Describing Pigface is nearly impossible these days. In their early days, it was easy to tag them as an industrial supergroup. Spearheaded by Invisible Records head Martin Atkins (Ministry, Public Image Ltd.) and counting Chris Connelly (Ministry, Revolting Cocks, Fini Tribe), Trent Reznor (Nine Inch Nails), Ogre (Skinny Puppy) and En Esch (KMFDM) among its ranks, the band's sonic experiments seemed to justify the "industrial" label Traveling from show to show, the band gained and lost musicians and songs morphed into barely recognizable reflections of the originals. As the concept of Pigface progressed, new musicians joined the fold, including Meg Lee Chin and Jared Louche (Chemlab), and the group made a series of increasingly cohesive albums. Along the way, Atkins continued to develop the live show into a free-form experience in which even the musicians don't know what's coming next. In past tours, I've seen them with one to three drummers, a myriad of guitar and bass players, cello, flaming samplers, sitar, fire-eaters, belly dancers and more vocalists than you can shake a stick at. Each time, there is an undeniable sense of celebration and excitement in the crowd and on the stage.

I sat down with a portion of the current Pigface lineup before a recent show in Portland, Oregon. This particular live incarnation featured Atkins, Chin, Connelly, Louche, Curse Mackey (Evil Mothers, Grim Faeries), Charles Levi (My Life with the Thrill Kill Kult), Krztoff (Bile), Leanne (Beer Nuts), Seibold (Hate Dept.). During the performance, we were treated to an S&M show, fake snow showering the audience, and at one point, thirty people rioting on stage. All music fans should make a point of seeing Pigface at least twice.

Splendid: So, ten years on, how do you feel about it?

Martin Atkins: Actually, I don't think we did it for three years. We did shows two and half years ago, but we only did eight shows. When was it before that?

Curse Mackey: ‘94.

Martin Atkins: Yeah, I don't know what's going on. I think we're definitely better at being Pigface.

Splendid: What does that mean?

Martin Atkins: It means... Well, maybe we're not better, but when new people like Krztoff or Seibold come in to Pigface, they know about it. So they have an idea about what might be going on.

Meg Lee Chin: It's sort of taken on a life of its own.

Martin Atkins: Yeah, sometimes I felt like it has been pulling me along rather than me having to push every minute of every day. We are better at being Pigface. There is more...

Charles Levi trips over my wife Colleen's purse, which is in the aisle of the bus. She wisely hides it behind her legs, because Levi's pretty pissed.

Charles Levi: Somebody's going to get killed.

Everyone stares at him in shocked silence.

Curse Mackey: It's just a bag. Put your shoes on the right feet.

Nervous laughter as Levi stalks out.

Martin Atkins: Um... We're better at it. We've got the scenery all together.

Splendid: Are you having more fun with it?

Martin Atkins: That's not really the right word. It's difficult being away from families. I have children, Chris (Connelly) has children now. So fun is not the right word.

Splendid: Why do you do it, then?

Martin Atkins: It's fueling for us and the audience. And it feels more important now than it has in the past, because here we are with twelve of us on stage and meanwhile King Crimson are downsizing to make more fiscal sense of their stage show. It's just meaningless. Drivel. And I'm sensing that across America, people have no room any more for mediocrity. Whether it's mediocre food, mediocre entertainment of any description, mediocre bands going through the motions, mediocre half-assed cheap, shoddy stage productions. People are like "Fuck off, we've got no time for this anymore. We could have been dead and were not. We're here and we're not going to put up with this shit."

Splendid: You really think things have changed that much this quickly?

Martin Atkins: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, we're apologizing to a promoter because we only sold 425 tickets for a show on a Monday night somewhere and he said "Don't worry about it, The Cult are here tomorrow night and we've only sold thirty tickets." People are returning shit music to stores. So labels like Cleopatra are in trouble because they cynically sell meaningless shit that has a life span of two weeks. Some CDs, you're like, "Wow good title, good idea for a CD." You take it home and it's shit. So they take it back. Not only are they less willing to deal with mediocrity but they're more able to trade in some of this mediocre stuff that they don't want. I don't think it's all war, I don't think it's all September 11, I think people are just tired of shit. So here we are, people hear about what we do, and we had an extra fifteen people on stage last night on top of members of Godhead and Gravity Kills and the twelve of us. We had two separate tribes of people on stage and in the audience and in the balconies. It was just insane. I was more entertained at a Pigface show than I was at the last ten concerts I've been to. We were in the audience last night. There where these tribal drummers, the rest of Pigface was still on stage, Jason from Godhead was singing along with Chris Connelly. Who was playing my drums? Somebody was. There were a few people dancing, girls with fire in the audience. It was spectacular. I was smiling from ear to ear.

Meg Lee Chin: That cool one with the delay pedals.

Martin Atkins: Yeah! What were they called?

Meg Lee Chin: People of Earth.

Martin Atkins: They should have gone on for "Flowers" and "Nutopia".

Meg Lee Chin: I was actually thinking that while it was happening.

Martin Atkins: The drones were fantastic. So this stuff is as fueling for us. We're being entertained. So when you have performers on stage who are aware, conscious, open-eyed, open-eared, and open-minded, who are being entertained and lit up, if you like, from inside, we're on stage feeding that energy back to the audience who are jumping on stage and playing our instruments; it's just a great feeling. And I think it's what music used to be about 200 years ago. So for whatever reasons, it's too simplistic to say, oh, this is before September 11, after September 11. Something has changed very, very dramatically across the country. There's also rising unemployment.

Splendid: Do you feel like you are trying to do the same thing with Invisible and the Thee Notes from the Real Underground compilation in terms of creating this feedback?

Martin Atkins: Yes, it's Invisible and now this new company called Underground, Inc. that we have. We're helping other people to start labels, helping them to avoid the mistakes we made. Just trying... well, trying to make a difference sounds a bit Betty Crocker, but that's what we're trying to do. It's silly if I see someone making mistakes we made ten years ago. It's silly. There's no shared, learned history in independent music. There's shared history at major labels. They know all about Manipulation 101. But there's no collective, shared history in independent music because everyone feels that we're in competition with one another. But in reality, we're in competition with the major labels.

Splendid: Do you feel there's any value to letting people make the same mistakes for themselves?

Martin Atkins: Yeah. Like with my boys, they fall over, they get up. You don't put them in a padded room, at least not very often. Yeah, there are certainly people who... I guess there's a carpet commercial, where they say "An educated consumer is our best customer". And I thought, "Well, that doesn't make any sense because if someone knows the best price and the best carpet, they're going to have more information to work a better deal". Unless you're working at a carpet store that does have good products and good advice. And I guess that's the deal with Underground Inc. and with Invisible. If someone believes they can do it all themselves and they don't need help, then yes, we're much better off letting them fail miserably. Like if they manufacture 1000 CDs when they really only need to manufacture 750. Let them make all the mistakes. Then if they're still around in two years, they'll know that they need help.

Splendid: Would you say the same thing is true for artists?

Martin Atkins: I was very shy about doing that until about two years ago. Then I said to a few people, "This is fucked. In a year and a half's time, you'll know that what you're doing right now is fucked." And this guy says to me, "Look, at that time, I'll call you and apologize. I'll say, you're right Martin, and I'll apologize." And I said, "Don't. I know I'm right now; you don't. By the time you find out, I won't care and a call from you will just be insulting. Bye bye." I've started to do this. Someone just gave me an album last week with a picture of a robot on the front and an intriguing band photograph inside. And I just called him up and said, "We need to put the intriguing band photo on the front, I'm connecting to these people, I'm interested in the music they're making, I don't care about this fucking robot." And I do more of that.

Splendid: Is that what you view your role as a producer as?

Martin Atkins: In a way, yeah. A producer is just someone with a different point of view. If you're in a maze, if you're stuck in a maze there's a person hired by the maze shop. They have them over here, don't they, hedgerow mazes?

Splendid: Yeah, but they're made of corn.

Martin Atkins: What? (Incredulously)

Splendid: They're in cornfields.

Martin Atkins: Okay... Then you have someone sitting on top of this ladder. And you're in the maze and you're panicked and you're saying "Ahhh, ahhh!" and you start to freak out. And there's this guy on a ladder and he might seem like a genius or he could manipulate or fuck with you, but he's just standing on a ladder. And he can say "Left, right, left, left," and you're out. That's what a producer is. That's all a producer is.

Splendid: Can I ask a question that might offend you?

Martin Atkins: Sigh, go ahead.

Splendid: Why did you produce Gravity Kills? That just shocked me.

Martin Atkins: Why?

Splendid: Well, I saw them once and just thought they were like everybody else. It really surprised me; maybe I missed something on that particular night. What I've heard is decent; I guess. It just didn't seem like something you would take on.

Martin Atkins: Well, they're not on my label. I produced their record. They hired me to produce their record. There's a bit of a difference. Not much of a difference, because I can't work on anything just for money, if I don't have ideas. They're great song-smiths, if you like. They're nice guys and they came to me with thirty songs. If all I did was stuff that was easy for me to do, that would be boring or shit or lackluster. We nearly came to blows all during the first three weeks. Yeah. And surprisingly, it was over me wanting to create some sweeter, more harmonic, laid-back sections to songs. I mean you'd probably think that we'd come to blows over me banging pots and pans over Gravity Kills tracks. But they're actually a very powerful, accomplished band. They're great players, great writers. What I saw as a producer is that they wanted so much to showcase how hard they really are that they were in danger of creating a very one-dimensional album. So it was very interesting for me because I was doing some things that I wouldn't have expected to do, coming up with vocal harmonies, looking at lyrics, and arranging some songs. Changing things around.

Splendid: What do you think has led to this progression towards more melodic music? I mean, with your stuff, with Chris's recent work, such as Largo? Ten years ago, I don't think that anyone would have guessed these people would be making this music. Is it a natural progression?

Martin Atkins: I don't have anything to do with Chris's progression.

Splendid: True, but so many of the people I grew up on are moving in this direction.

Martin Atkins: Well what about the Damage Manual?

Splendid: The Damage Manual is still beautiful. Granted, there are parts that are ugly. But take "King Mob", which so much more atmospheric and meaningful that what would have come out of the Ministry tour back in ‘89. Maybe it's just me, where I am.

Martin Atkins: Maybe. But several things have happened. If we were all still making the same music as we were in ‘89, it would be a very sad place. And we wouldn't be here, we'd be bored with it.

Splendid: Do you get bored with what you're doing now?

Martin Atkins: There are times. With the Damage Manual, for instance, where they were obviously some ideas that excited me. And it excited me enough to roll up my sleeves and do all of the shit work involved. I could see where the song was going, and I knew that there were several days worth of work to get there. And once I saw where it was going, I just had to go, "Okay, go up to the house and make a cup of tea, go back down to the studio, roll up my sleeves and sit and chop and do stuff." It wasn't boring, it was exciting work, but not all the time. It was that one day with a couple of hours of excitement and then several days of drudgery.

Splendid: How do Pigface songs come about?

Martin Atkins: Just bits and pieces from everybody.

Splendid: Do you guys get together, do people send you tapes, do you send people tapes?

Martin Atkins: Yes. All of those things, in different degrees. We started working on a new record, so we'll see what happens. It's going to be lots of that.

Meg Lee Chin: It's more eclectic. It's more a philosophy than the Damage Manual. Like we said earlier, it's become its own entity. It exists outside of the people in it.

Martin Atkins: Yeah.

Splendid: Do you think Pigface could exist without you, Martin?

Martin Atkins: I would really like to think so.

Meg Lee Chin: No, I don't think it could.

Splendid: Do you like to think that the day will come when you can step back and watch it move on, on its own?

Martin Atkins: It depends on if I still get the t-shirt money. (Laughter)

Meg Lee Chin: It could be Pigface if Martin sat back with a controller, if there were a bunch of them. A franchise Pigface, and he sat with a walkie-talkie and some telephones; it could still be Pigface that way. But I don't think it could work if Martin wasn't in it at all. That would be impossible.

Martin Atkins: I would like that to be possible. I'd like to think that. I mean, sometimes I'll just stop songs if they're going on too long.

Splendid: Does it ever get away from you? You want to stop it and it won't?

Martin Atkins: No. I mean I've left the stage sometimes. Last night I stood on the floor with Chris Mackey watching the show, watching what was going on on the dance floor with the girls with the fire. And it's a pretty strange feeling to see your band on stage. Freddy Mercury couldn't say that. But of course, he's dead. But it's pretty wild to stand in the audience and watch the band. I mean, you can do it, Chris.

Chris Connelly: Yeah.

Martin Atkins: I did it once, years ago. I went and played pool with Katrina (Atkins). En Esch was playing the drums and he was really great.

Splendid: Can I ask about some of the people not on this tour?

Martin Atkins: Yeah.

Splendid: Jim Marcus. What's going on with his world?

Martin Atkins: He's doing web stuff in Boston.

Splendid: Bobdog?

Martin Atkins: He joined us for two shows in Texas, he has stuff going on with his family.

Splendid: Is he still doing stuff with Pseudo Buddha?

Martin Atkins: Yeah, I think there's a second disc coming out. He gave me some stuff when we were down there.

Splendid: What happened to Hanzel und Gretyl? That was one band that just shocked me. I saw them open for Sister Machine Gun.

Martin Atkins: Yep.

Splendid: And my jaw just hit the floor and stayed there for an hour. And then, nothing.

Martin Atkins: I call them every six months. (Long pause)

Splendid: Okay.

Martin Atkins: I think Vas is excellent. I think Lupie does good stuff, he did a remix for us. They're looking for some deal in the sky that will never occur.

Splendid: Are there people you've invited who refused to come?

Martin Atkins: Yeah. Several. Elton John was very rude. (Laughter) No. Danny from Tool was at the LA show, he just didn't want to play with us.

Meg Lee Chin: He just got off his own tour.

Martin Atkins: Yeah. "Hey, would you like to come and play drums on your night off?" No. I'm trying to think.

Splendid: How has the idea of what Pigface ought to be evolved?

Martin Atkins: Ought to be?

Splendid: What it is, the way it moves, the way if feels?

Martin Atkins: I think it's shifted over the last ten years from audio to visual.

Splendid: How about you, Meg? You've been with this for six, seven years now?

Martin Atkins: How long have you been with Pigface?

Meg Lee Chin: Since 1993.

Martin Atkins: Really? Fucking hell. I would have said 1996. Wow.

Jared Louche walks on the bus.

Jared Louche: Hi. You look familiar.

Splendid: Yeah, we met in Portland when you were doing the Soapbox/Beatbox tour.

Jared Louche: Oh yeah. How are you?

Splendid: Good.

Meg Lee Chin: I remember that record store. I actually remember what I ate that day.

Splendid: That's either a good thing or a bad thing.

Martin Atkins: What did you eat?

Meg Lee Chin: A burrito. I won't be eating there again.

Splendid: Yeah, that'll stick in your memory.

Meg Lee Chin: Oh yeah.

Splendid: What about you, Chris? It's been a while since you've been intimately involved with Pigface. Is it nice to be back?

Chris Connelly: Um-hmm.

Splendid: Is it how you remember it?

Chris Connelly: No, it's changed. The dynamic changes because the people have changed. They do different things, bring different things to the table. But I really like playing with the new people who are involved. A lot. I like it better myself. I think that I've certainly grown up a lot and learned to appreciate what is good about the music. And learned when to shut the fuck up. You know? I've learned about the dynamics of being on stage with a big group of people. And how that is improvised and yet it needs to be orchestrated or it'll be chaos. And it reaches that almost-chaos every night. But I think there is respect among the people doing it. And I think that everybody is doing their jobs really diligently. When Pigface first started, before the first-ever tour, I don't know how many minutes we put into rehearsal.

Martin Atkins: Did we rehearse?

Chris Connelly: We just thought, "Fuck it, let's just go do it." There was a lot of chasing your own tail. By the end of that tour, we were achieving great things and then the second tour was really good. I feel more focused now in general, in my life. And I think I can say that for anyone who's around, they're more focused. But there's also such a sense of release, as well. I've not done a Pigface tour for ten years.

Martin Atkins: Wow.

Chris Connelly: Yeah, since ‘91.

Martin Atkins: Wow.

Splendid: Do you feel like you have defined roles?

Chris Connelly: Not really. If I went up to someone and said I really feel like playing guitar tonight, nobody's going to say no. I think there are defined roles in the sense of realizing one's own limitations.

Meg Lee Chin: Leaning on each other.

Chris Connelly: Yes. I like the role I play and that's good. I feel like that's a valuable contribution. I am very aware of other people's roles. I don't think there's any center stage at all. I think that it's, not by sitting around and talking about it, but I think it's become that way. There are several lead singers and I think that's a great thing to have for the band and for the audience.

Splendid: Is your role something beyond the music?

Chris Connelly: Yeah, I guess. I mean, I'm not just a singer who comes on, does his job, and fucks off again. But that's any band on tour. You have your role on stage and offstage. That's true for any job, I think, where you have a relationship with the people you work with. You either see them during the day or you do not see them during the day. And there's that dynamic going on. My role in the band as a singer is to bring these songs to life every night and to try to breathe something into them that maybe I didn't feel the night before. I try to keep it interesting for me and for everyone around. I do that. And I think I do it well. Otherwise I'd get bored and go home.

Martin Atkins: I think that the defined role of everybody is to pay attention. And the show isn't the same every night; we change them. We're playing different songs and different people will play on them. It's like if you were having soup every day, you'd be on a mission to find something else. If everything is very regimented, some of us would begin to bring chaos into that. That's what it is. It's to have that balance between a bit of stability and this element of chaos. If you have two hours of chaos every night, it isn't chaos. The chaos becomes boring. Everybody's involved in that balance.

Splendid: Outside of Pigface, what's going on with you, Meg?

Meg Lee Chin: I don't know yet, I have to wait until after the tour. I'm not living anywhere right now. I've got to figure out where I'm going to live.

Splendid: Are you thinking about leaving London?

Meg Lee Chin: I've already left London. I don't actually live anywhere. Right now my whole world is Pigface. And I have to say that this is really the best band anywhere for any vocalist to be in. It's the most challenging band you can possibly be in. The thing about being a vocalist, 90% of it is about being confident. With Pigface, there are things against you. Just when you start being confident, you've got your little routine down, something changes. So then you have to dredge up even more confidence, you have to invent it on the spot. And then there are other vocalists so it teaches you to work with other singers as well. Whereas most singers have probably been in bands where they were the only lead vocalist. By working with other singers, it brings about another sort of sensory education, in that you have to pay really close attention to vibe and the overall show. As to, "Okay, this person came out and took the audience to this kind of level, now where am I going to take them from here? I've got to pick up the ball and run with it." And they other thing is stage dynamic. When one person is out there and you can see they've got the audience, you step back. Then when they start to flag, you step in and you go for it. It's an experience and an education that you wouldn't be able to get in any other situation. I'm really really lucky to be in Pigface. It should be a prerequisite to being a vocalist.

Martin Atkins: Somebody said it quite well -- it's like some kind of Betty Ford Clinic, some kind of recuperation camp. And it's lots of little things. It's like, "Oh, I use this throat coat." I've got five drummers on this tour. And one's like, "Put some super glue on your hand for blisters." And I'm like, "What the fuck are you talking about?!" "Put super glue on." "Oh yeah!" It's a revelation. Like we were talking about before, just sharing information. "Don't go there, that guy's fucked. Here's my guy who does radio promo, t-shirts." This information is pretty powerful.

Splendid: How has Pigface affected your own touring, Meg? We saw you last December. Hey, why do you always tour in November and December? That seems like the nastiest time to tour.

Martin Atkins: I don't know. (Laughs) I don't know.

Meg Lee Chin: It's a really nice balance. When I've got my own band, I've got a lot more musical control, which satisfies the control freak side of me. But then when I'm with Pigface, I've got a whole ‘nother way of working. It just stretches my muscles.

Splendid: Is it hard for you as a control freak to give up control of songs like "Nutopia"?

Meg Lee Chin: Yeah, it is hard.

Splendid: Have you ever not sung it?

Meg Lee Chin: No.

Splendid: Could you?

Martin Atkins: What, as a protest?

Meg Lee Chin: It'd be pretty interesting. I'd probably be pretty critical.

Splendid: That's one of the things I've always liked, that female presence you bring to it. Take "Suck". In the original version, it's a very male song, and the phrase "suck" has very sexual connotations. So when you use female vocals and the sitar, it just takes the song to a very different place. That's an amazing thing. And I've often wondered what it would be like to hear Jared or Chris doing "Nutopia".

Martin Atkins: And if you didn't have to sing, you could completely go home. (Laughter)

Meg Lee Chin: I've always wanted to do one of the boys' songs.

Splendid: Such as?

Meg Lee Chin: "Murder Inc." But Chris has got that one. "Seven Words", that's one of my favorites. Also "Asphole", that's one of my favorites.

Splendid: How come you've never released "Asphole" live on disc?

Martin Atkins: It's been... It's been... I dunno, I just haven't. There's a remix of it that was a minor dance hit.

Splendid: True, but it's not on Eat Shit You Fucking Redneck, it wasn't around for Welcome to Mexico... Asshole!.

Martin Atkins: Is it on Truth Will Out?

Splendid: No.

Martin Atkins: Well, I dunno.

Splendid: When you create the live albums, is it more "I like this particular performance of this song", or this song should go on because it is a standard?

Martin Atkins: It's just whatever seems to work. I mean, on Mexico, there's five versions of the same song. At that time... like I said, we're getting better at being Pigface. At that time we were trying to say to an audience, "Look, here's five versions of the song, hear how much it changes each night." We were truly spending a lot of time with this, which might not make sense on the album itself, but in 1991, when Mexico came out, we were trying to explain what Pigface was.

Splendid: Do you still have to do that?

Martin Atkins: No.

Splendid: Do you think so, Chris?

A massive blast of static from a walkie-talkie makes everyone jump.

Meg Lee Chin: What an answer!

Chris Connelly: Sorry, I was asleep. (He literally was asleep.)

Splendid: Do you still have to explain what Pigface is?

Chris Connelly: I've never explained anything. There's no explanation necessary. I mean, it's not the Koran or anything like that. It's just people getting on stage.

Splendid: Do your boys know what you do, Martin?

Martin Atkins: Yeah.

Splendid: Have they ever been to see you?

Martin Atkins: No. They're coming to St. Louis. Ian has played my drums. We both played drums in Phoenix three years ago. Harrison just saw me play drums, what, four weeks ago. He didn't know I played drums and said, "Dad, that's cool."

Meg Lee Chin: And they were both sitting forward like this.

Martin Atkins: But they were more captivated by Leanne (another drummer on the tour).

Splendid: Do they understand touring?

Martin Atkins: I think Harrison thinks I'm across town at a rehearsal and just doesn't understand why I won't come home. So that's a little bit troubling. But they're coming to the St. Louis show, so... Ian knows.

Splendid: How old is Ian?

Martin Atkins: Ian's six, Harrison's four. So they'll understand more. I'm looking into different ways of touring next year; it's too involving.

Splendid: Have you ever thought about bringing them with you?

Martin Atkins: Yeah.

Splendid: Have you?

Martin Atkins: No. But I think that's something that needs to be planned for. You can't just throw two children into this kind of soup. Although it is there in the house. "Who's the guy with blue hair in the living room?" Or Charles Levi will challenge them to Playstation. And they're involved with the screenprinting and the activities going on, but it's neither fair to the kids nor the twelve people on this bus to throw them into this soup.

Splendid: Is it hard on your relationships when you go on tour?

Martin Atkins: Of course. That's why we get worked up when people say "Hey are you having fun on the tour?" It's much more complicated than that.

Splendid: Do you think you'd ever quit touring?

Martin Atkins: It's crossed my mind. But for now, no. Because... (Long pause)

Everyone laughs.

Splendid: Sorry if this isn't interesting.

Martin Atkins: No, no, it's crossed my mind. I thought that the Best of Pigface was going to be our "Thank you and good night," you know. But it started fueling me again. It's very very powerful. It's a very, very powerful band. I don't know who's doing anything like this. And especially now when you look at the show. But it's not all about the show and fuck the music, there seems to be... maybe it's taken us ten years to get to the point, where we've got enough good songs. There's a couple of good songs on every album and now we've got a pretty good live set and a decent amount of visual activity.

Splendid: What songs are you thinking about for the next album?

Martin Atkins: I have no idea.

Splendid: Are you still planning on something with "Amphetaminemethamphetamine"?

Martin Atkins: I don't know. There's a few ideas I've been kicking about. And people have been coming up to me on the bus, saying hey, we've got an idea. I really have no idea, but I guess we'll see what happens. I think we're going to start working in January and see where it ends up.

Splendid: Great. Thanks guys.