Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs’ latest album Death Hilarious is deathly serious about blowing your hair back. That should be no surprise – since forming in 2012, the Newcastle, UK quintet have sludged audiences senseless with an overbearing, fuzz-forward and hooks-heavy sound informed as much by Black Sabbath as early ‘90s noise-rock.
From compact moments of Southern Cro-Magnon stoniness, to Harley-revvin’ choogles, to a dissonantly hypnotic creeper sporting guest raps from Run the Jewels rhymer El-P (Glib Tongue), Death Hilarious keeps pace with those varying approaches.
More than half of its tracks run well beyond the five-minute mark as they spin dangerously undulating guitar harmonies (Detroit), wah-bruised jams and doom-and-distortion-laden psychedelia (Tocurging). While the band have tamed their arrangements a touch since 2017 debut Feed the Ratswhich featured two 15-minute tunes, they still love a good metal epic.
“I really like the idea that there will be a track or two which let us go into the mêlée a little bit,” says Pigs x7 guitarist, engineer and producer Sam Grant, who’s talking to Guitar World with bandmate Adam Ian Sykes.
“Tocurging has a section that just twists the screw, and goes again-and-again and around-and-around. Halloween Bolson (from 2020’s Visceral) was a track like that. I’d say there’s a thread of continuity of staying true to that spirit.
“The fundamental aim of Death Hilarious was to make something that felt very aggressive and direct, regardless of the nature of the track – whether it be Detroitwhich is a bit more grinding noise-rock, or something like Stitches.”
Straight out the gate with opening track Blockage, Death Hilarious sounds like a sharper, harsher-toned record than 2022’s Land of Sleeper. Were you seeking out a meaner electric guitar presence for this record?
Sam Grant: “On the production front, definitely.”
Adam Ian Sykes: “There were changes in some equipment as well, in what fuzzes were used. I was running a Matamp GT1, which I’ve had for years, and also a Dual Dark 100 I got just before we started recording.
“I used the EarthQuaker Devices Palisades overdrive a lot more than we’d done in the past. It’s based on a Tube Screamer, so there was a bit more overdrive compared to fuzz on this one – at least for my stuff.”
Grant: “It’s not particularly obvious on Land of Sleeperbut there are two bass tracks panned hard left and hard right. That pushed apart the mids and the low mids, and left a big space in the middle for the drums, Adam’s lead guitar, and the vocals. Then I double-tracked my own guitars. It made for quite a wide and immersive mix, because in those two channels you had a lot more low-end information.”
“This record created an obvious opportunity for a change in sound. I put (bassist) Johnny Joseph Hedley in the middle, which instantly lightens the mix and makes it far less weighty. Then you can play around with the balance of the guitars.
“A lot of times we’re using multiple amps. For example, with my setup there’ll be an Orange Custom Shop 50, which is quite bright, bitey, and broken up. Then there’s an old OR120, which is very open – almost like a bass amp. Fundamentally, it’s just changing the spatial arrangement. We used a lot of Johnny’s Fender Super Bassman as well.”
The JAM Vibe I’ve had for a while broke just before we started recording. There’s a solo where it cut a lot of the low-end because it broke. I’ve since had it fixed, but I kind of regret it, because the tone on the solo was a happy accident moment!
Adam Ian Sykes
What was in your mitts, guitar-wise?
Grant: “I always keep it very simple, like I am! On the record I used nearly the same setup as the previous album: a Telecaster Deluxe with ShawBucker pickups. They’re not very high output, so you can really dig into them to get the amp moving. And I swear by the EarthQuaker Hoof as a fuzz. But it’s so broad an option; I’ve got a hand wired Vox AC30 where you can just blow the thing out and track that.
“Adam can speak more about it, as he does a lot of the leads, and that’s where a lot of the pedal-and-amp work comes into its own. All of a sudden, Adam’s able to make it soar or go uber-gnarly. There’s a lot more scope for interesting tone.”
Sykes: “I use a lot of JAM pedals. I really love them. The JAM Vibe I’ve had for a while broke just before we started recording. There’s a solo in there – I can’t remember which one – where it cut a lot of the low-end because it broke.
“I’ve since had it fixed, but I kind of regret it, because the tone on the solo was a happy accident moment! We likewise ended up using a god-awful signature wah for Glib Tonguebecause I’d left mine at home; but it sounded pretty good for that job.”
Is that the same Wah Pedal on The Wyrm?
Sykes: “No, that’s the JAM Wahcko wah, which I love. It’s so versatile.”
This is may be getting a little precious with Death Hilarious’ album title, but have you ever written a riff so evil or heavy that you just had to laugh out of incredulity?
Sykes: “Johnny certainly has! Johnny will sometimes come out with something that’s exactly that, and we’ll laugh at the bludgeoning nature of it.”
If you were going to go and smash up an object, you wouldn’t do it while dancing around the thing; you’d go straight at it
Sam Grant
Grant: “It’ll be a wormhole of a riff as well. It’ll go over five bars, but it’ll be changing on three. You’ll listen and be like, ‘That is bonkers!’ It’s so heavy in its idiosyncratic nature that it becomes ridiculous for both its heaviness and off-kilteredness.”
You could point to parts of Detroit as tapping into that power – a direct, one-note groove and the way you slow it down decadently in the back end.
Grant: “There’s key elements to that. One is the idea of distilling something into raw aggression. If you were going to go and smash up an object, you wouldn’t do it while dancing around the thing; you’d go straight at it.
“But in the slowed-down section I wanted to play around with fourths a lot. Because we all tune so low, having two guitars play the fourth right down at the lower octaves, you get the binaural beat. It just shimmers and it feels disorientating – like the thing’s about to rumble itself to pieces. When we’ve played that live it’s been mind-boggling. You end up no longer hearing either note.”
We had a long list of absolute pie-in-the-sky rappers, all of which we would’ve been very happy with. But El-P was the pie in the sky
Adam Ian Sykes
Sykes: “We ended up dropping it because it’s so dependent on the mix and the room, it can just sound like absolute nonsense. It’s a real risk to play live.”
One of the most unique performances is El-P’s appearance on Glib Tongue. How a Brooklyn rapper show up on a noisy, spiraling Pigs groove?
Sykes: “We just got really lucky. Glib Tongue was slowly written, and it eventually morphed into this track that sounded hip hop-esque. We started with Johnny’s bass riff, and then put hip-hop style drums over it, then me and Sam ran with that. We went with some sampled-style guitars. Then we were like, ‘It would be incredible to have an MC on this.’
“We had a long list of absolute pie-in-the-sky rappers, all of which we would’ve been very happy with. But El-P was the pie in the sky. Somehow, through a mutual friend, we managed to get in touch and get the demo to him. And he was in! He’s been incredible to work with; such a nice guy.”
Grant: “No exaggeration – he was literally the first person we reached out to, and the one we thought would fit really well, both conceptually and sonically.”
Had hip-hop influenced your playing in the past?
Sykes: “We all love hip-hop. While it might not be something we intentionally bring into it, I think it’s inevitable that the influence will come through.”
You recently did a weekend of hometown shows pairing a movie with a PigsX7 performances. One night was The Fly; another was Mandy. What went behind those film picks?
I was dead-set on Mandy. The idea was to screen a film that would get you revved up to listen to some heavy music
Adam Ian Sykes
Sykes: ”When we thought about hometown shows, Sam had the idea of doing them at the Star and Shadow. We’ve got a long history with the place; Sam’s studio is right next door. It’s quite a small room, so we thought, ‘Wouldn’t it be great to do three nights there? We can sound check and then just leave our gear set up.’
”We had a local food waste café doing pop-up food. The guys suggested some film curation, because the venue is a volunteer-run space and it has a really good cinema. We had a long list. Turns out film licensing is not easy, but I was dead-set on Mandy. The idea was to screen a film that would get you revved up to listen to some heavy music – there’s no film better suited to that.”
Johnny Joseph Hedley will be sitting your US tour out to focus on the arrival of a “piglet,” as you put it. Can you tell us a bit about his presence, generally?
Grant: “He’s a tour de force. You just have to watch one gig to see the lad’s stance is as wide as it is tall, to get an understanding of how he plays the bass. He’ll be sorely missed because he hits the riff hard and pulls all the tone and energy out.
“But we’re lucky, because our good friend and really talented musician Simon Hubbard is going to fill the void with his own big-stride energy.”
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