Third Time's A Charm

Choler corners Pigface / Invisible Records main man Martin Atkins (yet again!) during Pigface's Preaching to the Perverted tour -- and this time, it's personal

By Hannah McLamb and Adam Dewey | January 8, 2002 Notes from backstage: Martin Atkins enjoys a rare moment of rest during the Pigface Preaching to the Perverted tour. Buy Pigface's music Visit Pigface's Web site Visit Pigface's Label Invisible Records The mighty Martin Atkins, scion of Chicago's Invisible Records, producer extraordinaire and the drumming, driving force behind the free-ranging industrial music collective, Pigface, has already graced the pages of Choler twice: once to give us the scoop on a little project called The Damage Manual (which featured Atkins, bassist Jah Wobble, Killing Joke guitarist Geordie Walker and Revolting Cocks vocalist / poet / singer songwriter Chris Connelly); another time to celebrate Pigface's 10th anniversary. We caught up with him for an unprecedented (well, for us anyway) third time in Charlotte, North Carolina during Pigface's Preaching to the Perverted tour, an extension of the band's 10th anniversary celebration that finds it hitting the road with industrial rockers Gravity Kills (whose latest album Atkins has just finished producing), Marilyn Manson prodigies gODHEAD, and a revolving lineup of local bands plugged into Atkin's latest brainstorm, an indie-music firestarter he's dubbed Underground, Inc. Atkins was as witty, articulate and passionate as ever: fervently inspired by the energy he finds flowing through the underground music scene, devoted to realizing his vision for indie music's future, and completely committed to rocking the fuck out. Choler dispatched Adam Dewey and Hannah McLamb to the the Tremont Theatre in Charlotte to uncover the gospel according to Pigface Adam: We wanted to start off talking about how the show was set up. The press releases seem to indicate that this won't be a traditional show, in that you have a band play and then 15 minutes later another band plays. Well, first of all, anytime Pigface is performing it's nontraditional. People are welcome to come and join us. They don't have to pass in the auditions -- especially with gODHEAD and Gravity Kills now, it's a non-traditional three band tour. They'll wander on stage with us at any point they feel like and join in -- or not. So, it's very different. It's a very different spirit then I have experienced in the past. Everybody knows the whole Pigface vibe so there are no limitations on anybody and it seems to be working really well. Adam: And the whole performance art part of the show -- how has that been going? Well it's great in that, within the show itself there is a section of Chris Connelly doing acoustic material (which is quite magical), there's some Damage Manual material, a couple of Meg Lee Chin songs, there's Murder Inc., just within Pigface there's a lot going on, apart from Gravity Kills and gODHEAD. Adam: So it's like a montage of Invisible Records? In a way, yeah. Hannah: When Gravity Kills were doing the Seven soundtrack they were more mainstream. Are you getting a lot of their fans at the show? Yeah, gODHEAD fans, Gravity Kills fans, Pigface fans, Meg Lee Chin fans, Chris Connelly fans. It's pretty wild. I think the Pigface fans are surprised at how much harder Gravity Kills are and that they really mean it. And gODHEAD and Gravity Kills we sit and watch them some nights, it's a great performance. And we all have a level of respect for each other. We watch Doug from Gravity Kills jump up and down and fall all over his keyboard -- yeah it's pretty wild. Adam: And you have two drummers in Pigface? Yeah, Lee Anne [who normally drums for the band Beer Nutz]. Adam: Is the line up changing from city to city like the Pigface '94 tour? Yeah. Jared [Louche] from Chemlab is coming out to Los Angeles - he's doing the last three weeks with us. I think Reeves Gabrels, David Bowie's guitarist, is coming out for some West Coast dates. Different people coming in and out - there's a guy playing digiridoo in New York, [we had] another drummer last night, I was playing tambourine, a guy blessed the stage, a girl ate a light bulb, a couple married on stage in Pittsburgh. I was telling someone earlier today or yesterday, if you asked me to write down two hundred things that might happen on the tour, already ten things have happened on the tour that hadn't been on that list, I think that's what we all love about Pigface. The difference now I think is that promoters and fans, or punters as we call them (it's an English word), aren't so uptight about, "Who is it? What's going on?" They know it's Pigface, and I think we've earned a little bit of trust, so people go, "Oh it's Pigface. I don't know who's going to be there but I'm going to have a great time." And I know the promoters, it's probably harder for the promoters because they've got managers and record labels telling them all the time, "Don't worry. Bono's gonna show up!" or "Mick Jagger is going to be there, but for another band!" It's all smokescreens and bullshit, and so they've had to learn to trust Pigface, and let go a little bit. And here we are -- after ten years I think we are at the point where everybody knows what's going on. I think we are better at being Pigface. We let go of a lot of stuff. I think maybe five years ago we we're trying to schedule guest performances everywhere. Now we just wait for people to show up, and they do. Hannah: Didn't Johnny Rotten perform with you all? He was going to come out in Los Angeles, yep, etched in stone: "I'll be there!" Boom, boom, boom -- we get to LA and he's in Germany, so it was like, well whatever! Hannah: What about [former Pigface collaborator and current Ruby frontwoman] Lesley Rankine -- do you think she'll ever come back and play with Pigface? That's up to Lesley more than it's up to me. Its been a long time since I've seen Lesley, and if you type in Martin Atkins and Lesley Rankine at the Web site you will see this page of shit. I think at one point we had a field rep in New Orleans who printed a shit which said, "Hips, Tits, Lips: Power! Pigface." It was a shirt that he printed for himself and, like I'd printed up the backdrops for the show and when I was nearly finished I ran upstairs and got two T-shirts and printed a couple of shirts for myself. He printed a shirt for himself. And Lesley was going to New Orleans to stalk Trent, I'm like, "Well, we have a field rep down there. I'll have him pick you up, his dad owns a restaurant, he will take you around New Orleans, it will be great," and that's the last I ever heard from Lesley. I think she thought somehow I had created this "Hips, Tits, Lips" shirt -- which is a Silverfish song [Silverfish is the Scottish punk band that Lesley used to front. Ed.], not the "Hips, Tits, Lips" that we do - there's another song completely. Anyway, she thought I'd made 5,000 T-shirts, and she could have called me and said, "Did you make these shirts?" "No. I don't know what you're talking about." But she didn't. She just went, "Oh my God!" and did a whole rant on the Internet. Adam: Last time you talked with Choler, you told us that during the last time Chris was with Pigface that it was almost uneasy between the two of you. Now you are better friends. Does that in itself help with the show? I think there are songs whenever we do "Point Blank" or "Ten Ground and Down," to me those were some songs we do are interchangeable with people but I think "Point Blank" and "Ten Ground and Down" and probably something else I really felt where Chris songs. And I've missed Chris and it's great -- we worked together on The Damage Manual and then he wanted to come out and do this. And someone handed me some photographs of Chris and William [Tucker, the late musician who was a core member of Pigface, Revolting Cocks and several other groups from the Chicago industrial scene] on tour together. It's bitter sweet in that I'm fairly certain that if William were still be alive he might be involved in this. We had started to talk a little bit about whatever bullshit happened between us but it's good that Chris is here. I think Chris wanting to be on this tour made me really want to make it happen. " After ten years I think we are at the point where everybody knows what's going on. I think we are better at being Pigface. " Adam: That's great, and also leads into the next question: was everyone ready to jump onto the 2001 tour or did you have to persuade or sell them on the idea? No. No, everybody was very happy, although I wanted En Esch I meet with him in New York a couple of times, and I don't know what's on his mind. I know that he wants to promote his band, Slick Idiot, which I think is a fantastic record, and I can't think of a better way for him to do that than to come out with Pigface. But he doesn't see it that way, and I tried and I flew out and met with him in New York and e-mailed him; he doesn't see it and when someone doesn't see something, you can draw a few pictures but he if he doesn't see it, he doesn't see it. Adam: How is Underground Inc. functioning as a part of this tour? Are the local bands playing on the tour just doing sets of their own or are they getting on stage with you and Pigface? Is there any apprehension they have I mean it's Pigface and they're just a local band? But if you know anything about Pigface you know that, that doesn't matter. Adam: Right. I mean when Trent Reznor came to work with Pigface he was just a local guy from a band in Cleveland who had sold about eight thousand record at the time, I mean big deal. So that's not the Pigface deal. Anybody's welcome to jump up on stage. The guys from Bozo Porno Circus came up from Texas to New York, they came up on stage with us. All kinds of people come up on stage with us, there were sixty people last night who were just dancing. They weren't even in a band. So that's never been the way - there's no VIP guest list for Pigface. Hannah: I feel very comfortable coming to the show and talking to you, your albums are so user friendly, and your web site, I think your web site is the ultimate fan website. Thank you. We've worked pretty hard on that. The whole idea of Underground Inc. is a couple of interesting things -- on the one hand, just tiny things, on the other hand, huge. One is that not every band in the world wants to sign to Invisible. Fine so there's Invisible; it's over there. I have Invisible records, it's my baby, it will always be my baby. But, because of the 200 records we've put out, we have a lot of experience, a certain amount of leverage, and we've made a hundred mistakes that another band band X doesn't need to make those mistakes because we've already made them. So I've just come to this realization like it or not I have an awful a lot of experience, contacts and leverage within the distribution network that we have and I want to use that to help other bands, like Thrill Kill Cult and their label Sleaze Box. We set the label up for them, we oversee that label and we kind of advise them. So suddenly, I think the tables are turning in favor of independent music. Because, until now, there're some books kicking around but there is no learned history in independent music. Everybody starts a label and makes all the same mistakes again that were made last year, that will be made next year, and I'm saying, "Hey! Let's stop that. We've already made the mistakes once. Lets help." So suddenly, there's a shared history and a learning that Thrill Kill Cult didn't need to make all those mistakes with their first release. We help them avoid some of those mistakes. I'm not saying that we're infallible, but together we're really making a difference. And then you think Underground Inc., which is now about fifteen labels, and you look to more labels and bring in more labels and it becomes more powerful for everybody. It's a huge revolutionary thing -- you put that together with these Notes From The Real Underground bands across the country and it feels like a fucking revolution to me. And it's working! It's not just an idea or a Website. We're here and it's real. Adam: Now we just got through talking with Luke and he said he set up a small label with a band on the first Real Notes and a band going on the third Real Notes Have you had good input from people like him? Because I know that on your Website, you're pushing for unsigned bands. Are you getting a lot of response? That's why I started it! I was in England for four years coming backwards and forwards, and one of the times I was in the office in Chicago I saw three tubs the size of that cooler full of submissions from bands. I didn't want to sign a band. I spent lots of time working in the studio with Meg, with Damage Manual and with Pigface and didn't want to go through that again. I just stop and pull out a package from SMP in Seattle -- they've put out one of their own records. They record their own stuff. They've got their own studio. They tour America. I'm just pulling out these packages, and I'm like, "There must be something I can do to help." But at the same time I can't start helping every single band. I don't have the time, we don't have the staff, we don't have the resources to do that. It just kinda weighed on my mind for a few weeks. And I started to piece this idea together, it was just going to be a double CD -- then a triple CD, then we said, "Hey, you know on the first one we provided the bands with posters." On the second one we said to the bands, "Hey we've worked out the deal for you where, if every band on number two wants to cough up 70 dollars, we can get you 6 weeks of radio promotion with a radio promotion company." So once it starts to work and you see all the ways it can work -- and we don't know all the ways yet were still in the middle of it -- it's really a beautiful thing. We're saying to the bands don't fucking call us [and say], "What have you done for me lately?" We're doing this. Call the band in Seattle. Call the band in Alaska. Call the band in New Orleans or Cleveland. Fucking do it yourself. But now there's no reason for the band in Tampa to go to Cleveland and play to five people. They can call the band in Cleveland and set up some shows together. And it's like a beautiful thing, it's a beautiful thing. It's one of those ideas I can't believe it hasn't been done. There are all kinds of collectives -- The Detroit Electronic Collective, they're all in Detroit, they're all there. We're just connecting the dots. Adam: Now last time you said that some bands would be more enthusiastic and that they would work harder and that you would work harder for them. And that some would fall off I think you gave the ratio that out of the bands on Real Underground Vol. 1, six would excel, and out of those, two would get pissed off, and two might get better. Are they working out as you expected or are they doing better? That's a good thing about the whole idea. I think two or three bands we've gotten e-mail from the hard working bands this one band in such and such city we don't think they really exist because their not fucking doing anything. We're trying to call them saying, "Hey, let's do a show together," and they're like, "Oh ah hold on. There's somebody on the other line." So it's great -- finding out that a band doesn't really exist is as useful for Underground Inc. as finding out that a band doesn't really work hard. We're not going to deal with those two bands. That's valuable information. I think that I'm surprised that the bands are there was a band that drove from New York to Pittsburgh to help us with the Pittsburgh show, Coup D'etat. It's great stuff. Talk about how many owners of record labels would love to set up a situation where they go across the country and get to watch really great local bands who are actually doing something and open up and meet them and have them be part of the whole thing like we do. It works for everybody. Read more from Choler on these Invisible Records Artists: Pigface Chris Connelly Damage Manual Martin Atkins Adam: Also last time we talked to you, you were in the process of moving back from England, and that you were going to be in the office one hour a day and be on the Website, and we have seen that a lot. Is it stretching you thin? I mean there's a lot that you're doing just online --we see a post from you at least every other day. You have the auction of the PiL signed tin and you're doing a lot more. Is it stretching you? Yeah except it's not just me -- it's Luke, it's Rob and we've got a bunch of interns in the office, and in addition of everything else I thought I was going to do I was asked to produce the new Gravity Kills album. That's four months of my time, 18 hours a day. I mean, yeah, it's stretching me very thin, but it's like there's no alternative. If I was to take a month off, I don't know what would happen. I'm not saying that there would be a big party at Invisible. It's just there are things happening everyday. At least now I can be in my studio for a little bit everyday, I can see my boys and my wife everyday, and I could be in the office. Even when I was working on Gravity Kills, I'd get up really early in the morning spend a couple of hours in the office and I was able to keep things moving along. I think that's what I'm seeing now. I've been back since March and took some time to set the studio up, and lots of thing to do I think the Underground Inc. idea is about ready to explode. That's what it feels like to me. Adam: I have one more last question: This is the first year that you've had both Meg Lee Chin and Chris Connelly on stage as headliners with Pigface. What's the reasoning behind featuring those two when you've always pushed towards anonymous-ness? We've had a phase where it was all the names, and that didn't work because there was always new people whose names weren't there, and I don't know why that is. I think to let people know that Chris is going to be there and Meg is going to be there, and I think that's as far as we got -- and then we had to print the posters. Adam: I know on the website that it says permanent tour members and it has a list of about 12 to 15 people and then it says, "More could show." I saw the names and wanted to know what was up -- I thought that Pigface was moving more towards a, which it has in my mind, a "nobody" status -- it's just Pigface, a conglomerate of musicians. Well it is. So, there's Pigface. But I wanted to let Chris's fans know and Meg's fans know that they're here. You make a good point. Maybe I was halfway between being Pigface and being the owner of Underground Inc. I just wanted people to know. Sometimes that happens -- sometimes I will put one hat on and the other hat on or I'll have a hat on each head. I think that's what happened there. Hannah: You wear a lot of hats -- I can't think of anyone who wears more. Yeah, it's crazy. I need to put my dad hat on - we're going to go away for two weeks at the end of this. Hannah: It's hard I can see that, we have two kids. Really? Boy, Girl? Hannah: We have an eight-year-old girl and a three-year-old boy he absolutely loves Pigface. All right. Do you have a sitter for tonight? Hannah: Yeah, my mom. It's the first time we have been out in a while. I know how that goes. Hannah: What do you like to do with your kids? What's your favorite thing you like to do with your kids? Well we call it the Chinese parts -- over by Chinatown [in Chicago] -- it's got all this great stuff going on. They can just run around and go mad. I like to take them to the movies, get them out of the house. Sometimes we just paint -- I'll bring a whole roll of paper and we'll draw around their bodies, and they will start doing stuff. Sometimes we play Nintendo. Hannah: He's a studio artist, I teach, I'm an English teacher. That must be great for your kids then. Hannah: It is they think it's really cool that they have a teacher that wears Doc Martin's. I was frightened because they will sit for a few hours and play the Playstation stuff, I'm like oh my god, but then they'll just come in and the TV will be on but they got their backs to it, and there drawing or coming up some thing, creative. Adam: Do you find that your creativity and I guess your drive -- your will -- is rubbing of on your kids? I don't know if it's rubbing off on them or it's genetically inside of them. Hannah: I think it's inherent. Yeah. I mean, my dad had his own band. I know that my great grandfather cast brass objects and concrete objects, and I think my great, great grandfather was an advance man for the circus. He was the guy --I think it was a great idea and I'm going to try and do it -- six weeks before the circus came to town, the advance man would go follow the route of the circus and he would have his posters and he would order the meat for the lions and the accommodations for the top performers, the camp sight for the lower echelon crew guys, put the posters up in the local diner, and give out some free tickets to let everyone know it was going on. So my great, great grandfather was a promoter -- and it's all in me. Hannah: In a way, you've kind of taken on that role. You know my boys sit behind the drum sets and watched me and Lee Anne rehearse, Harrison didn't know I was a drummer but Ian did, because he's been to a few shows. Harrison didn't know so he was like, "Dad! What the.hell?!" And I don't want to be like, "OK, here's your first drum kit!" I want them to do whatever they want to do. I don't want it to be like, "You're a lawyer and you're an accountant," but whatever they want to do.