PIG (musical project)

PIG
Origin London, England
Genres Industrial rock
Years active 1988–present
Labels Metropolis, Wax Trax!, TVT, Nothing, Blue Noise, Grand, Cleopatra, Alfa, Concrete, Contempo, Invitation, Victor Entertainment, Rock
Associated acts Einstürzende Neubauten, Foetus, KMFDM, Mona Mur, Schaft, Schwein, Sow
Website The Swining
Raymond Watts

Raymond Watts (also known as Nainz, Nainz Watts, and Ray Scaballero) is the founding and sole member of the post-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. Raymond Watts, Dr. Shinto & John Gosling released a 4 song EP Titled Mellan Rummen on November 15, 2010 on Amazon.com

Contents

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.

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 was given a tongue-in-cheek description in the lyrics to the KMFDM song "Intro" from the 2003 album WWIII:

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!

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.

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".

Studio albums

EPs

Singles

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.

External links