Bleed the Pigs: political powerviolence "dream team"

Photo courtesy of Bleed the Pigs

Bleed the Pigs, a sludgy grindcore-powerviolence band from Nashville, Tennessee are a four-piece force to be reckoned with. Starting out as a two-piece with a vision in 2013, the band gives a ferocious voice to statements that are typically shut down and shunned. 

“The idea behind the band was to create intense, heavy and fast music that matched the intensity and aggression carried through by the lyrics,” says guitarist David Hobbs.

“I love having control over something that's typically white male dominated,” says Kayla Phillips, vocalist, on performing their music live. “I especially love it when black girls come up to me after a show and say that they felt safe being there because I was there. That's really important.”

Prior to Bleed the Pigs being formed, Hobbs had played with drummer Taylor Carpenter and bassist Christian Smith in another band for over a year, and describes their songwriting process as both easy and “pandemonium.”

“Taylor, Christian and I will jam on certain concepts for songs and Kayla always keeps us on task and focuses our direction. Sometimes songs come easily and the riffs just flow one after the other, while other times we spend a lot of time sculpting how the song will sound in the end,” he says. “All of our songs, though, are carefully scrutinized and altered substantially before being played live.”

“I’ll tell them certain things that I like, a faster part here, or a sludgy part there. It comes really easy. I think we’re a dream team,” says Phillips.

Their EP, Mortis Fatum, is tight and cohesive, using slightly different styles of metal on particular tracks to convey a message as hard and heavy as the sound. Songs like “Endless Void” and “May” are reminiscent of black metal like Gorgoroth, whereas “Scum Fucker” is a righteous shove to rapists. "I know what you are- a worthless piece of shit," snarls Phillips over furious riffs.

Photo courtesy of Bleed the Pigs

The band is influenced by a grab bag of other grindcore, hardcore, powerviolence and metal bands, including Neurosis, Converge, The Endless Blockade, Hatred Surge and Yautja, as well as Phillips’ favorite, Nirvana.

“They’ve been my favorite band since I was 10 years old and I still feed off of them,” she says.

Non-musical influences include Smith’s dog, Tyler Coburn and George Orwell. Aside from naming him as an individual influence, Smith cites his pet as his dream co-headliner on tour, next to Dave Grohl.

The band loves crowd interaction during shows, and the opportunity to "convey as much passion and intensity as possible,” says Hobbs, in addition to "getting to play loud and live and get pissed off and vent all the pent up aggression towards daily injustices. The whole endeavor is just a wash of emotion and excitement and passion… Beyond that, I just want to have fun and play hard.”

“My favorite part about performing live is seeing people head bang,” says Carpenter. “I want everyone in the whole room to be head banging.”

You can listen to their music on their bandcamp: http://bleedthepigs.bandcamp.com/ and check them out on Facebook.

Krokodil

Photo of Jake Himelfarb and Aaron Lawrence engaged
in the creative process, courtesy of Krokodil

Though the rock scene is more splintered than ever, and it seems too often that metal is simply co-opted for trendy aesthetics, there are still some whose idea of a good time is that sweet heavy metal goodness. Krokodil—named after the flesh-eating drug—offers hard death metal with a cozy old school feel, and a contagious onstage sense of fun sets them apart from other local metalheads.

Singer-guitarist Jake Himelfarb particularly has a penchant for giving the audience something to remember: from mooning the crowd on multiple occasions, to alleging to an audience that he self-bleached his rectum in the parking lot prior to the show, to licking and munching on a bloody tampon that threw itself onstage at one show at the Cobalt Café. 

“His antics bring life to our death-ridden sound,” says drummer Devlin Baldwin.

Says Lumberjack of Vengeance for the Fallen, "Krokodil is one of the few bands to gross me out. Two huge horns up for that accomplishment alone! Black metal mixed with shock value mixed with a total disregard for personal health... it doesn't get any more metal than that."

"I must say that Krokodil jams out some real quality death metal," says longtime Krokodil concert-goer and fan, Sarah Schönberger. "Their stage performance is also extremely entertaining, and something is always bound to go down, especially with such a stupid-ass fan base."

The band draws from a variety of musical influences, including black metal, death metal, old school heaviness, old jazz and some other genres. While their music writing process initiates as fairly independent, the band collaborates more closely as songs develop.

“We’re all pretty musical people and the fact we’ve all got input into our songs is a really big part of how our songs come out,” says bassist Aaron Lawrence. “I draw different things from different bassists… everyone brings something different to the table and I try to learn from all of it.” Says Baldwin of music in general, he loves "literally everything about it and what comes with it. It is what gets me out of bed in the morning and what carries me to bed at night. Being able to create my own music has only brought me to love it more."

“It's really satisfying to see the songs you spent hours making and even more rehearsing come to life onstage, and then to see people's reactions to that creation that I worked so hard on making,” says Himelfarb. “It makes every little frustration in being in a band, writing music and playing guitar worth it.” 

Adds Lawrence, “I love playing live, especially when everything’s tight and everyone’s firing on all cylinders. It’s always fun being able to act like an idiot in front of people for a half hour. But what really makes gigs fun is when the crowd has fun. That’s a weird sort of energy that connects the whole room and aside from just loving to play music in general, that connection is what makes the shows so special.”

“We get up there and do our best to play our songs well and whatever happens, happens,” says Baldwin. “Being up there with two of the funniest dudes I know is super fun. Jake brings the autism while Aaron and I hit it heavy with our rhythmic sexiness. If, by the end of our set, I see people with smiles on their faces, I know we've done our job.”

Krokodil is playing the Cobalt Café this Saturday night, March 29^th at 8:00.

Photo courtesy of Krokodil

Setting the tone

Although I constantly use Facebook in the hopes of keeping people in the loop about things I find important, it's been a while since I actually wrote in an organized, journalistic manner. So as a way of introducing myself on a new platform as the queer punk feminist yall love, here's a bunch of songs to set the tone for this blog. Enjoy!

"Rise Above" - Black Flag

"Deadly Rhythm" - Refused

"Summerholidays vs. Punkroutine" - Refused

"The Fight Song" - Marilyn Manson

"Take The Power Back" - Rage Against the Machine

"Architects" - Rise Against

"A Wall Against the Wind" - Tom Morello: The Nightwatchman

"Children of the Grave" - Black Sabbath

"Township Rebellion" - Rage Against the Machine

You can listen to them all on a single playlist here: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLTsfZ_HHjRDad1987MbdHzhfpDSCee-RX