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51 Peg

There was a four year gap between the release of your debut Strange Appointments and your last album, ESC/CTRL. Why so long between releases? What sorts of changes did the band go through, both musically and personally, between albums?

Pizarro: Time and money.

Sergeant: Because we wanted to get it right.

Pizarro: That's true, we did. We spent a lot of time, spending three days a week for two and a half years.

Nish: Plus we had that elusive fifth member problem.

Sergeant: People quitting, or if not quitting, getting fired.

You had a second guitarist at one point.

Fasani: Two different second guitarists actually.

Sergeant: Well, we had a bass player at one point. There were a lot of setbacks, and we had to figure out how to do it with four people.

Apart from the live CD you released in 2005, your last release was in 2004. Are there plans for a new album to come out soon?

Sergeant: Tomorrow.

Really?

Sergeant: No. [Laughs.]

Nish: The new material is about 70 percent written at this point, or 65 percent written.

Pizarro: It's being written. Again, we want to get it right. We don't have a record label breathing down our necks. It's all us. It's all our money. It's all our work, and we want to get it right.

How would you say the new music is different from what you've produced in the past?

Sergeant: I don't know how to say it except that it really is. I have no idea how to describe that. I think we're a little confused by it. We're not really sure.

Pizarro: It comes out, and honestly, we just do what we do, and somehow we can make it sound the way we want it to.

Nish: It's probably a lot more '80s metal.

Many bands seem to place a heavier emphasis on the technology employed rather than the music. How would you say 51 Peg's music balances the two? Would it be possible for 51 Peg to exist without the synthesizers and the v-drums?

Fasani: That's what we're doing.

Nish: We don't use any tracking. Everything we play is 100 percent live. When we stop playing, there's no music playing. That's how we differ from every other band of our type.

Pizarro: We don't play to a CD.

Sergeant: Every time, we pull back a little more. No vocal effects, and...I don't think we're actually so much in that genre anymore. We don't want to alienate anyone who enjoys that genre, and we're glad they still dig it.

Fasani: We never tried to do any genre anyway.

Pizarro: It was what it was, and the people...

Sergeant:...who wore a lot of black.

Pizarro: Yeah, they enjoyed it. I think the synthesizers just offer different sounds. We couldn't do what we do without synthesizers.

Sergeant: That's for sure, but with the v-drums, those are minimal. They are of minimal use in what we're doing now. Actually, on the new album, I'm playing some synths again. I did all the synths on the first album.

When it comes to recording, do you use software a lot?

Fasani: To capture the signal—the sound—but they don't make the sound.

Pizarro: We don't play computers.

Fasani: I use some stuff for samples.

Pizarro: But it's still minimal.

Sergeant: Yeah, but by the time we're done with them, we take them and run them through analog shit, and we fuck with them so much. That is going to be a huge problem with music right now, that everyone's using the same programs for the drum loops and their synth sounds. They pick the sounds right out of sound banks, and they just leave them like that. That's something we've always spoken against. That probably has to do with our sound, because if there's a sound built into the synthesizer we have, we tear the shit out of it. You're not allowed to use that sound. You're not allowed.

All of your albums to date have been independently released, like you said, without any backing from a major label. Do you have any aspirations of being signed to a major label? What are your thoughts on the role of major record labels in the music industry today?

Fasani: Once we gave up on our illusions or aspirations of rock stardom, things were much better.

Sergeant: Yeah, we're happier, we sound better, we write better.

Pizarro: If someone wants to come to us and say, 'You guys can do whatever you want, and we're going to pay you money,' and we can do whatever we want so that we're making more money than our day jobs, maybe then we'll think about it.

Nish: That's the thing; we all have lives and jobs and families, and we still do this because it's fun. There's no pressure.

Pizarro: I think if we did cram ourselves into a van, and we didn't have money, and tour the country, we'd kill each other.

Nish: I would kill them!

Sergeant: I don't want to be in a van with anybody.

Fasani: It would be like Little Miss Sunshine, except with a goth band pushing the van.

Over the years, you've has performed alongside such acts as Tapping the Vein, Bile, Dope, Orgy, Celldweller, and Carfax Abbey, to name but a few. What would you say defines a 51 Peg live show? How do you think you distinguish yourselves from the other groups you've performed with and that you've seen?

Sergeant: No tape.

Pizarro: No bullshit.

Nish: We treat every show as if it were really important.

Sergeant: And we don't play as much, but when we play, we think about it all month, and we're psyched to do it. We're excited to be there, and I think that can be seen as a weakness to some, but we're doing it just like we want to do it.

Nish: And not just a group of meat-heads.

Having performed shows with those bands, and your sound being what it is, 51 Peg seems to be an industrial rock band. How do you respond to this categorization? What are your thoughts on the industrial scene as a whole, as it is today?

Pizarro: I honestly don't know.

Sergeant: You know what it is? People in the industrial scene, and I don't want to downplay what they like and what they feel, but I think it's kind of watered down. It's a lot like hip-hop, where if you're into hip-hop, a lot of times, you're like, 'Yeah, yeah, sure. I'm into them.' We offer those people something that's a little more symphonic, a little more thought out, and a lot less like all the other things that they can actually like without having their friends teasing them for liking it. Otherwise, we'd be a rock band they like that's in their collection and they show their friends. But for some reason, we've bridged that so they can like this. We have just enough of that element, so they can like us and still be a cool industrial guy.

Fasani: Plus I think that people—not all of them, but some of them—do fall for the look and the marketing or whatever it is. But I think most people that are into this kind of music are true music fans. The music actually matters to them. People who are actually music fans like us more than just people who like whatever the latest fucking craze is, like emo or whatever.

Sergeant: The old people. It's older people who like us. Or again, the hip-hop thing: every now and then, people who are into hip-hop will come across us. It's pretty rare, but we even had a guy who was in our practice space today, and he thinks Brian's the mac daddy drummer. They like us! Here we are trying to play something to piss them off, and they're saying, 'Yo, that's dope!' But we have always quietly tried to inject some dance beat into what we do. We've spoken at length about the length of certain types of intros for some of our songs, and a lot of times we end up leaving them because they don't really fit that rock formula, but it gives people a chance to kind of feel a groove and just dance for a little while. When they're at a rock industrial show, and they're dancing like they're in a freaking hip-hop club, I think that's cool! We just never addressed it really in that manner.

A great deal of music these days, not just in the industrial genre, has a rather political slant to it. With the state of the world being what it is, how much do politics come into play in 51 Peg's lyrics?

Sergeant: If you can find politics in my lyrics, enjoy!

What would you say are the primary themes and subjects 51 Peg does explore?

Sergeant: Well, I try to leave it open. I don't know. The prior albums were more interpersonal stuff between me and my family, and me and myself, but right now, I don't know. That's probably the other 35 percent that hasn't been written yet. We have a lot of music and no lyrics right now, so I'm still scanning myself. I don't know what I want to write about right now. I don't like to give definite answers to that question. I want you to just see it and enjoy it for yourself. If you hear it or read it or see it, and it means something to you, that makes my job twice as easy. I know what I mean most of the time, but a lot of the time I don't know what a song's about until it's already over. I'll look back and say, 'Oh, that's what that's about.' They'll be playing music, and I don't want to sound like some sort of a prophet or something, but it's really surreal. There are times when I will go weeks trying to figure out what to write, and they'll be playing music, and then my head goes insane. Words just start going down on the paper. I'll go back, and usually I'll get done and read it, and go, 'Oh, I think I know what this is about,' and then I'll adjust a few words here and there to make it a little more poignant. I can't stand lyrics that are like, 'This is what this song is about.' I hate that! All of my favorite bands leave it up to me to decide, or I wonder about it, which keeps me listening, because I really wonder and I love to ask them.

And it keeps you coming back.

Sergeant: Yeah. I'd rather just leave that up to the listener. Once I put it on paper and put it on tape, it's theirs to have and do what they want with it. It's not mine anymore.