Everyone was talking about your pubic hair after it was censored on The Tonight Show. Should we all be showing more or less bush?

More! I really like body hair. I like a bush. I like the whole deal. I’m sure if I didn’t have a bush, they wouldn’t have censored it. Do you know what I mean? The body hair itself, that is too scandalous.

I didn’t even notice that it was censored! I was really excited. I was like, “Oh, maybe it’ll be a huge black bar.” But they just tastefully softened the area. I was really excited to play that show and I’m glad that they aired it, even though they needed to blur out my bush. I’m very pro-bush.

Some people have said that you look like Amelia Earhart. Do you think you share anything with her spiritually?

I mean, I’d probably do what she did. I would probably die but I would do it.

Sometimes I get really rough, wrong comparisons. Twinks on Twitter are so demonic. One of the comparisons was just a corpse, like a mummy with a ring on. A gay-seeming mummy.

One of your albums is titled Set My Heart on Fire Immediately. Have you set anything on fire?

My mum’s house. When I was living there I put a cigarette out, and it didn’t go out. I went to bed. I woke up to the neighbour knocking on my door because part of the house was on fire. I started hosing it down. The policeman came and hosed it down. I fucked up the whole house. That was pre-Perfume Genius, pre-rehab.

Do you have a nemesis?

The Octopus Teacher guy. And Frank Sinatra.

That Octopus Teacher guy framed the movie like he was doing this to work on his relationship with his family but then he just spends all the time in the ocean with an octopus. And then at the end the octopus dies because he doesn’t want to interfere with nature. But there are long scenes of him rubbing his body all up and down this octopus, which feels like interference to me.

If you could change the size of any animal to keep as a pet, what would it be?

I love monkeys. I don’t think it’s ethical to have a monkey of any size but I guess we’re not being ethical right now. I love gibbons. But it wouldn’t be a pet. It would be a roommate. I would want it to make its own choices. It doesn’t have to pay rent. It’ll be more like an family member.

Last month you posted photos from your wedding. (Congratulations!) What is the best thing you’ve done for love?

It’s like black magic when I’m in love with somebody, because it’s months before I even acknowledge it to them but all I can think about is them. With [my husband] Alan, it was like I was setting intentions. I was burning little pieces of paper. I was doing witchcraft. It worked. Any time I’ve ever been really into someone, it’s like a 24-hour job for me.

If you had to be on a reality TV show tomorrow, which one would it be?

I’d be pretty terrible at all of them. Alan would be so good, I would hand him out to all of those. I think he would win so much money. Like, Love Is Blind, The Bachelor. I’m very bad at anything flirty. I fall a lot, I run into things. I can’t really be hot on purpose.

It would probably be Big Brother. I would do Survivor but I burn easily and I’m a sickly little Victorian child. I’d probably get consumption or some old-timey disease. They’re kind of the same concept but you just have to be in the house.

What is the strangest job you’ve ever had?

Oh, I’ve had a few. I worked as a telemarketer for a mortgage bank but I’m 99% sure that it was a scam, because I was just supposed to get people’s social security numbers. That’s really all they wanted me to do. The guys who ran it had just got out of prison and my paychecks would bounce.

I also worked at a personal ads company and this was pre-iPhone, so a lot of people didn’t have scanners. They would send their pictures to me to scan and put on their profiles. I wasn’t supposed to but I took them all home, so I would have this whole box of pictures of people. I could read all their messages too. I wasn’t supposed to do any of these things but I definitely had favourite people I would check up on.

You tweeted: “Two gay guys … what a combo.” Who is your favourite combo of two gay guys?

Everybody knows that I’m a big Brokeback head. I cried for like months after Brokeback Mountain. It was very severe for me. I would be doing the dishes and just kind of fall thinking about it. Up until then, I hadn’t seen such a big-budget, beautifully produced gay movie. For a week straight I was just listening to a dance remix of the guitar riff.

Who are other gay guys? This on-the-spot thinking is hard for me today. I just took Tylenol. It makes you autistic? Well, too late for me.

If you had a sandwich named after you, what would be in it?

I don’t like fussy sandwiches. I like lettuce, tomato, onion, cold cuts, mayo, some kind of Italian seasoning, oil and vinegar. It would just be a straight-up sandwich – which is kind of weird, because I’m sure people would think I would put flowers in it or something.

People don’t think my name should be Mike. It should be like some something Tilda Swinton-y. But I’m just a regular gremlin kind of person.

• Perfume Genius is touring Australia in December, including the Sydney Opera House on 9 December and stops in Melbourne, Ballarat and Brisbane; see here for dates