One of the highlights of my recent trip to Spain for the Grabby Awards Europe was an opportunity to sit down for a coffee with Joel Someone.

I’ve interviewed Joel a couple of times over the years and he’s always a pleasure to chat with – thoughtful, passionate, and a bit of a dork. He’s always got something interesting to say – he’s always worth listening to.

I was interested to get his perspective on life, the universe, and everything.

What brings you to the Grabby Awards Europe?

I’m really grateful to be able to work in the European sector of porn. Working in Europe isn’t something that’s easy for American performers – it was always a huge dream for me.

What makes that cross-over difficult – the logistics of passports and visas?

Yes, but it’s also a psychological barrier. You’re on someone else’s home turf – you have to humble yourself.

It’s not an easy market to crack, especially if you’re a performer – like myself – who’s not backed by a big studio.

I got my introduction to Europe through CutlerX – he hired me as his cameraman when he was coming over here to work.

I did my first live sex show at the KitKatClub in Berlin. It was a comedy of errors – I was very nervous and very excited, and everything went wrong. Everything. But it was a really cool learning experience just to be in the green room of a sex show.

I met Gabriel Cross on that first trip with Cutler. Right after Cutler destroyed him with his giant dick, he’s like – “You want sloppy seconds, buddy?” – and I tapped in. Since then, Gabriel has been one of the guys who’s been like family to me – my little porn family.

You seem to be very good at building and maintaining personal connections?

I’m a bit of a distant father to people – but when I turn up, I’m so excited to see you, I remember the last time I saw you, and I miss you deeply. I love that aspect of porn.

I was just talking to someone who was saying that he and his friends had all been having the worst time at the Grabbys. The first time that I went to an awards show, it was the Grabbys in Chicago – I missed the red carpet, I had a meltdown, I yelled at Marco Napoli. Nothing went right. Nobody got to see my cute outfit. Nobody talked to me. Part of me wanted to swear off awards shows forever but at the same time, I knew that I had to go back the next year.

Every year you go back, your career has gotten bigger, and you see people you know. These people are family to me. Seeing people at these events makes me so incredibly happy.

I don’t have any evidence for this but it feels like a lot of porn performers are a bit on the spectrum – most guys seem to have a lot of anxiety to work through?

Bitch, we’re all on the spectrum!

We’re just sex nerds. Porn-stars are just the same as people who do LARP and Pokemon and Harry Potter. We’re just nerds that like to fuck.

But when you’re here, surrounded by all these men who seem to be at the absolute top of their game – it must be a lot to process as a young person coming in and maybe just figuring out how to navigate this industry?

At one of the workshops yesterday, Wolf Legrand was talking about jealousy.

He said, “you have to try to be inspired not jealous”.

I was amazed that he brought up jealousy – nobody thinks someone like Wolf Legrand, who has a humongous company and seems so stable and strong, would struggle with jealousy.

This is the place that you’re going to get in-your-face rejections. This is where you walk up to someone and say, “I’d like to collab” and they let you know that you don’t fit what they’re looking for.

I’m eight years into this game – eight fucking years. What I enjoy about an event like this is getting to meet people in person. I’m into friends. I’m the type of person that I can meet you, I can hear about your life and family, and I can still fuck you. It’s not a turn-off to me. Whereas for other people, the more human you become, the less they want to put their penis inside of you. 

When you come to these award shows, you need to remember that all of these people are doing the same thing you’re doing – you can’t get upset that you’re not the most important person in the world to them. There’s always something that they’re chasing. We’re all chasing something. I’m not going to make a mess of myself at the award show because I’m mad that your 7 o’clock collab went to someone else.

Ice Spice has a line in one of her tracks: “In the hood, I’m like Princess Diana”. When you’re at something like an awards show, be like Princess Diana – be beyond the drama, get past your ego.

I’m just grateful. I’m humbled by this. I grew up in a small town in New Mexico. I get to flitter around Europe for a month, fucking who I want, and people pay me for it.

But you’ve made this happen, right? When you think about how you got into the industry? 

Yeah, you remember me white-knuckling it in there? Just like reaching out to whoever fucking gave me the time of day. That’s what you do.

That takes some determination? But also, you must look back at this and think, I made that happen. You’re pretty much living the dream?

My biggest piece of advice to people is, you didn’t get it now. You wanted it now, but you didn’t get it now. That’s okay. We all want it. When it comes to awards, when it comes to roles, when it comes to gigs – whatever it is – you wanted it now. You didn’t get it now. And that’s okay.

You carry yourself like a gentleman. You clap for the winner. You never know what’s going to happen next time.

How important is winning awards – do they really matter in the big scheme of things?

It’s the pursuit – once you get it, it’s not as fun. That being said though, when my apartment had a fire scare, I was downstairs with my computer in one hand and my GayVN award in the other. I was wearing pajamas on the street, holding a golden award. It means everything to me.

What are your travel plans after you leave Torremolinos?

No idea. I’m just going to kind of fuck around – travelling around for a few weeks, fucking some of the young talent in Europe.

What’s your workflow? How do you structure yourself in terms of creating content – is it all for fan-subscription channels or are you also juggling studio work?

You remember when I first started my career, I was really fighting for studio work? To get it, I had to fight for it. It’s been nice to have them come to me. It’s been nice to just chill out and know people are going to call.

I used to be terrified of looking at my calendar – if every day wasn’t full of meaningful work, it felt like I was a failure. This has been the first year that I’ve not been hyper-scheduling, and I’ve gotten good work. People want me.

Dominic Santos is back doing porn again. He lives in San Diego and he wants to work with me. When I was in college, there was one scene of his that I masturbated to feverishly – now, he’s reaching out to me? That’s wild.

That’s a full-circle moment?

So much of my career is. My whole career is a love letter to my 14-year-old self first discovering porn in rural New Mexico.

The life I’m living is a fever dream. I’m going to wake up one day and I’ll be 14 again and realise that it was all just a dream.