Pool, Pigface and Preaching to the Perverted

Drummer / Label head / industrial music icon Martin Atkins looks to the past, present and future of his band and record label.

By Sean Flinn | April 25, 2001 "...the way I'm feeling right now, the high point is yet to come." Martin Atkins thinks about the future. Buy Martin Atkin's's music Visit Martin Atkins's Label Invisible Records Drummers aren't usually the first guys you notice in a band - they're back there behind the rest of the group, busting ass to keep everything on track and in sync and, unless they're letting fly with a Tommy Lee rotating cage masturbatory solo, generally letting the front man and the guitar players nab the spotlight. Drummers are, as former Einsturzende Neubauten percussionist FM Einheit once told Choler, the engine of a band. No one quite embodies that metaphor quite so perfectly as Martin Atkins, former stickman for legendary post-punk ensembles Public Image Ltd. and Killing Joke, collaborator with second wave industrial hitmakers Ministry and Nine Inch Nails, and founder of Invisible Records, one of the most successful indie labels on the planet. Atkins has also grabbed more than a little attention as fulcrum for the performance-pop-industrial-terrorist outfit Pigface, which he and other participants (including drummer William Rieflin and former Skinny Puppy vocalist Ogre) started just after completing an infamous Ministry tour in 1989 (preserved on record and video as In Case You Didn't Feel Like Showing Up). And as much as he eschews credit for Pigface's success (the band has, in its decade history, brought together well over 100 musicians as collaborators in both the studio and on stage, and served as a spring board for the like of Trent Reznor, Lesley Rankine -Ruby - and more), he is unquestionably the group's driving force, serving as its sole permanent member, funding recordings and tours and preaching its gospel of participation-as-art whenever and wherever he gets a chance. The results have been, if not on the staggering level of success afforded some other bands in the industrial genre, more than respectable. Pigface has amassed an enduring and loyal fan base, and its legendary live shows draw fresh blood every time Atkins sinks himself into debt and hauls the band out on the road. His work with Invisible, has been equally impressive: In excess of 100 releases in ten years, from bands like the infamous Sheep on Drugs, Psychic TV, Chemlab, h3llb3nt, Chris Connelly, The Damage Manual (another Atkins-anchored band), Meg Lee Chin and the Evil Mothers. Through it all, Invisible - and Atkins - has been a beacon of strength and diversity - in fact, strength through diversity, to paraphrase the label's motto - establishing a worldwide distribution network that gives independent bands global exposure and sales power. If you know even a little about the record industry, you know that's no mean feat. Choler editor Sean Flinn caught up with Martin via phone in Early March, just as he was packing up his home in England for a move back to Chicago, to discuss the recent re-launch of the Invisible Records Website and the release of a double disc Pigface retrospective, Preaching to the Perverted. Sean Flinn: The first questions I have are about the new Pigface best of, Preaching to the Perverted. Why now? What made it seem right at this juncture in time to recap Pigface's history? Martin Atkins: I think I said in the liner notes somewhere that never has a band or its audience been in need of a record like this moreso than in the case of Pigface. I mean, the last couple of time we've been out on the road … I think Pigface is known as a really fantastic, "Oh my God! We don't know what's going to happen but it's going to be fucking awesome" live show. And as much excitement as the live shows generate, you've got to think, well, OK. Let's say somebody's wandered in who hasn't heard any of the albums, and they're really excited about the show, and they like all the songs, and they go out and buy Welcome to Mexico, Asshole [the first "official" document of a Pigface live show, recorded and released in 1991] because it's got a really funny cover. Well, the sound quality is not very good. I freely admit it. I supervised the mastering myself! I don't know what the catalog number is on Welcome to Mexico. I should know … but, you know, I've been involved in mastering 200 albums since then. " There are some fucking great moments in rock history. There're some great songs. There's some unlistenable shit. But that's part of the deal. " So, I put my label owner's hat on, and I think, "What album would I tell someone, after a show, to go and buy?" And I don't fucking know! You say, "Well, you've gotta get Fook, there's some great stuff on Fook. Oh my God. You must get the Gub album, because I think Chris Connelly just is stunning on the Gub album." (And actually, halfway through mastering this new record and compiling it, I called Chris and said, "Hey, you know what? However many people have sung "Point Blank," and I think Hope Nichols did a really great job [her version is the one included on Preaching …], that's your song, and I really miss you on stage when we do that song and you're not there.") So then, you say, "Oh, you've got to get Notes From Thee, Underground. Boom boom boom. And there's some great stuff on New High in Low." But that's five albums right there, and a $70 outlay. I can't expect either someone to go and buy those five albums just because they had a great time at one show, nor can I expect anymore for every record store in the country to have all of those five albums in stock all the time. So it's partially for that reason. I think one of the working titles I had for the album was, An Idiot's Guide to Pigface. For me, sitting there ... I spent months working on the record, and going through tapes, and having people going off with 2" tapes to studios and coming back with mixes of songs that I'd never heard before. In compiling disc 1, it was also an opportunity for to use some of the editing techniques I use now, and the arranging techniques I use now on songs that really could have used it. I mean, some of the songs I remember as being great, but they're left at seven-and-a-half minutes long, and I probably wouldn't do that today if I was making these records again. OK, so you actually went back and cleaned up some of the recordings for the best of? Oh, every tack has been remastered. I think the first three albums were quite quiet. Yes, they were indeed. You've got to remember: Gub was recorded 10 years ago, and a lot has happened in the last 10 years. So I edited some of the songs; I kind of re-focused them, so that the songs, [come across on the album] how I remembered them in my head from live shows and the energy level I felt was communicated. And, in listening to disc 1, I felt all kinds of emotions. I missed William [Tucker, a stalwart of the Chicago Trax industrial scene, who committed suicide in 1999]. I missed everybody. I wanted to go out and tour an hour after I left the studio. I also felt proud of some of the very uncompromising work that we'd done, and how much had come from this whole idea. There are some fucking great moments in rock history. There're some great songs. There's some unlistenable shit. But that's part of the deal. I felt a whole range of emotions. So it was an opportunity to re-focus the songs, and provide something that would underpin the next 10 years of Pigface. And I'm sure I've said this many times before: I don't know if I'll be in the next version of Pigface. That's always been a possibility, given the premise for Pigface. In fact, I think there's been a couple of shows where I ended up, like at one show in Florida, playing pool with somebody, and applauding from the audience. I mean, that's the performance art, the "questioning everything" aspect of most of the things that we do. | Next