MsBrandyRock: Have you heard of Muen Magazine?
Piggy D: I have seen the name before, yeah!
MsBrandyRock: You’re my forth live interview I have done.
Piggy D: Wow, Wow!
MsBrandyRock: I have a message to pass along to you from Eric13 of the Sex Slaves. He said ‘thanks for being put on the list for the Philly show’.
Piggy D: oh yeah yeah yeah, of course. That’s awesome, tell them I said hi.
MsBrandyRock: I love those guys!
Piggy D: Yeah they’re awesome.
MsBrandyRock: How did you get your stage name?
Piggy D: The first touring band I was in, in ....Texas...., I was 16 years old. The band was called Spunk. All the guys in the band were 8 to 10 years older than me and their slogan that was painted on the side of their kick drum said ‘Burly Pig Rock’. Since I was the youngest guy in the band they would haze me, kinda like fraternity initiations. When I would fall asleep in the van, they would write with permanent maker ‘the burly piglet’ on my chest, draw a pig, cut my hair, all kinds of horrible things. And it just stuck they called me Piglet. And it stuck through every band I was in. And I knew a hundred Matt’s so it was just easier, ‘oh this Piglet guy’.
MsBrandyRock: So you decided to go with Piggy instead of Piglet?
Piggy D: Yeah, it would insinuate that not only am I very small but I’m also very young, which I’m not anymore.
MsBrandyRock: Have you ever heard of the local band Noise Auction? They played early today and one of the guys, he’s really short and he goes by Shorty.
Piggy D: Yeah that wouldn’t make sense if he was tall.
MsBrandyRock: They are going on a cruise with the Genitorturers.
Piggy D: Oh cool!
MsBrandyRock: How did you cross paths with Rob Zombie?
Piggy D: I met him as a fan years ago, when I was a kid, several times. But I met him through some mutual friends. His old bass player and I got to be friends and actually did some writing together for Rob, 3 years prior to me being in the band. His bass player called me up one day; I’m actually a guitar player. He was like ‘hey I’m gonna join Ozzy’s band, do you want to take over for me?’ And I’m like well I’m not a bass player.
MsBrandyRock: Blasko right?
Piggy D: Yeah, and he was like you can do it. He asked if I could be there tomorrow. I was in ....Boston.... at the time making a record. I flew out to LA and two weeks later I did David Letterman with Rob and that was it. That was 4 and a half years ago.
MsBrandyRock: I recognize his name because of the band Hydrovibe, whose guitar player; Mat Dauzat was selected a while back to go on the road with Kelly Osbourne.
Piggy D: Oh okay.
MsBrandyRock: Since you were a fan of Rob Zombie, did you ever think that would happen?
Piggy D: I did actually. It’s a much longer story than I just made it out to be. We were talking about me playing in the band before and it didn’t work out. I always knew I would end up doing something with him. I have this weird thing that happens to me, with the people that I appreciate the most, it’s happened with Alice Cooper several times, I always end up doing something with them. The longer I celebrate something in my life, the more it comes back to me. It’s very strange.
MsBrandyRock: That’s kinda like me being here right now.
Piggy D: Yeah. So I think that you can actually will things into existence. And this is one of those things. So yeah, I knew it was going to happen.
MsBrandyRock: Do you prefer to play guitar or bass?
Piggy D: The more time that goes by, I’m actually considering myself a bass player. Guitar is always going to be my first instrument and I write on a guitar. When I’m at home I play guitar. I don’t know. I guess I like them both equally now.
MsBrandyRock: With your solo work, it’s you playing the guitar right?
Piggy D: Yeah, it’s me doing everything except the drums.
MsBrandyRock: Do you have plans on touring with your solo work?
Piggy D: Not really, at some point, yeah. Maybe on the 2nd or 3rd record, I’ll go out and play some shows. I stay so busy with Rob and all the other things we have going on, that I don’t have time to do it the right way. And I would like to do it the right way. I don’t want to get an acoustic guitar and go play coffee houses.
MsBrandyRock: That would be interesting though, to say that you’re playing coffee houses that would be a lot of interesting press to do it like that.
Piggy D: Yeah, you never know. Paul Stanley from Kiss once said ‘if a song doesn’t sound good on an acoustic guitar, it’s a crappy song’.
MsBrandyRock: Do you play any other instruments?
Piggy D: I play trumpet, tuba, and a little piano.
MsBrandyRock: One of your songs, I don’t remember the name off the top of my head, but it sounds like saxophone in the background.
Piggy D: Yeah, that was a friend of mine, Scott Gillman, he plays saxophone on a song called ‘Chemistry’. It’s a The Replacements, Paul Westerberg, ‘Can’t Hardly Wait’ type of song. It’s a very ....Minneapolis.... sound and I wanted some horns on it.
MsBrandyRock: Yeah, when I was listening to your solo work for the first time, I was thinking there is something for everyone in here. And I wasn’t expecting that.
Piggy D: Thank you.
MsBrandyRock: Ok so, you directed a 10 minute movie with three of Alice Cooper’s songs tied together. How did you get into directing?
Piggy D: It’s something I have kind of always done, on my own time, videos for indie artists and stuff like that. Alice and I have a cool working relationship. I’ll call him up and be like ‘hey I want to try this’. And he’ll go ‘OK’. I’ve been fortunate that he’s pretty open with everything I bring to the table. My company did all the art and the promotional material for that record. And we’ve done the costumes for the show and we do merchandise and everything. We were just talking about videos and I said I could do it and I did it. I know Alice Cooper better than I know most anything else. So anytime I have to do anything for him, I’m like ‘I got it’; I know exactly what to do. It’s like walking and chewing gum at the same time. I can do it.
MsBrandyRock: How did Slash get involved with that? Whose idea was that?
Piggy D: He played on one of the songs, on the record, that we shot the video for and we called him up and we were like ‘hey do you want to be in the video?” And he was like ‘Yeah!’.
MsBrandyRock: Are you looking forward to seeing him today?
Piggy D: Yeah!
MsBrandyRock: Have you ever seen him solo with other band members?
Piggy D: We saw him at the Revolver Golden God Awards a few weeks ago, in LA, and he did a few songs off the new record. I’m looking forward to seeing a whole show.
MsBrandyRock: I heard Myles Kennedy from Alterbridge is doing the vocals today.
Piggy D: Oh really?
MsBrandyRock: The video, with Alice Cooper, the ‘Vengeance is Mine’ thing. I love it because my mother worked in personal care for old people and so many of the other people she worked with treated the older people so poorly and whenever I was listening and watching the video that is what I was thinking about. What would all the old people, who can’t help themselves, do to all the people that were treating them like crap if they had a chance?
Piggy D: That’s really interesting you bring that up, because one of the difficult things about that video was getting them to agree to…
MsBrandyRock: …allow everything to happen?
Piggy D: …well not just allow it but, I wanted ....Alice.... to look frail at certain parts. I wanted him to look like he’s not capable of doing anything on his own because he’s crazy, not because he’s old but because he’s crazy. So when he does start killing people, you’re like oh okay don’t underestimate that guy.
MsBrandyRock: So that’s what it was meant to be, because the stories my mom told me that was the first thing I thought of…
Piggy D: That is so funny, yeah that’s pretty cool.
MsBrandyRock: not like I’m calling Alice Cooper old……
Piggy D: Yeah, no no. People who are handicapped in any way, mentally, physically, or whatever. Don’t underestimate them because they may strangle you or kick your ass.
MsBrandyRock: You look a lot different now than when you are on stage. How much of yourself is there when you are on stage with Rob Zombie?
Piggy D: It’s all me and it’s none of me. I think every single human being has another side. It’s the Batman thing. I’m not calling myself Batman. Well, actually I am calling myself Batman. And I feel pretty cool.
MsBrandyRock: Maybe you will have another nickname.
Piggy D: Yeah maybe. You know you get to express another side of you. You’re not gonna walk around the mall with a skunk on your arm, war paint, and all of this stuff. You’re not going to do that to put gas in the car. So to have that outlet, to be that guy that I think about is pretty cool. And it saves me from walking around a mall with a skunk on my arm, whatever you know. It’s my other side. I’m not gonna walk around the house like that. I’m passionate about the music, I’m very animated when I play, I feel every beat when I play, I know every word, every note, that’s me with music. The artistic side I get to express a little more.
MsBrandyRock: I listened to another project you used be involved with called Amen. There have been a lot of people involved with that, people that I recognize. I had never heard of it, did it help you make contacts?
Piggy D: Amen was a punk band from ....Los Angeles..... Amen was self-proclaimed as the ‘most dangerous band on the planet’ and it was. An Amen show was a living car accident, for 45 minutes or however long it would last. Going through the, I like to call it, Amen boot camp, you learn 101 things not to do, not to put in your body, not to stick up your nose, not to drink, and how to survive in probably the worst situation you could ever put yourself into. So it was a blessing and a curse. I’ll leave it at that.
This his since been posted on Road Runner Records website as well.
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Press pass courtesy of Brian Cade and Muen Magazine.
Very, very special thanks to Eric13 of Sex Slaves.
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