King of Pigs in 'The Scene That Would Not Die'

Ian Glasper has written about so many great bands in his exploration of punk in the UK since the millennium. His superb book ‘The Scene That Would Not Die: Twenty Years of Post-Millennial Punk In The UK’ features 111 essential bands from the last twenty years, discussing the challenges they’ve faced, the obstacles they’ve had to overcome, and how they think they still need to evolve to stay relevant in these troubled times.

King Of Pigs hail from Nottingham and bang out solid-as-fuck US-style hardcore; it may not set the world afire in the originality stakes but it’s frantic, edge of the seat stuff that is thoroughly entertaining live.

“I’ve been in bands since ’84,” opens vocalist Andy. “My first one was called Blood Relatives, and was with Gords, from Geriatric Unit and Hard To Swallow, Sean Duggan, from HTS and Varukers, and Kev Bales, from Spiritulized [sic]. We formed on a bus to Beeston, where Sean’s dad ran a pub, and we were really just an ‘alternative’ band. I was in and out of bands up until 1998, when me and Chris from Witch Hunter Records started Shotgun, which was an awkward mixture of Sonic Youth and early stoner rock. We then formed Bumsnogger... a ‘legendary’ sludge metal band, haha! And cited in lists of stupid band names for many years. We did alright though, doing two EPs and a split 7”; that ‘joke’ ran for six years from 2000. “After doing sludge metal for a few years, I wanted to do something fast, so we started a hardcore band called Jesus of Spazzareth [which also included current King Of Pigs six- stringer Jamie]; we did a fair amount of gigs, a couple of Euro weekenders, a split 7” with Hammers and a full length, plus two EPs and a tape. That ended in 2009, and then a few months later we formed The End Of History? And that band morphed into KOP. We just wanted to play fast hardcore, something we all liked, and maybe record some stuff, which we did. Our influences were mainly US and UK hardcore from the mid- to late-Eighties. Poi- son Idea, SSD... stuff like that... and lyrically whatever we wanted, nowt specific. As for the name, I think it was a mixture of artwork I’d already started to produce and Pig Champion, because Poison Idea are obviously a big influence.”

“Before KOP, and Jesus of Spazzareth with Andy, I was in the horror punk band, Army of Walking Corpses,” continues Jamie, “Plus a death metal band from Grimsby, Crawlspace, and Evoke from Nottingham. KOP is way more relaxed than those bands though... to the point of being slovenly. We don’t set out to write songs, we normally just jam and see what happens; it makes it all more enjoyable when it’s a laugh and not too serious.”

“And I was in the Nottingham band Drag The Lake, with our drummer Mul,” adds bassist Ben. “DTL formed in 2005, so he and I have been in bands together for over fifteen years now. It was a metal band, so I come from a mainly metal background music-wise. Before that, I was in The Red Shift, another metal band from Nottingham, plus a band called Crawll [sic] in the late Nineties, although my first ever band was a doom band called Iconic Memory.” Making their live debut at the delightfully named Cuntstock during April 2013 (alongside Let It Die, Widows, Corrupt Moral Altar and Burden Of The Noose, amongst others), King Of Pigs were soon recording their first album, ‘Drown Out The Sounds of Widows’ Grief’, which was released by local label, Witch Hunter, and was a jaggedly cathartic outpouring of sonic rage with such memorable song titles as ‘Get Thee Behind Me, Stryper’, ‘Woke Up With Bruises And Bitemarks’ and ‘Put Me On Your Blacklist!’

“We recorded it at Stuck On A Name in Nottingham,” recalls Andy, “An ace studio, practice and gig space, with Ian Boult, who has recorded shedloads of other UKHC bands. I still think the recording sounds great, with some proper ace tracks on it; we’d sort of demoed some of them whilst in TEOH? but re-recorded them as KOP. Witch Hunter Records was started by Chris Kaye, who I was in Bumsnogger with, to initially release the Bumsnogger discography; we were his 23rd release, so he was doing something right.”

“I enjoyed recording ‘Drown...’, but looking back I'd have put more into my parts,” admits Jamie. “A few songs were written by ex-members and, instead of making them more my style, I just played them as they were written. But on a whole it’s still got some ace tunes on it... mainly the ones I wrote, haha!”The next few years were spent spreading their name far and wide with the tenacity of a viral epidemic, and recording for several split releases that never actually materialised in the physical realm.

“Our jaunts across the channel into Europe have always been ace,” reckons Andy, “And I’d probably rate one time at the Innocent in Hengalo, with Diss Guy from Belgium and Stabbing Device from Netherlands, as the best gig we’ve done; great bands, great venue and great people. We’ve played the Incubate - or ZXZW - fest in Tilburg a few times, and the Vort ‘n’ Vis in Ypres has always been a favourite, and our first port of call whenever we want to play on the mainland - Sander who plays in Netra, an ace crust outfit, always welcomes us with open arms.”

“Yeah, that gig at the Innocent was easily our best gig,” agrees Jamie. “The club was brilliant, the owners looked after us and the crowd were insane. They wouldn't let us leave the stage, so I think we ended up playing nearly every song we could remember. It was a rare headline gig for us too, and we were on top form, a great night.”

“I always like the long weekends we do in Belgium and Holland,” adds Ben, “We always go down very well over there. But we have done a lot of fantastic gigs over the years with the likes of Sick Of It All, Madball, Negative Approach... the recent one in Leeds with Agnostic Front was a memorable one, the whole vibe for that gig was ace.”

“We nearly played with Poison Idea,” sighs Andy. “We got turfed off the gig on my birthday the week before, but got asked to play the Norwich gig a week later, so we were dead excited and all packed up, just about to leave and then we heard they’d cancelled ‘cos of a bad throat... ‘gutted’ isn’t the word! We never really played a bad gig though, just the occasional one where we’ve had to deal with shitty bands with shitty attitudes.”

“Worst gig? Easy!” interjects Mul. “That was at Stuck On A Name in Nottingham. It was the early days and Jamie was playing bass at the time; our then guitarist – sorry, no names! - thought it was a good idea before the gig to have eight cans of Stella, two pints of kitchen sink punch and one or two ‘sharing’ cigarettes. He was so wasted he could barely stand, and we quit after two songs.”

Eventually the songs written for the aforementioned splits emerged on the second King Of Pigs album, ‘Fear Remains’, in 2017, a release the band have mixed feelings about.

“Yeah, we’d recorded several tracks for splits that never happened, and eventually decided to re-record them for the second full-length,” explains Andy. “That was recorded at The Moot Group in Nottingham with Johnny Carter from Pitchshifter. It’s probably my least favourite of our releases; it’s got some ace tracks on it, but dare I say, it all sounds too metal. ‘Hunger Filth Fear Death’ [their third album, released in 2019, and recorded at J.T.Soar with Phil Booth] is my favourite as it’s the sound and feel I’d wanted from the start... pure old school hardcore. As someone said to me, it sounds like our ‘Out of Step’ moment, which is an ace thing to hear about your record!”

“‘Fear Remains’ is probably my favourite actually,” counters Jamie. “The whole album is pretty pissed off, nice and fast. And it was a good recording process, we took our time with it. My least favourite recording is ‘Pick Your Queen’, [the 2015 four-way split cassette] that we did with Wail Of Sirens [from Sweden]. I wasn’t using my own gear, apart from my guitar, so I settled for a sound I wasn’t 100% happy with... and I may have had one or eight drinks, so I wasn’t really playing properly, and we only had a day, but... still my fault.”

“I think I like ‘Hunger Filth Fear Death’ the most,” offers Ben. “I had a lot more writing input on that album; I seemed to have a creative explosion at the time of writing and the riffs just seemed to flow out. ‘Time Won’t Heal’ from ‘Hunger...’ and ‘No Martyrs’ from ‘Fear Remains’ are two of my favourite KOP songs, but as a rule, we normally get rid of any bad songs in the rehearsal room.”

At the time of writing, King Of Pigs are working on material for their fourth album, and planning further sojourns into Europe - Brexit and COVID allowing, of course.“We’re not ground-breaking in what we do, it’s kinda ‘hearts on sleeves’ stuff,” concedes Andy, “Just honest old school US/UK hardcore. We aren’t part of the ‘cool kids’ clique, but personally I think we’re good at what we do, and when folk have come to see us, bought our stuff and tell other folk about us, it’s really appreciated and humbling.”

“The current scene is pretty good at the minute,” opines Mul. “There are some ace bands out there, not only in the UK but Europe too, but scenes can be quite cliquey, with too many ‘too cool for school’ punks preaching about how we should all live our lives. I know it’s like that in all scenes, regardless of genre, where some people are just full of it, but I remember a gig we did in Manchester where we got our set cut short because they found out we weren’t vegetarians, or maybe it was because we weren’t wearing the right clothes - so we only got fifteen minutes of a planned 35-minute set. That’s the sort of crap I hate... but in ten to fifteen years’ time, when they’re off being doctors and lawyers, they’ll be embarrassed by their ‘punk past’. Fucking posers - the only thing they have to be angry about is that mummy and daddy bought them an Xbox when they really wanted a PS4!”

SELECT DISCOGRAPHY: FULL LENGTHS:

‘Drown Out The Sound Of Widows’ Grief’ CD (WITCH HUNTER, 2013)

‘Fear Remains’ CD (SELF-RELEASED, 2017)‘Hunger Filth Fear Death’ CD (SELF-RELEASED, 2019) AT A GLANCE: https://kingofpigshc1.bandcamp.com 

KING OF PIGS latest album is entitled 'After Victory Comes Defeat' and is available from Engineer Records.

'The Scene That Would Not Die: Twenty Years of Post-Millennial Punk In The UK' is available in all good book and record shops, through online resellers and directly from the publishers, Earth Island Books. There is also an accompanying double CD featuring songs by 59 of the bands in Ian's book available from Engineer Records.