The pigs
| The pigs | |
|---|---|
| General information | |
| Genre (s) | Punk , alternative rock |
| founding | 1990 |
| Website | http://www.die-pigs.de |
| Founding members | |
| Oil van Pelt | |
| Micky Knox | |
| Barne | |
| Bitzo | |
| Nico "Animal" Schulze | |
| Current occupation | |
singing |
Oil van Pelt |
bass |
Micky Knox |
Drums |
Nico "Animal" Schulze |
guitar |
Barne |
guitar |
Chris Gores |
| former members | |
guitar |
Thicknesses (2000-2010) |
guitar |
Barne (1990-1999) |
guitar |
Bitzo (1990-1997) |
guitar |
Patta (1997-2003) |
guitar |
Robbe (2003-2006) |
Drums |
Techti (1992-1993) |
bass |
Micky Knox (1990-2012) |
Die Pigs ( spelling : DIE PIGS , from 1990 to 2000 The Pig Must Die ) are a German-speaking punk and alternative rock band .
It was founded in 1990 in Ringenberg on the Lower Rhine by Öli van Pelt (civil: Oliver Welsing) and Micky Knox (Michael Schäfer). The band achieved fame through the releases of their albums Es war once am Niederrhein (1994), Time has come (1995) and, above all, the concept album The Story of Richie and Other Melodies of Destiny (1997), comprising 28 songs . With the name change to Die Pigs , the style of music was also expanded in 2000. The band's current albums can definitely be described as alternative rock, which is influenced by garage rock and classic Britpop .
history
Emergence
At the end of the eighties the punks "Öli van Pelt" (then vocals and drums) and "Micky Knox" (vocals and bass) founded the band The Pig Must Die with changing guitarists . The name was inspired by the song of the same name from the fantasy musical The Hunting of the Snark . With the guitarists “Barne” and “Bitzo” the first official line-up of the pigs was found on New Year's Eve 1989/1990 . The demo tapes Three Chords and None , All Butchers are Bastards and Grabgeflüster were recorded, the latter of which brought the band a record deal in 1991 with the German punk label Impact Records . In 1992 the first EP was Spies Like Us! released. In 1993 the songs Auf Große Fahrt and Auf ein Neues appeared on the sampler Welcome to the Nightmare Melody .
breakthrough
In 1994 Die Pigs released their debut album Once upon a time on the Lower Rhine - A fairy tale about sex, beer and violence . The band rose overnight to the “fixed stars in the German punk rock sky” (original sound from the magazine Plastic Bomb ) and thrilled their listeners with fast-paced and melodic punk rock, about which a St. Pauli fanzine wrote: “Bei The pigs have the feeling that they have absorbed the music of the Buzzcocks , Adicts and Ramones with their breast milk! ". The song Kulturbanausen became the scene anthem of the 90s and also appeared as a sampler contribution to Schlachtrufe BRD 3 . Altogether, four songs from the record were decoupled on samplers with Auf ein Neues and Auf große Fahrt , Here speaks die Wut (vitamin pills) and the aforementioned cultural bane. The production team, consisting of Uwe Faust and Uwe Golz , also contributed to the extraordinary success of the debut . Although the album was widely acclaimed by the press, there were also some critical voices accusing the band of careless handling of drugs and violence.
In 1995 the band's second album, Die Zeit ist haben , was released. Overall much more pop than the debut, the long player again had a high number of hits. The album was heavily influenced by the rather simple songwriting of the Green Day album Dookie . For the first time, the band experimented with strings and acoustic guitars , which in the course of the following years became the unmistakable style of the pigs . Just a few months later, the Christmas maxi We are waiting for Christkind was published , the first edition of which was sold out within four weeks.
Published in 1997, The Pig Must Die with The Story of Richie a 28 Songs comprehensive concept album. Supported by several guest musicians, the band told the rise, fall and new path of a (punk) rock star who made it to the rock olymp with his band and crashed - a story between the Bernd Schadewald film Loser and the rock opera Tommy , Quadrophenia and Pink Flodys The Wall . The influence of the Smashing Pumpkins album Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness on the songwriting was clearly evident : Balladeskes met punk rock and grunge . The band received renewed recognition in the relevant music magazines (including Zillo , Visions and Rock Hard ), while the scene in the fanzines was rather controversial. The title song I'm Richie became a classic , as did the songs Nur ein Traum? , Addicted , Too far , devil in the brain , the real me and final chord . The planned release on vinyl failed after the band separated from their previous record company shortly after the album was released.
New beginning
In 1999 Pig-Must-Die fans were given an album for free download on the band's own website, for which the Pigs had traveled a rollercoaster ride through the music business: Sgt.Peps Lonely Hard Core Band marks the breakup and new beginning of the band who struggled to get out of the punk rock scene and break new ground. The album's potential was recognized, a contract signing at EMI failed due to new appointments in the company's executive suite. In the end, the band was still without a record deal. Within the punk scene, the failed move to the German rock league was interpreted as treason and no label showed more interest in releasing the new album. To make matters worse, the guitarists left the group, there were several legal disputes with the music publisher and the former record company, so that the band decided in the late 1990s to start over from scratch - as "The Pigs". The Sgt.-Pep album offered not only classic punk rock songs with Britpop influences but also a lot of experiments in the field of alternative rock . The partly psychedelic lyrics of the album, which drift into fairytale-like, are striking , which take the listener into different worlds or give up one or the other riddle.
After almost four years of publication hiatus and the name change to “Die Pigs”, the maxi CD Ein Stück Zeit with seven songs was released in 2003 on the band's own label Supernova Vinyl and continued the musical change of direction that Sgt. Pep had indicated. A year later her first album with an English title came out. In 2006, the Pigs' second album, Abbey Rock , was released on the Essen independent and underground label Sunny Bastards . In 2009, the largest punk label in Europe, Nix-Gut Records , released a best-of and rarity collection of the pigs under the title Punk Chronicles 1990-1999 .
The pigs since 2010
The release of the DVD series Die Chaos Chroniken , originally planned for 2010 , which attempted to cinematically reconstruct the band's past 20 years, went into production in 2010. In addition to archive material, the time as Die Pigs was highlighted and the creation of the album Hallucinogenic Park announced for 2012 was documented. Publication is planned for 2015. The band's eighth studio album, Hallucinogenic Park , was completed in July 2013 and released on August 29, 2013.
Discography
Albums
- 1994: Once Upon a Time on the Lower Rhine - A Fairy Tale About Sex, Beer & Violence (Impact Records)
- 1995: The time has come - songs for the new revolution (Impact Records)
- 1996: Tragical Mystery Songs
- 1997: The Story of Richie and Other Melodies of Destiny (Impact Records)
- 2004: Punkadelic Circus (Supernova Vinyl)
- 2006: Abbey Rock (Sunny Bastards)
- 2008: Punk Chronicles (Nix-Gut Records)
- 2013: Hallucinogenic Park (Supernova Vinyl)
- 2019: In Search of Lost Time (Supernova Vinyl)