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An Interview with Raymond Watts and Günter Schulz of PIG
Posted: Sunday, July 09, 2006
By: Ilker Yücel
Editor

Raymond Watts is a man who should need no introduction, as he is one of the best-known figures in the industrial music scene. Since the early '80s, this man has helped to shape the genre into what it is today, having collaborated with a number of the scene's biggest acts, including J.G. Thirlwell of Foetus, Einstürzende Neubauten, and most especially KMFDM; considered by many to be one of the group's defining members, Watts' contributions on such titles as NIHIL, Attak, WWIII, and even the debut album What Do You Know, Deutschland? have helped to propel KMFDM to the industrial rock powerhouse they are today. In the late '80s, Watts branched out to begin his own musical outlet, known as PIG. In contrast to his work with KMFDM, PIG's sound featured a more diversified sonic palette, utilizing orchestral samples in a manner not dissimilar to the likes of Barry Adamson, as well as pushing the boundaries and toying with the clichés of industrial rock. Rife with alliteration and playing on the tried and true themes of sex, drugs, and rock 'n' roll, PIG has achieved an incredibly high status in the scene on its own, leading to further collaborations in Japan with groups like Buck-Tick, Schaft, and Schwein. PIG has toured with Nine Inch Nails, Chemlab, Psychic TV, and Haloblack, firmly planting Watts' feet as one of the unabashed heroes of industrial music. This has all been in spite of recurring issues with proper record label distribution, making PIG's releases some of the most sought after in the scene.

In 2004, after touring with KMFDM for WWIII, Watts released Pigmartyr, an album that marked a tumultuous time in the Lord of Lard's career. As Internet lore would have it, the album was initially to be released on the fledgling KMFDM Records label, only to have those plans fall through. The album was produced entirely by Watts and the live members of PIG, Jules Hodgson, Steve White, and Andy Selway, who have since moved on to become permanent members of KMFDM. Grand Recordings picked up the album, deciding to have the band name changed simply to Watts but retaining the PIG logo. Making matters worse was the lack of a proper mastering job, as well as several shipments of the CD not being sent to their respective customers, thereby botching the release of Pigmartyr and ultimately forcing Grand Recordings to go under. More smoke and rumors would abound as Watts took an apparent hiatus for the space of a year, before Metropolis Records announced a re-release of the album was underway, reviving the PIG moniker, renaming the album Pigmata, and giving it a proper mastering job, courtesy of Isaac Glendening of Cesium_137. In 2006, PIG went on a tour of America, their first since the 1999 tour for Genuine American Monster, with a new live lineup, support acts Mindless Faith and Digital Mindy along for the ride, and renowned guitarist Günter Schulz on the bill. While the tour has unfortunately been cut short as of this writing, ReGen still managed to catch up with the Mighty Swine during their stop in Baltimore, MD. After introducing himself with a brief discussion about human bodily functions and toilets around the world, and with Günter Schulz joining in, Raymond Watts gives us the lowdown on the hoedown, giving insight into the reasons behind his hiatus, the trials and tribulations of dealing with record labels, and being back on tour in America...and that's when he's not trailing off into amusing discussions about subjects ranging from geography to America's highways to modern recording studios.

This is the first tour you've been on as PIG since 1999, not including your stints with KMFDM. How do you feel about being back on the road as PIG?

Watts: Oh, it's great. I mean, we played a few songs with KMFDM if you remember, so it was time to work some shit out and do the kind of rock band and rock songs, and it does sort of have a new lineup, and we wanted to bring it out here and do it. So, yeah, it's good. I can't actually remember the question you just asked. (Laughs.)

Well, it's good that you mention the lineup, because it's two members of In Winter, Charlie M., and Günter as a special guest. How did they end up becoming part of the PIG lineup?

Watts: Well, it was either to get people from London, and that would've meant the whole process of bringing them out here, which was...what really happened was that ages ago in France, I spent quite a bit of time there, and it was really a few years ago when I was on tour with KMFDM, I toured my life out. I was pretty fucked up from my touring, and it had been going on and on for ages, and it cost me a fucking wife and another house, and all that kind of stuff, and I needed an emotional check. And so when I got back, I needed to step back and deal with some of the other crap going on in my life, and I had to get my shit together and jump off the whole album, album, album, tour, tour, tour, wife, wife, wife, not seeing my kids...the whole thing, you know? I didn't want to get back into feeling out musicians in London, just starting that whole process again. I mean, that lineup, and they're really wonderful guys, fantastic musicians, Jules [Hodgson], Steve [White], and Andy [Selway], and I introduced them into the KMFDM fold, and they were coming in and out of tour with it, and now they're very happy there. I had to just kind of go get my own shit together. So going through that process of putting together a band in England felt like it would be going back to that thing, so I wanted it to be completely different. I called Günter up and said, 'I've got this new album, Pigmartyr, blah, blah, blah, I've got this tour. What're you doing?' And I twisted his arm ferociously, and he was being all good and European and living in Canada, and it's only a small four-and-a-half-thousand mile divide. I called him up, and he said, 'Ja! Das ist gut.'

I had heard that you had some visa trouble with Slick Idiot?

Schulz: Nope.

Watts: But it's a real hassle getting visas. That was one of the other reasons why, because I figured, 'Well, if I get guys from London, it's going to be more visas, more shit,' and then we figured that Günter can do it with his visa, and I've got my visa, and that's fine, no worries, and what we'll do is we'll just call people who would be interested. The tour manager suggested a few people we spoke to, various guitarists; we needed two guitarists. And we sort of had a chat about who could do it and I suggested a few people, made a few phone calls, some people wanted to do it but couldn't do it, blah, blah, blah. Then we got to Jason [Knotek], and he said, 'Maybe I could do it. Let me listen to it,' and then we were looking at drummers. It was all a bit virtual.

Schulz: We found quite a few people on MySpace. It was actually on MySpace.

Watts: I don't run my own MySpace, but then it's funny because people say, 'You have how many friends?' And I'm like, 'What? I've never met them.' But they act funny because then people will post on the message boards on there, and I'll say something, and the first thing I got was, 'You're not fucking Raymond Watts. You posted this at 5:00 in the morning, London time. You wouldn't be up at that time, so it's obviously not you.' And I say, 'No, it actually is me. I actually do get up this early.' 'No, you fucking lie!'

That's the problem with those things, nobody believes you.

Watts: Yeah, just fucking grow up. But that was the original idea behind The Sick City with Bryan Black, to be a sort of umbrella thing for all the projects and collaborations; it's a bit more eclectic.

About this current lineup, what are the chances of them working in the studio on PIG releases?

Watts: Well, they've got their own things, you know? When the situation allows, if they're not busy, then it might be possible, but at the moment, what we're just doing is coming here.

Schulz: It's easier because we're coming from Europe, and they're already here in America.

Watts: Yeah, and that's a weird thing because you talk to these people on the phone, and then you have to worry about things like getting them a hotel room and all that shit, and lugging around 300 pounds of shit, and then going to a rehearsal. So it's all a bit virtual, but then you actually get them into the room and it's a lot of work, so it's very well to have it all planned out.

Schulz: I like drummers.

Watts: They're the same thing sometimes, because you'll tell them, 'We want you to play Rocky, the movie theme, can you do that?' And they say, 'Yeah, sure.' And then they come up there, and they turn completely fucking chicken.

Schulz: Or what happens is that they will say, 'Yeah, I can play that.' And then they will come, and they can't play it, or they will play it wrong. I had this one guy who could play, but he couldn't travel.

Watts: I went through 16 drummers before I found Andy. But it's physically daunting too, because we're a small band, on a small label. The people who know us are very enthusiastic, but we're small and we know it. We have to carry our own shit on the stage, and that's just the way it is. And drudging around the country is very financially and physically scary. We started the tour in Florida, and it's really hot down there, and humid, and my throat hurts, but we rehearsed in Cleveland.

The next question does pertain to Günter. You two worked together last on Genuine American Monster. After several years of not working together, was there any kind of tension in working together again?

Watts: Yeah, the first thing we did was bash each other on the head.

Well, there are Internet rumors and the hoopla about tensions with KMFDM.

Schulz: There's actually no tension with KMFDM. I have tension with that one member of KMFDM, but not with everybody else. But working with Raymond again, the last time I worked with him was six or eight years ago, and it just felt right.

Raymond, you had also worked with Marc Heal of Cubanate on Pigmartyr. How did you end up working with him during this period?

Watts: Basically, he comes from London, and we know him, and then we talked about his studio complex. It's called Punish Studios; it's a rehearsal room, storage spaces, and we'd been to three locations, and then I had to set up a studio when I came back from Berlin. We bought some space for a studio, and then I moved out for a bit, and then I moved back in, and there was no space then, and then Marc said, 'I've got a studio.' So he's next door working on things, I'm in there working on things, I'd wander in and say, 'Oh shit, that's quite cool. Why don't we put these chords on it and sing this?' And he'd say, 'Yeah, I think that's cool.' And we'd have bass lines and basic things going on, and so it was like that. Back when I was married, I was kind of living near there, and we literally ended up living next to each other.

Schulz: That's what it's like, the way you described it, when you just meet people, or like people on MySpace, you just meet them, and then you take it from there.

Watts: That's that thing we like to call 'networking.' You just hang out in the crowd and meet people.

Schulz: Yeah, and you'll find people in the most unlikely places.

Watts: Yeah, exactly. Like you, I mean, I met you a few years ago, and people go off and do their own things, and then you kind of call them up, and whether it's been six years or six days, you just pick them up from there. And I like things like that. It's kind of more organic.

It seems to be working. Now, you've had a problem in the past with record labels that wouldn't distribute PIG properly. Pigmartyr was no exception, and then there was the issue with Cleopatra and Praise the Lard.

Watts: That wasn't their fault. The guy in London literally sold the rights, which he didn't own, and I found out about it. I heard that Praise the Lard was coming out in the States, and I didn't know who Cleopatra were; I called them up, showed them the contract and the rights belonged to me, and they said, 'Well, do you want us to be cleared?' I mean, he was really honest about it, and said that they would recall them. I think that it's funny that it would be Cleopatra. Anyway, the guy was totally honest and said, 'I will recall them,' and I thought, 'Well, shit. I don't want to bum them out.' But it was the slight problem of using the artwork from the 12" vinyl thing and an incorrect list of tracks, and then there's the publishing, and I got to pay the guys, and he tracked the guy down and showed him the contract, and I maybe got a third of the money back that I should've. But they need to make a living, so I would just do a couple of covers for them as well.

Schulz: Yes, they always like to put out tribute albums.

Watts: Yeah, and it's just fun to do something like a cover, like Nine Inch Nails. I mean, how do you 'out-Trent' Trent? You don't.

With the advent of the Internet and these self-owned labels going on these days, do you still find that working with record labels is a necessary practice?

Watts: Well, like with the Pigmartyr thing, I have very little trust in record labels, especially English labels. I mean, I have quite a nice thing happening with a manager guy in Japan and an A&R guy out there who helped do things like the Schaft project and the Schwein project and those things that are very established acts out there. So, it was fun to go out there, do it, and go to another country. But I'm not interested in the record labels. I don't want to be a part of it, so when this guy came and offered to put the album out, I thought, 'Well, I don't really like releasing stuff on these labels.' But people bought it in America, and when we did it, he put it in the same fucking logo form, but we'll call it Watts, call it Pigmartyr with a 'Y,' and see how we do. And the dollar per pound issue was really strong at that time with the shipping, and people would order it, and they weren't arriving. Dave at Metropolis saw that and called me up, we figured we'd put three new songs on it, and they'll remaster it, and we'll get new artwork from Stephen Lovell-Davis, the guy who did the other shit.

And Metropolis is probably one of the bigger labels for industrial music here.

Watts: I don't know, and I'm sure you know much, much, much more about than me, but they're very practical, and they've got their feet on the ground, and they don't take risks. They kind of look at what you might sell or what you have sold, and they see that we're going on tour, and it might work out, and I'm not dissing them at all, but they're very practical.

Schulz: Plus, you have things like iTunes going on, where every song is available on iTunes.

Watts: When it was all vinyl, CDs came along, and people remastered and even remixed the music. So people bought it on vinyl, then they bought it on CD, and now it's happening again with the whole online thing.

Your music has been lumped into the industrial music category, and this is more of a technology question, seeing as how industrial music always uses the latest technology…

Watts: Yes we do! We actually had to change our fucking audio system this afternoon. We're not fucking running a Mac. We're running an Alesis fucking...something system. But like tonight, we're using a whole new fucking backing system. There are no fucking safety glasses.

Schulz: It's a good question though, because over the years, we've invested in all the kind of hardware that we have; we can do it all on the computer now, and people can…

Watts: Yeah, people can make it in their bedroom and blah, blah, blah...but I fucking did Praise the Lard in my bedroom with like a tape deck, spring reverb, two compressors, and one fucking microphone, and no parametric reducer. I had a little mixing desk, and in those days, I was using things like the Fostex and the spring reverb. Anyway, what was the point?

Actually, you were on the point, because considering how tech-savvy people are these days and how industrial music is a technology-oriented style of music, how well do you keep up with the latest developments?

Watts: Well, I've kind of stepped back from being a musician. I used to play bass, and I just realized that if you're really going to be a good musician, you really have to be very good; you have to practice four hours a day if you want to make a living so that you will be hired by people. You really have to know it and have to be a good guitarist and have your shit worked out. It's not about jumping around on stage. It's all about these tiny things like muting strings and tuning the strings the right way and being an artist. And I kind of figured that wasn't really my thing. And the same thing about being tech-savvy or being a programmer. There are people who are brilliant programmers, but I've found that brilliant programmers get into this fucking thing where they get sucked into the screen and they spend all fucking day programming a hi-hat sound, when you can get a session drummer to play it brilliantly. Like Keith LeBlanc, who is a brilliant drummer; he comes out and you can give him something in 5/4 and then a 7-time, and he goes into the control room, says 'OK,' and he can do it in one take. I'm just fucking blown away by that shit. So going back to this whole thing about drum programming, I just leave them alone. I don't know how to install them or all that stuff. Because I want to think about writing words and all that shit. Anyway, what was the question?

Seeing as how you guys have been in music for quite awhile, what sort of changes have you noticed in the music scene as a whole, not just industrial, and how do you feel you've adapted to these changes?

Watts: I don't think we've adapted to anything.

Schulz: That's why we're here.