Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs pick their all-time great guitar riffs

Newcastle’s doomsaying psych metal merchants Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs delve into the riffs that made the band.

On their latest studio album, Death Hilarious, Newcastle’s doomsaying riff merchants Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs plunder new depths of sludge, on what has been widely touted as one of their finest albums to date. Based on their headline show at London’s KOKO for the album launch party, the foundations of the venue would’ve likely crumbled had it not undergone a refurbishment in recent years.

The band cover into new ground on Death Hilarious, which includes a surprising guest feature from rapper El-P, one half of Run The Jewels, on single ‘Glib Tongued’. “I would say unanimously, the five of us were in the control room playing around with ideas thinking ‘that’d be great with a rap or spoken word’”, says Pigs’ guitarist and producer Sam Grant over zoom from Blank Studios, where the five-piece both record and rehearse. “We drew up a shortlist of sorts, but it was rather ambitious thinking ‘we could ask El-P?’ Then there was the conversation of getting asking him out of the way, so we reached out to him. He was such a sound person, and was really into how heavy the track was. It was one of those things where he fit, the whole concept fit.”

Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs – Glib Tongued (Feat: El-P)

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As the world burns, Pigs x7 are taking the “scenic route” to Hell as they embark on a UK tour before venturing across the pond and beyond throughout the remainder of the year. So, for anyone wondering how the Newcastle natives conjure their brain quaking guitar sound, we talked to Grant and lead guitarist Adam Ian Sykes about the riffs that made the band.

Read on to find out the songs that inspired them to pick up the guitar in the first place, who influenced what Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs would sound like, and stumbling upon the treasure trove that was Limewire – RIP to the family PC – during their teenage journey of musical discovery.

Sleep – ‘Dopesmoker’

Sam: “It’s the archetypal influence, especially in the early days of Pigs. Both of us would say Sleep’s ‘Dopesmoker’. It’s one of those records that has the riffs, in terms of songwriting and tone of amps, that has that churning sound. [With] the background in music we both have, it’s hard not to just want to get an amp and crank it up. In Pigs’ early days, we were quite psych, but we had these moments of low-tuned, thickened sound.”

Adam: “It was a strong reference point in the early days. Before then we were more influenced by Michael Rother, and a lot of krautrock, [like the band] Hawkwind. We chose those moments that aren’t quite as common as they perhaps are now – the heavy-tuned guitars. But ‘Dopesmoker’ was always a reference point for all of us, even if it was subconscious.”

Black Sabbath – ‘Black Sabbath’

Sam: “This one is an open goal for us, really. We wrote down ‘Black Sabbath‘ but were thinking which track…”

Adam: “Any of the first five albums, take your pick. It really could be any of them. If there’s one unavoidable influence on us, one that we can firmly all agree on, it’s Sabbath. ‘Black Sabbath’, those fifths. It’s stereotypical, but it’s stereotypical for a reason.”

The Stooges – ‘I Wanna Be Your Dog’

Sam: “It’s totally route one. This driving riff. It keeps going, and twists the screw. Something I love in music is finding that thing which you can push and push. The simpler the better. Musicians have a habit of overcomplicating things, which can be really destructive to what could be a really pure idea. With Pigs, some might call it a lack of musicianship, but I prefer to think there’s a theoretical purification of that writing process.”

Adam: “Ron Asheton, much like [Tony] Iommi or any of these guitarists, has influenced every band that came after them that made ‘heavy music’, whether it’s five artists down the generational line of influence. People often say we sound like Killing Joke, or certain bands that none of us are familiar with. So those influences are a trickle down thing – being influenced by someone who was influenced by someone else. Ron Asheton is a key figure in that.”

Nirvana – ‘Breed’

Sam: “For me growing up as a kid in the late 90s and early 00s, I started getting into Nirvana. Rite of passage. I had a stratocaster – well, an Encore electric which was my sister’s that I used to nick from under her bed. The first stuff I learned to play was Nirvana. It’s not exactly overcomplicated, but it’s so specifically nuanced in its sound, in the way it is. It’s a lesson in character. There’s so much I write nowadays where I’m like ‘oh man, that’s got a Nirvana edge to it’. I can’t undo that influence.”

Adam: “I grew up with two brothers who were a decade older, and I listened to anything they told me to listen to. I remember being about eight years old, putting on Nevermind, when they’re tuning up at the start, then told my parents we’d written and recorded this song. Completely convinced them, they were suckered in.”

Sam: “Mad thing for me is that my dad had loads of CDs in his collection on the wall. There was loads of junk in there – NOW That’s What I Call Music CDs and various compilations. But he had Bleach by Nirvana. I didn’t know anything about Nirvana. I lived in the middle of nowhere. I remember putting Bleach on being like ‘whoahh what is this?!’ My introduction to all of Nirvana, for about 18 months, was Bleach. These were the days of the family PC, I had to drive about an hour to the nearest video shop to rent a film. I hammered Bleach for ages, and that’s what I thought Nirvana was. I get mad nostalgia trips when I listen to Bleach now, it’s embedded in. But we went for ‘Breed’, from Nevermind. It’s raucous and epitomises that aggro edge they had. They were capable of doing stuff that, for want of a better word, ‘mainstream’. Nevermind is their ‘pop album’. But it has these moments of aggression and acerbic guitar.”

Jimi Hendrix – ‘Machine Gun’

Adam: “‘Machine Gun’, it’s the unobtainable. There will never be another guitarist like Jimi. It doesn’t matter how hard you try – I clearly don’t try that hard. I learned the main riff to ‘Voodoo Chile’ and gave up after that. For me, ‘Machine Gun’ sums up everything Hendrix. When I discovered Hendrix it was all the classic songs, but it wasn’t a long time afterwards that I came across the longer, improvised live stuff. I managed to have my mind blown twice.”

Sam: “For a live track, it’s savage. That’s another one when I used to go on the family PC, on tab websites, and find three or four versions of Hendrix songs which were all different. I spent weeks trying to learn the intro to ‘Little Wing’, it’s still buried in my brain now. Just the intro though – like with all Hendrix songs, he goes on a journey after. I did put Napster on the family PC, and Limewire. There was another one, Kazaa. You’d just type in Jimi Hendrix and loads of random songs would come up. I ended up having this random collection of bootlegs and B-sides, although I have no idea what most of them were. Live recordings, usually.”

Pixies – ‘Hey’

Adam: “I used to do that and just pick random songs. I remember that’s how I found ‘Hey’ by the Pixies, which was huge. A major influence. Honourable mention for the Pixies.”

Tom Waits – ‘Diamonds & Gold’

Adam: “Marc Ribot has been a huge influence on me. He’s totally singular. When you hear him play, you know it’s him. It can be really visceral, really playful. He can be a lot of things. He’s not scared to be completely out of tune, which is something I often contend with. It’s the idea he can get away with a lot of discordance, and be all the better for it in most instances. It’s not his most distorted stuff, but one of his best.”

Richard Dawson – ‘The Vile Stuff’

Sam: “Richard Dawson is as idiosyncratic a guitarist as you’ll ever find. The way he plays it, tunes it, and hears it is utterly unique. I record his albums here at Blank Studios, so have had the opportunity to work with him and watch him put down his guitar tracks. It’s never not madly impressive. He plays in a traditional style of playing a bassline with his thumbs then a lead line with his fingers, but then manages it in such a way that it can be transported onto a really dense track, or stand alone as a motif. He’s a totally mad guitarist, who plays in a style that very few people can come close to. When he used to play on his little parlour guitar, he’d be digging these sounds out of it that were as raw as you could imagine. We’ve gigged with him a couple of times where we’ve asked him if he’ll help us out by playing an album launch or something, because it’s amazing to watch him and be inspired before you play, but also stupid because he does his set and everyone’s jaws are on the floor.”

Adam: “I remember being backstage on our first American trip, as he opened for us on the last few shows. I remember thinking ‘what the f*ck have we done?’ You can’t get one of the best acts in the world to open for you. Richard’s influence often comes from his originality. As time goes on there’s going to be fewer guitarists that have that wide scope of influence. [Sleep guitarist] Matt Pike is up there in terms of the influence he’d had on heavier bands over the past 20 years or so, and I’d like to think Richard will have an impact – if people haven’t heard them they’re missing out. He’s got such a rare thing.”

Sam: “It’s the energy of ‘The Vile Stuff’. It’s also one of the times he did a long-form piece. I think he does an excellent job of that. It’s about 15 minutes? You don’t tire from it. The way it moves, the arrangement is incredible. It scratches that itch. If you hear a really great song, like ‘Dopesmoker’ or ‘Machine Gun’, you don’t want it to be three-and-a-half minutes long, man. You want the full meal. As we’ve gone on in Pigs, we’ve balanced it more – been more aware of the space to go into a two-minute ripper but at the same time make something fully formed. ‘The Vile Stuff’ does that in spades.”

AC/DC – ‘Let There Be Rock’

Sam: “I put it in there because of that riff. But also it fits the philosophy of the music we write. Straight line, high energy. It’s a riff that makes me smile every time I hear it. Get in.”