone: I approached them initially. I told them that I have a lot of footage from girls, stuff I’ve shot in my personal life. They explained to me that you just can’t release stuff: You need to have releases and proof that they’re of age, all that fun stuff. So we shot a sex tape. For the next tape, they asked me to shoot real swingers. The problem with swingers is anonymity; it’s what protects the lifestyle. I found a cast of swingers that was okay to do it. The way I shoot is very loose because you’re dealing with real swingers – they’re not actors. I make a cameo in them, but it gets a little hard to direct on camera and have sex at the same time, although I’ve mastered it.
How do you find swingers for your videos?
I’ve been in the lifestyle for 20-plus years. The word of mouth does it now. I don’t even put castings out anymore. It’s been so successful because I never have to deal with worrying if this couple is going to like this other couple. I’m in the lifestyle; I respect the rules and what the process is.
What are some of the rules?
Each level of swinging is different for people. You set up rules like, “If you’re going to be in the room with somebody, they have to be in the same room.” It all depends with each couple. My series is sex, so if a couple doesn’t want to have sex with another couple and we’re on a sex set, I’m screwed. By having friends that have already had sex with each other or find each other attractive, you eliminate that part of it. Each couple has their rules, which are sent to me way before the shoot. I have a questionnaire that they fill out. I’ve only had one crappy shoot, and I learned a lot.
What happened there?
I learned a cardinal rule: You have to make sure people like each other. Someone had backed out last minute, so we had to cast somebody else. Nobody liked them. They were also awful. From that shoot came the questionnaire and the list of rules. For instance, sometimes men can’t perform with cameras. With adult stuff we need to finish – we call it a pop shot. If you don’t perform, it strictly says you’re not getting paid.
How did you first enter the swinger community?
My first wife and I dabbled. I wouldn’t say we were full in the lifestyle, but we definitely had friends that we played with. At that point I realised that my fetish was to watch my wife have sex with another man, or girls, whatever she liked.
You’re into cuckolding?
Actually, no. Cuckolding is when you degrade your husband. At the time I was in the band, I did the cuckold thing. I would go to these houses, and the men were some of the most powerful men. It was frightening because half of them could have made me disappear. And they have these beautiful trophy wives, and they did a cuckold or reverse cuckold thing. I’d have sex with their wives, and the wife would just degrade the husband like, “You wish you were a rock star, you piece of shit! His dick is bigger than yours.” I’m just sitting there like, “Holy shit. This is insane.” Or the husband would yell at the wife and call her a whore or a groupie – I’ll never say who these people were. They would erase me, these people, and nobody would look twice.
Were they turned on because you were a rock star?
Absolutely. It was one of the main ones. It’s funny because the way I look – you know I’m tattooed – and the funniest thing I ever heard was “I’ve never had sex with one of your kind,” like I was a different race because I’m all tattooed.
Do you remember anything from your groupie days?
Something that stands out the most is the mother and daughters. For some reason my percentages were great for mother-and-daughter threesomes on the Poison tour – I had three of them. That’s like a fantasy story. Sometimes in your average life maybe you’ll get sisters, or something like that, but the mother-daughter shit is definitely Yankee Stadium. It’s the unicorn – man, those type of stories, you might even get a wink out of Ozzy for one of those. True story: A roadie went up to Ozzy and said, ”I finally got two girls last night!” And Ozzy said, “Yeah, I remember when I had my first beer.”
Are you addicted to sex?
To be honest with you, I don’t have a sex addiction. My agent called [about Sex Rehab with Dr. Drew] and said, “You had sex with a lot of girls didn’t you?” I said yes. I would have been better on the drug one because at that point I just went to rehab. What the show did for me was I dealt with the death of my mother. We brought my father on the show, and during the show’s taping, my grandmother passed away. It was a very emotional time for me because Dr. Drew is fantastic. I love Drew to death. He actually tapped into my subconscious, where I’d been storing my mother passing away and never really talked about it – that was the good stuff that I got out of that show. Other than that it was awfully done; the producers had no idea what they were dealing with. They were using the blueprint for alcohol addiction. They’re completely different things.
Do you think swinging can help secure a relationship?
No, I don’t think that swinging is a way to save your relationship. If you have a solid core relationship, which includes trust and honesty, you are ready to take the step into swinging.
What’s the craziest sexual experience you’ve ever had?
The weirdest was with the supermodel. I think she only liked anal; I didn’t ever see her vagina. Who doesn’t want to have anal sex with a supermodel? But this particular incident was weird because she had a dog, this little fucking dog that probably weighed a pound. Somehow it broke into the room. We locked it out during sex, because we had to hear this thing moaning and barking, but it somehow got through the door. The thing jumped on the bed and started humping my forearm while I was having anal sex with the supermodel. And I’m like, “Do I let the thing go, just let him hump my forearm?” If I throw him off, the dog’s gonna go flying, sex will stop, she’ll probably break up with me because I hurt her dog. I don’t wanna hurt any animals, so I was like, “You know what, who gives a shit?” I let the fucking dog bang my forearm while I was banging this supermodel anally. He finished, I finished – we’re done.
Wow. That’s like interspecies swinging.
Yeah, let me add that drugs had something to do with that as well. That was one of my decisions, and it wasn’t a good decision. It was chemically decided. Either way it was pretty strange.
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