PIG (musical project)
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| PIG | |
|---|---|
| Origin | London, England |
| Genre(s) | Industrial rock, Gothic Rock |
| Years active | 1988–present |
| Label(s) | Metropolis Wax Trax! TVT Nothing Blue Noise Grand Cleopatra Alfa Concrete Contempo Invitation Victor Entertainment Rock |
| Website | The Swining Raymond Watts |
Raymond Watts (also known as Nainz, Nainz Watts, and Ray Scaballero) is the founding and sole member of the industrial music project PIG, sometimes written as <PIG>.
Watts was an early member and periodic collaborator of KMFDM, and has been a visible part of the industrial music scene since the early 1980s. He has toured with KMFDM, Nine Inch Nails, Schaft, Schwein, and Einstürzende Neubauten.
According to the official website, PIG is currently in the studio recording a new album.
According to a Swedish website known as "King Ink Nova", Raymond Watts will be releasing 4 new tracks in May, 2009 as part of a book collabaration with Daniel Watson known as Mellan Rummen.
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[edit] Style
PIG tends to sound more orchestral than KMFDM, with darker, more complex, more ambient beats. His album and song titles tend to be witty, rife with alliteration ("Prayer Praise & Profit") or are plays on the titles of popular works or phrases (The Swining / "Symphony for the Devil"). He also manages to work food or pork related terms into his albums. Like KMFDM, humor features prominently in <PIG>'s lyrics, although they tend towards a darker/grittier tone than KMFDM's.
[edit] Collaboration with KMFDM
Because Raymond Watts is a central figure in both PIG and KMFDM, the two projects have seen much crossover. Watts has contributed his skills as a songwriter and vocalist to several KMFDM albums, including their first album Opium in 1984, and has a heavy presence on their 1995 album Nihil, which spawned the hit "Juke Joint Jezebel". A collaborative EP titled Sin Sex & Salvation was released in 1994 under the moniker "PIG vs. KMFDM". KMFDM has in turn assisted Watts with his PIG projects in production and personnel. Current KMFDM guitarists Steve White and Jules Hodgson (as well as former KMFDM guitarist Günter Schulz) and drummer Andy Selway have been involved with PIG. Watts has performed with KMFDM as part of the touring lineup, with the concerts billed as "KMFDM featuring PIG". The setlists for those shows feature KMFDM songs alongside Pig songs. A live CD from the 2002 "Sturm & Drang" tour was released on Metropolis Records that same year.
Watts (along with White, Hodgson, and Selway) was immortalized in the lyrics to the KMFDM song "Intro" from the 2003 album WWIII. The song offers tongue-in-cheek depictions of KMFDM members as well as solidifying their places in the band's ever-rotating lineup:
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- The Lord of Lard, the Mighty Swine
- He loves Manchego and a bottle of wine
- Also known as Raymond Watts,
- He screams out his lungs while his brain slowly rots!
[edit] Other collaborations
Watts has worked with several industrial and avant-garde artists, receiving credits as PIG and Raymond Watts interchangeably. He has also been credited as "Nainz Watts" or "Nains Watts" on several early releases.
- From 1985 to 1989 Watts was a sound engineer for Einstürzende Neubauten.
- from 1984 to 1986 Watts was sound engineer for Mona Mur.
- Watts has occasionally collaborated with J. G. Thirlwell, briefly playing bass in Foetus Corruptus and co-writing songs for Steroid Maximus on the album Gondwanaland. Thirlwell, in turn, has cowritten and remixed songs for PIG.
- Watts recorded music for ex-girlfriend spoken-word artist Sow (b. Anna Wildsmith)'s 1994 album Je M'Aime and again for her 1998 album Sick. The former was reissued under the name "Pig/Sow" in 1999.
- PIG's 1995 album Sinsation was released in the US on Trent Reznor's label Nothing Records. PIG also toured with Reznor's band Nine Inch Nails in the UK.
- Japanese-based band Schaft employed Watts as a lyricist/vocalist for the 1994 album Switchblade and companion remix collection Switch.
- In 2001, Watts and KMFDM frontman Sascha Konietzko teamed up with Japanese musicians Sakurai Atsushi and Imai Hisashi (also of Schaft and Buck-Tick) to form the project super group Schwein. Due in part to PIG's popularity in Japan the group was well-received. Schwein released two albums Schweinstein and Son of Schweinstien ; the latter being remixes from the first .
- Watts has also provided production, mixing, remixing, and/or vocals for Psychic TV, Chemlab, Haloblack, 2-Kut, Hoodlum Priest, Steroid Maximus, H3llb3nt, The Hit Parade, Brain Drive, Buck-Tick, D.I.E., Sakurai Atsushi, Sprung Aus Den Wolken, The Megaton Men, Mortiis, Judda, and Zos Kia.
- Watts contributed an original composition to the soundtrack of the computer game MDK2. His track can only be heard on the Sega Dreamcast version of the game. It plays on the title screen and one of Max's levels. [1]
[edit] Discography (partial)
Several of his albums were originally released in Japan, where he enjoyed considerably more success than in the United States and United Kingdom, but some of those albums were eventually released in the US.
In 2004 he signed to Grand Recordings for distribution in the UK, under the name "Watts".
[edit] Studio releases
- A Poke in the Eye... With a Sharp Stick (1988)
- Praise the Lard (1991)
- A Stroll in the Pork (EP) (1992)
- Hello Hooray (EP)
- The Swining (1993) – Japan only release; reissued in 1999 in America on The Swining/Red Raw & Sore (1999)
- Red Raw & Sore (EP) (1994) – Japan only release; reissued in 1999 in America on The Swining/Red Raw & Sore (1999)
- Sin Sex & Salvation (as PIG vs KMFDM) (EP) (1994) – collaborative EP with KMFDM
- Painiac (EP) (1995) – Japan only release
- Sinsation (1995) – US release in 1996
- Wrecked (1996) – US release; Japanese release in 1997 has somewhat different track listing
- Prime Evil (EP) (1997) – Japan only release
- No One Gets Out of Her Alive (EP) (1998) – Japan only release
- Disrupt Degrade & Devastate (EP) (1999) – Japan only release
- Genuine American Monster (1999) – US release in 2002
- Pigmartyr (2004) – UK only release, using the "Watts" name.
- Pigmata (2005) – remastered version of Pigmartyr, using the "PIG" name, with three additional tracks.
[edit] Singles
- Never For Fun (1988)
- Sick City / Shit for Brains (1989)
- Shit for Brains – Germany only release
- The Fountain of Miracles (1993)
[edit] Music Videos
Several music videos have been filmed, but most remain unreleased outside of Japan. Most videos have surfaced online on YouTube in questionable quality. The video for Arbor Vitate is actually a re-cut version of the Schaft video of the same song.
- Shit for Brains (1988)
- The Fountain of Miracles (1993)
- The Seven Veils (1993)
- Painiac (1995)
- Everything (1996)
- Arbor Vitate (2004)
[edit] External links
- Official PIG Website The official Raymond Watts/PIG website
- Raymond Watts Fan Site Includes bios, discographies of PIG/KMFDM/side projects, interviews, lyrics, photos, wallpapers, news, forums, and an online radio station.
- The Complete Pig Discography The most complete online list of Raymond Watts's releases.
- Pigspace Raymond Watts on MySpace
- Metropolis Records website
- King Ink Nova website
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