I was introduced to Newcastle, UK hard rock band Pigs, Pigs, Pigs, Pigs, Pigs, Pigs, Pigs in Austin recently at SXSW 2023. We were at a showcase at Cheer Up Charlie’s, featuring Overcoats and a couple other NY bands, Bailen and Lemon Twigs. We were getting ready to split, and I heard this ungodly racket coming from the outdoor stage. We went out to see if maybe some cattle were being slaughtered – turns out it was a drove of Pigs. It was heavy as fuck, mesmerizing.
I first “met” the band’s frontman, Matt Baty, as he exited the stage that night after they concluded in a maelstrom of wailing feedback. I followed the sweat-drenched and spent singer as he stumbled off stage, having given everything he had. I said, “You look like you could use a dry shirt, brother,” and handed him a 360°Sound t-shirt. I told him I hoped we’d meet again, and it turns out we have.
Pigsx7 have been logging a ton of miles this year, touring hard in support of their new album, Land of Sleeper. They made their first trip to the States, including multiple blistering sets at SXSW, and they play relentlessly in the UK. 360°Sound caught up with Matt Baty via Zoom from Newcastle after the band returned home from another month’s worth of shows in Europe.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
360°Sound: Your sets at SXSW were incredibly heavy, and the band’s presence is dynamic. I loved it. How did it go for Pigs, Pigs, Pigs, Pigs, Pigs, Pigs, Pigs in the States?
Matt Baty: It was great. That whole trip was our first time over in the US, and we got a really nice welcome to the States. We played a show at St. Vitus in New York that sold out in advance, so we were super excited about that. Then we flew down to Austin. The whole thing was just a really great experience. [SXSW] is actually something that we had planned in 2020, and we were fortunate enough to have it come back ’round.
You guys worked your asses off at South by.
Yeah, that’s right. We did like two shows a day for the first three days. And then another show? Six, maybe seven? Our shows are quite physical. Plus, we’ve got quite a big backline to lug around, which is an extra job. That’s the most I’ve tested my voice as well. I was a little bit worried towards the end of the week — my voice not being as strong as it could be — but it held out, actually.
I was impressed by your elaborate stage costume. Where did you get the shorts and tank top?
There’s a kickboxing gym like five minutes walk from my house. One day, I was walking past it, and it caught my eye. I don’t understand what drew me in there, because I’m not an aggressive person at all – I’ve never been in a fight in my entire life. But there was something about it that kind of compelled me to go. I’ve stuck at it now for three years, and I love going there. So yeah, that’s where the shorts came from.
And now the ‘Stone Cold’ tank top has become a bit of a trademark, right?
Yeah, it is. That’s one of my favorites, so I’ll keep wearing that one. From a purely practical sense of it, it’s the kind of attire that’s appropriate for our stage show. It keeps me cool and I can move around in it a lot.
And you and [bassist] John-Michael [Hedley] both go barefoot.
The barefoot thing, that’s a strange one. We’ve both been doing that for years. I like something about feeling the vibrations of the stage under my feet, and that kind of travels up your entire body. I quite like that.
You’ve been associated with a number of metal sub-genres. How do you guys describe your sound?
It’s really difficult. I just default with ‘hard rock’ and leave it at that. It’s a bit of a mash up of all sorts of things, really. I think we’re more closely aligned with doom, psych rock, and a bit of noise rock as well. I think if there was to be a Venn diagram, those would be the three circles on it.
Where would you say your roots lie as a group?
I usually say our touch points are Black Sabbath, Motorhead, Stooges – those sort of acts. And maybe Melvins. Bits of grunge thrown in there as well. Little shades of Nirvana here and there.
And maybe some Soundgarden? How would you say you’re building creatively on the bands that have come before you?
We laugh sometimes, when I’m doing these kinds of interviews with [lead guitarist] Adam [Sykes]. He’ll quite often say, ‘Actually, we are quite derivative. We’re not really doing anything all that new,’ which is partly true. I think where we do differ is sonically. We kind of edge away from the beaten paths with metal music, where the sounds can quite often be heavily compressed, very forward. [Guitarist, producer] Sam [Grant], with his production, comes from a slightly different angle. He’s more interested in building a really big soundscape, rather than everything being super punchy and cutting.
What’s your creative process like? How does that get started for you guys?
We’ve been at this so long now, we trust each other. I always see as we’re a live band, you know? That’s where we really flourish. So I think with each of our songs, it needs all five of us to be fully committed to it. Because if you’re playing that song live, and even one person’s not fully committed to the song, I think it shows. The energy that you project to the audience, people do pick up on these things. We’ve all got to have our heads fully in the song.
You mentioned trust. You guys maintain a pretty demanding touring schedule. Is trust the secret to your 10+ year run?
We just got back from a mainland Europe stint. And that was the end of us being on tour almost since the middle of February. So yeah, whilst we trust each other musically, I think we also trust each other emotionally. When we’re away for so long, it does get challenging. Everyone’s tired. You can get a little snappy, or things start to grate on you. Someone’s chewin’ on chips too loud in the van. And there’s always the added layer of being away from family. You try to create an environment that makes it as easy as possible to deal with those struggles. Which we do, I think, quite effectively. Yeah.
Let’s talk about the new record. Tell me about the title, Land of Sleeper, and the cover art.
Throughout the album, I’m referencing a lot on dreaming and sleep. Most of my lyrics are about existential crisis. So, in this lyric writing process, I started to see these patterns referencing cycles – either seasonal cycles or emotional cycles. Sleep felt like something that would marry quite well with that. Within sleep, you go through your own kind of cycles as well.
So [Land of Sleeper] just felt right. Sleep and dreaming is where you do a lot of deep psychological processing, which is kind of the purpose of my lyrics. Sometimes I’ll write lyrics and I’ll not really understand what they’re about for months, really. Then something clicks and I’ll go, ‘Oh, shit, yeah, that’s where my headspace was two months ago.’ But in the moment, it can be quite hard to see that. It’s almost like you need to hover above yourself a few months later to see where you were in that moment in time.
Concerning artwork, we wanted a ’70s sci-fi book look to it. We put together all of these different references, and gave that material to the person who worked on it – he’s called Callum Rooney, based in New Zealand. What we always end up doing is going, ‘Okay, let’s just make it a bit weirder now.’ We try to take them a little bit further afield.
Let’s talk about the lyrics to a couple songs from the record. “Ultimate Hammer” is quite right-brain to me, very much connected to the cosmic consciousness. It’s a great album opener – really hits hard musically and lyrically. I love the line, ‘What a time to be alive.’
That song’s about the distress of living where we are in history. I mean, there’s never really been a utopia throughout history, right? There’s always been struggles of people. There were probably people in the Middle Ages writing lyrics going, ‘What a fucking crazy place to exist.’ And now we’re here, and the sentiment hasn’t changed whatsoever. So the ‘What a time to be alive’ thing is very much a tongue in cheek reference to the chaos that we see unfold on a daily basis.
I love the title “Terrors Pillow.” Ironically, it’s a really empowering lyric. We take control from within. We take control of destiny. There’s a volitional component of our lives. We make choices and we take control in our inner space.
Yeah, that’s 100% correct. I think that the more you can understand about yourself as a person – your emotional behaviors and your triggers, your fears and your loves – the more control you can have, and the better person you are to be around as well. People go through all kinds of different experiences that give them struggles; it’s not easy for a lot of people. Some people try very, very hard to understand their emotional states. Other people are just completely – almost blissfully it seems – unaware of them. Quite often those are the kind of people that are most damaging to others.
“Big Rig” is this post-apocalyptic landscape spiked with hope. ‘I plant the seed and wait to see what will become of routine watering and the magic of the sun.’ ‘Here we leave fragments of hope.’ This is William Blake stuff, man.
[laughs] I’ve got some way to go to catch him up, I think. That song was lyrically the centerpiece to the notion of cycles. You get this story of the tree going through the seasonal cycles. ‘At times it withers, but come spring it soldiers on.’ And also the notion of small acts that you can do for yourself and for other people. All of these little positive actions add up. The planting of the tree thing I felt like was a bit of metaphor for that. You can plant a tree and then long after you’re gone, it’s stood there tall, and people are enjoying and marveling at the tree, you know?
It’s lovely. It’s a beautiful image. Before I let you go, I’ve heard you say the band’s name is ‘a joke gone a bit too far.’ So what’s the joke? Is it like, knock knock who’s there? Or, seven pigs walk into a bar?
No, it’s a kind of an in joke that even I don’t yet understand. [laughs] Honestly, it just came from a list of really preposterous band names, and we stuck with that one. We never thought we’d be where we are now, [more laughter] touring the States and things. We just thought we’d play a couple of daft shows in Newcastle and that would be that. But it kind of has really snowballed. [still more laughter]
Keep up with Pigs, Pigs, Pigs, Pigs, Pigs, Pigs, Pigs on their website: pigsx7.com
