Pig Out interview (2007)

Feature: Pig Out: Pigging Out on Club Poems

By Chris Leggett (photography by Julian Scia Scia) NZ Musician, December/January 2007 (Vol:13, No:3)

My first Pig Out experience was quite by chance. Attending a show at Auckland's King's Arms I was informed upon arrival that another band has been added to the bill. By luck this was Christchurch's Pig Out. Reportedly after a string of "differences" with the owner of the venue where they were originally booked to play, Pig Out had been removed from that bill. The good folk at Mole Music quickly and generously offered the band a spot on their bill that night.

All of a sudden I found myself privy to a spectacle I certainly wasn't expecting that night. Replacing the typically stand-offish Auckland crowd was a near full dance floor, virtually everyone dancing in an intense, crazed fashion. The girls bouncing along to an extended version of Disco Bag appeared to be on a springboard at the stage front.

MC/rhythm programmer Kit Lawrence doesn't wish to dwell on what led to the dispute, other than to say that the attitude of some venue owners towards touring bands leaves a little to be desired.

"You deal with some venue owners and they treat it like it's a fucking hassle when you phone them to book a show," he begins. "[But] in Christchurch for instance, we've got some very supportive venue owners. Ross at the Dux gives us really good dates, pays us really well and understands what it's like to be a live band."

Impressively, and despite the odd spanner in the touring works, the Christchurch act already started making waves around the country - and even overseas - very shortly after forming in February this year.

"If you're looking for something that's a combination of club, house and techno, then there's no other band really, and that's why people abroad are getting excited about it," says Lawrence of the Pig Out sound. Marie Celeste on synth/programming and Kris Taylor on percussion complete the core trio. They've been described as dance punk and indie-house - among other equally ambiguous terms. For once it truly is unlike anything I've heard before.

Brooding, yet in an entirely danceable manner, Pig Out's digital beats (with live electronic percussion used sparingly for dynamic effect) are the perfect party starters. Lawrence's reverb-heavy, half-spoken/half-sung delivery provides the perfect complement. Clare Noonan (who lends her vocal talents to White Boy and Jules on X on their debut album 'Club Poems') has subsequently also become an honorary member says Lawrence. 

"She just started singing with us at a house party, and it worked," he explains. "She's become a real integral part of the live show now. Me and her trade off each other. She kinda sounds like one of those house records from the late '80s."

Pig Out also take a live bass player on tour with them, but as Lawrence explains, the role is a constantly changing one. Nick Harte of The Shocking Pinks played bass on Disco Bag for 'Club Poems'. The band also likes to pass tambourines, maracas and cowbells out into the audience during their live show - even if they do often come back in pieces.

"We've currently got half a cowbell - that's some serious percussion!" Lawrence laughs.

Aside from actively involving the audience, Lawrence puts their local success down largely to the fact that the band ignored that unwritten rule about taking things one step at a time. They, for instance, booked their first Auckland show for April this year.

"A lot of people are a bit nervous about it because they feel that if they play a bad show [in Auckland], it's over," says Lawrence. "We weren't worried about the whole 'you play Christchurch for a year and then move on to Wellington' thing. We kind of did come out of nowhere in a way, but we were in a band beforehand called House Of Dolls. We trusted each other. It surprised people who'd seen us for the past year and a half how quickly it coalesced."

Pig Out's improvised and sometimes considerably extended live songs have as quickly become the stuff of legend, thanks to a number of live bootleg CDs doing the rounds here and abroad. Lawrence tells me that Pig Out is being played over in London, and he was also surprised to learn that they're apparently quite big with Toronto's gay scene.

"When we go up on stage, we really don't know how it's going to end up," he says of the band's improv performances. "Every time we play [our songs] they're very different. Last night we played with the Mint Chicks and we played Disco Bag and it sounded nothing like it. It's more like a DJ set in a way; we like to take things to the most intense point. Marie will have a sound or a kind of structure. It's hooked up to the 303, which is basically setting the tempo for the synth. As long as Marie presses the buttons at the right time, it'll be in time with the music."

There's a certain difficulty in representing a live improv band in a studio-recording format, but 'Club Poems' contains the core framework that makes up the band's live show.

"It was done very quickly," begins Lawrence. "We were touring a lot and we had a deadline for the album to be out. We initially thought we were just going to go into the studio and record how we play live. It became fairly obvious it would need to be more structured."

Recorded at Club 147 with producer Luke Tippett (who is also responsible for the band's live sound), Pig Out unsurprisingly implemented some rather unorthodox recording practices. For instance when the vocal melody for the track Disco Bag finally came to Lawrence while he was driving with Celeste, he sang it directly into a laptop's microphone input.

"Marie pulled over and I basically held the laptop up like a sandwich. I sang into it just so I could remember the vocal melody. I got to Wellington and thought that nothing [further] needed to be done. It's actually one of the best vocal takes on the album."

"Quite a lot" of 'Club Poems' was recorded through an eMac's mic according to Lawrence. "Jack to jack. Absolutely no interference, nothing. The last song, Jules on X, was recorded entirely through the jack socket."

In fact, there is some laughter audible in the background of the track that was picked up through the computer's mic while Lawrence was doing his vocal take. This is due in part, says Lawrence, to the intensity and long hours of the recording process. Also to the use of substances that help the band deal with their sleep deprivation.

"We were all pretty mashed," he admits. A fitting addition then to 'Club Poems', which is for all intents and purposes a tribute to the social aspect of the clubbing scene. In Lawrence's own words, "The kind of situations that occur socially when you're out. The things you do and say [are] more truthful because you're not really thinking about it."

Shortly before going to print, NZM learned that Pig Out's infectious club truths have earned them an invite to next year's South By Southwest showcase in Austin, Texas. It's a prospect they're most excited about, but one that will cause them to buck their track record of being entirely self-funded to date. The band is about to set off on their fifth self-funded North Island tour in December this year to support the release of 'Club Poems', but according to Lawrence a sojourn to SXSW will require a bit of assistance. "It's a lot of money for four or five people [to Austin]. We're going to have to tap into something for that," he muses.