Raymond Watts of PIG — “Pain is God” Interview

Mike: Welcome everyone, today my guest has a 30-year career in the music industry as a sound engineer, musician, songwriter…with bands like Einstürzende Neubauten—I can’t…i can’t ever say that—Neubauten…Fetus, KMFDM and his own project, <PIG>. you can pick up the new album pain as god which is available via download ,vinyl, CD,maybe cassettes and soon if this pandemic keeps going someone might discover eight tracks in a thrift store and bring that format back out of sheer boredom so thank you audience for allowing us access to your ears and let’s welcome a dear friend and family member Mr. Raymond Watts how are you Raymond?

Raymond: I’m fine. It’s really good to be talking to you Michael and uh…yeah it’s been a long time so it’s nice to hear your voice and to see you there as well.

Mike: Actually likewise. It’s fantastic to have you on man. It’s kind of like a Hollywood press junket thing that you got going on here. You’ve been on every podcast that I listen to and watch. So what’s with the different marketing strategy this time?

Raymond: Well if you think about it, I mean, there was a plan before this shitstorm…

Mike: Right.

Raymond: ….there that we would be…the album would have come out a little bit earlier and there was talk of going on tour in the fall. I mean I talked to lex [Alexis Mincolla] from 3Teeth; we’ve been in the uk sort of earlier January February here in the uk. We’re thinking about going out towards the end of the year about now—on october november—it’s now of course December but obviously that’s blown out the water. So i’ve had a chance to sit down and make some little video things with my friend mark griffiths; talking about promoting the record that way as there’s no tour, and having more time to talk to lovely people such as yourself.

Mike: oh awesome. So we are going to talk about the new album, “Pain is God” that was recently released. It was on Metropolis correct…in the states?

Raymond: Yes

Mike: okay

Raymond: the cd is on Metropolis with 14 tracks and the vinyl which is yet to be released, that’s on Armalyte, and that has 16 tracks and that’s got a couple of bonuses

Mike:  okay so let’s get started, let’s get a little insight into early Raymond Watts I guess, the <PIG> origin story as it were. Where were the seeds of <PIG> put down more or less….how did this whole kind of idea of <PIG> birth itself.

How did this whole kind of idea of birth itself?

Raymond: Well i’ve been in bands when I was at school in the 70s, and then of course the punk rock thing happened. ’78 I was thrown out of school, and I was in a band that ended up in japan in 1981. We made an album in London…ended up in japan for like five or six months, I can’t remember exactly, and it was a kind of pretend sort of trying to be a pop band and I was absolutely gobsmacked at how I was there in this really, sort of it’s—kind of like a really cheesy pop band actually—but I got out of it a really expensive bass guitar that I stole, and traded that in when I got back to London for a little eight track and started making recordings with then sort of bands like Einstürzende Neubauten and Psychic TV, and experimental bands cutting tape loops and things. I found that a lot more interesting. Eventually I moved to Germany where I hooked up with Sacha & En Esch and we started doing the KMFDM thing at the same time as me giving birth to the <> project and there was a lot of crossover at that time. There were a couple of songs from the first game KMFDM album that actually were <PIG> songs, What do you know Deutschland and The Unrestrained Use of Excessive Force they were going on the first <PIG> album but because it was just me, I wrote and recorded them, and so they sort of arrived, those projects, out of the influence of working with other more experimental bands and, from my point of view, being against everything. I just didn’t want to fucking do mainstream pop music or rock and roll. I wanted to carve something new out.

I just didn’t want to f*cking do mainstream pop music, or rock and roll. I wanted to carve something new out.

Mike: What I find interesting though is a lot of, it sounds like a lot of your musical influences are from many different genres of music, in their own right pop in their era, so there’s a little bit of latin influence there’s a little bit of like…i tend to feel like when I hear the horns and everything is almost like a big band kind of like appreciation in there is that I mean is that fair to say? …because there is some of those elements in some of these songs that that have that like you’re hearkening back to some of those classic sounds, that again, were pop in their in their time.

Raymond: I think of course this was right at the advent of sampling…

Mike: Right.

Raymond: When <PIG> was born, and KMFDM and those bands, I was working with, and of course…to me that just, I mean, there was a lot of sampling of sort of two bar drum beats and stuff, as you know, but I remember thinking, ‘well if you can sample that you can sample…big bands and this and that and all sorts of things….’ So basically it just opened the canvas up and made it a lot wider. So that’s where that came from.

Mike: You brought up an interesting point about sampling back in the day and I remember talking to to nick, or En Esch, many times when we’re sitting backstage waiting to go on just about what it was like in the early 80s with you guys in the studio taking a piece of equipment and just basically trying to like squeeze as much blood out of the turnip as you possibly can and I would just sit there and laugh and go [ __ ] you guys only had like 12 bits and and so many megabytes of a card or a disk and and you made these phenomenal albums out of that and do you feel that the the technology now that you have the availability to do whatever you want more or less is more of a creative growth thing or is it more like [ __ ] I gotta be careful because…

Do you feel that with the technology now that you have the availability to do whatever you want is more of a creative growth thing?

Raymond: Yeah, I know what you’re driving at, I think certainly with the amount of stuff you can have in one of these things. The millions of synths and presets and vast sampling sample libraries, you do create a situation where it is the tyranny of choice ran, run amuck & run rampant. the amount of possibilities  it’s overwhelming and I think that can dilute often and dissipate what’s in here.

Mike: right

Raymond: …so I do think that i’m not harking back to a time and going, ‘oh it was much better in my day when we had an eight bit sampler with no editing no saving…’ I mean with my the first eight bit sampler I had you couldn’t store the sounds you couldn’t save them, you couldn’t edit them, I could just loot them and I could see and gate them from the sh101 and from the rim trigger I could sequence, in sync with the 909, so that’s how a lot of that early stuff was done. It was 8-bit it was grungy as [ __ ]…so there was a sense of the narrowness of it made you push it further.

Mike: right

Raymond: so as opposed to now where I mean I can just..i can’t stand this tyranny of choice thing. I prefer a little bit sometimes…i just dial something up and i’ll try and make it work…and because otherwise I just get lost. Easily I lose myself in, I lose myself in it. So I have to keep it less is more for me.

Mike: It’s like an analysis by paralysis kind of idea. You could just keep dialing and twiddling. I mean that’s half of my problem too, when I mix records or when I work on people’s stuff. I can sit here for hours and just hyper focus on a drum tone, or trying to get the most bottom end out of a mix without it being too muddy, or you could just really go nuts on it and it’s just…it’s insane. So let me ask you this though, do the messages in <PIG>’s material now differ from the earlier material, because of the technological limitations plus the frame of mind that you were in? …and this will segue into further questions.

Do the messages in ‘s material now differ from the earlier material?

Raymond: Just hang on, it broke up a bit there, are you saying has the message changed, is that what you said?

Mike: I mean has the has the message from early PIG to more recent PIG changed?

Raymond: no actually I i get what you’re saying I actually but I i think so some of it some of the themes have maybe got a little bit broader and maybe i’m a little bit I write lyrics in a slightly different way now often often we would just we’d get [ __ ] up and just scribble things down but I think that I was talking to mark who’s been making a series of videos little snippet videos of the one from each track and that the albums which have been going on social media I was talking to him about it because obviously we discuss what the theme is for the songs right right you know what what’s this one about and what we’re gonna do and what’s the thing where’s the footage gonna come from what’s it gonna look like and what’s it about and I think it’s quite funny see what it’s it’s the same old [ __ ] you were writing about 30 years ago and all I can do is basically it’s it’s all coming from here right and I think it’s ironic somebody actually weirdly today is the anniversary of sin sex and salvation it was released on wax tracks in 94 and I just put up some stuff earlier and I just noticed someone said someone made a comment he said, ‘god those those cut ups that..” The stuff, the footage, the found footage…he said, “…it’s the same right-wing fundamental [ __ ] [ __ ] nutcases spouting the same [ __ ] in 2020 as they were in 94.”

…someone made a comment, he said, ‘God those those cut ups that..’ [the found footage political clips in PIG/KMFDM songs] …he said, ‘…it’s the same right-wing fundamental fucking bullshit nutcases spouting the same shit in 2020 as they were in 94.’

Mike: exactly

Raymond:however many years and I thought that’s true actually I mean actually probably bullshit’s got more extreme as time’s gone on you know

Mike: It’s like you you almost listen to a lot of early KMFDM where there’s a lot of discussion about social justice and change and all other stuff and it’s eerily similar that we’re still having these same arguments and it’s a little bit more intense now…but it’s essentially the same narrative over and over you know what I mean?

Raymond: I think maybe the thing that’s changed is possibly…the stuff that was seen as being more…extreme…extreme attitudes were seen as being more…marginalized and because of the internet

Mike: right…

Raymond: some of the more extreme viewpoints seem to have been able to spread and misinformation…all that [ __ ], whatever he talks about that lunatic trump— what does he talk about, alternative facts?

Mike: yeah this is fake news fake news

Raymond: and so there really is a really it’s really difficult now there is just so much spewing poison and [ __ ] and misinformation that things are even more difficult and more of the truth is even more opaque.

Mike: you’re right exactly and I sometimes I wonder if that’s a good thing also to have a little bit too much media and too much democratization of media because it almost just invites some misinformation and just wrong stuff in general, like wrong facts I guess, you know what I mean?

Raymond: I mean you have this thing, here in the UK, the BBC like to have in the news they like to portray balance. So for example, if 98% of scientists say the world is warming because of carbon emissions and stuff they have to balance it. So if two percent of scientists say, ‘oh no, that’s a crock of shit.’ they will still give somebody from the two percent as much time to have a balanced argument. Now, that’s a great idea but it’s also giving the oxygen of publicity—i think to quote margaret thatcher weirdly—some pretty [ __ ] crackpot ideas sometimes get quite a big stage to spout from. Does that make sense?

Mike: and I think unfortunately I think a lot of that problem is is that I think it’s it’s okay to be fair and balanced to I hate using fox’s fox news thing but it’s okay to be fair and balanced to an extent but you’re right it’s you’re giving some credence toor and legitimacy to some whack job theories in that respect as well I mean I think it’s fair to be accurate and balanced but you know you can’t control how people take that information and dissect it what I mean that’s the problem

Raymond: yeah

Mike: I think is too much the ability to dissect that information and connect dots what I mean that’s where it gets crazy. You’ve been outspoken about your own like personal sort of struggles especially with drugs and and alcohol and then you ended up in rehab i’m curious where is like the where does the gospel church religious theme come in in the recent incarnation of versus before I don’t ever really remember that being a theme it seems like that’s a theme now is that is that something that you feel like just kind of creeped in because it’s like a rebirth of your your life and your career because you had that really tough period and you’ve kind of fixed your life and and come back in in more health conscious ways…

Where does the gospel church religious theme come in in the recent incarnation of versus before?

Raymond: fixed my life I wish I wish you know I don’t regret everything’s fabulous now televangelism has always been fascinating to me and actually I think I was I mean maybe it’s not quite so overt my interest or its appearance in records prior to me taking a long hiatus from the early 2000s to 2016 of the gospelit isit is a very for me it’s just quite interesting that thing because I don’t know how to articulate it there must be something of it’s endlessly fascinating and endlessly needed but there is such a it’s so open to exploitation and twisting but it’s also incredibly beautiful I mean I think i’m i’m I don’t believe in god but I do think that organized religion has provided maybe because it was the only conduit for artists some of those fantastic devotional music and architecture art and ceremony and I think people that’s important to people I mean going to gigs is a bit of a ceremony

Mike: yeah and that community

Raymond: of thingwhen the lights go down and people whistle and the band come on and they’re kind of communing and look at it people are missing gigs at the moment you knowand it is it is like for some people going to [ __ ] church

Mike:it is a church right

Raymond: and so there is something about that kind of channeling that I find I find really fascinating and and also I find it I hate to sayreally quite funny as well as being quite interesting and it really like it attracts some of the most wacko people you know

Mike: yeah

Raymond: and it’syou know but but all power to it people need that stuff people need to plug in people need to commute a lot of people would look at people who go to heavy metal gigs and see those guys going round and round endlessly in the mosh thing and all the people whatever they call it and just go that is such a weird thing it’s so interesting

Mike: wellthey should go to a jewish wedding right after that because they do the same thing in jewish weddings

Raymond: they go well I mean it’shumanity endlessly fascinating

Mike:yeahi I when I went to my firstjewish wedding it was i’m like oh my god these guys are it’s like a big giant mosh pit except they’re notknocking each other down or anything andit’s justthings that people dothat are eerily similar to things in a different context it’s just it’s just amazing I i do find that interesting fast fascinating as well um

Raymond: let me let me introduce and ask you do you think I mean apart from what so you obviously you’ve heard the stuff since I came back the gospel ohyeah and you’ve heard rism and you’ve heard pain is god I mean there’s been some other releases but those basicthe three legs of the the thing thatsupport peace since it’s come back right what do you think is the difference between this stuff and the previous stuff

Mike: oh wowi think a lot of it it just it seems the overarching theme the message aboutyou know that has that religious kind of connotation to it and an interesting like playing in the dark side of of that end of the worlduhnot end of the world as a thing buti find that interestingthe earlier stuff it just seemed likeyou were it seemed like it wasyou’re going through your life and your strugglewith drugs and alcohol and a different mindset I guess and and it seemed like I get this sense of like a little bit of a self-deprecation kind of thing of what represented itself as graphic image wiseon the album covers and everything and here it’s more ofnow it just seems more of like a like very much like a rebirth like ayou knowyou know you’re now older wiser and you’re you’re gathering those who have been in in similar situations and you’re creating a community and sayingyou knowwe could stilldabble in the dark side of everything but we have a safety in this in thischurch this community that that it is you know

Raymond: that’s interesting I do think going back to the sort of the difference between that stuff this stuff I mean I was I was juggling ai was a sort of poly addicti was I was addicted to heroin cocaine crack benzos booze you name itand so it was quite quite a lot of [ __ ] going on there and also it was very very extreme where I was so my and that was reflected in the that was reflected in the delivery of the art I was doing

Mike: right

Raymond: also where it started in the 80s right so it kind of relates back a bit when I when I left the uk to move to hamburg in like 84 85 after a year I i had my studio in hamburg but I said hamburg but I started moving to west berlin west berlin I moved I started working west island so I moved there for five years from sort of 85 to early 90 86 I suppose it was just the beginning of 86 to early 90s and and that was the front line of what the cold war was there was a [ __ ] wall around it there were russian guards there were east german guards and it really felt particularly earlier in the 80swhen reagan and thatcher were in thereit really felt like any minute there could have been the the big red button that had been pressed and it was going to be I was drawn to the front line and berlin was quite a weird city it’s surrounded by east germany with a wall around it with minefields it wasn’t actually part of west germany it was run by east berlin was run by the russians west berlin was run by the french the americans and the british so kids who didn’t want to do national service in west germany would escape it wasn’tit wasn’t controlled by ball and the west german gun it so it was a kind of an escape place for people you could avoid military service and artists went there people like me from other countries and it was like being in the front lines of the trenches of the cold war and it was very hedonistic you could set up a bar in your living room and you could just get people in they wouldn’t it was very loose

Mike: wow

Raymond: and so that sort of set the template from where s started and I started I think into a kind of descent of kind of a descent of where I just always wanted to changei did a couple of albums with kmf I got bored I wanted to do something more experimental more extreme it was always more more more extreme weirder generally darker and just sent into the darkest places I could find within myself which meant going to some pretty weird places physically

Mike: right right

Raymond: andwith my body what I was doing with my body to my mind staying up for days and days ingesting whatever I could and then that would manifest in some pretty weird music

Mike: right

Raymond: and that continued all the way through the 90s I came back to the uk and was spending a lot of time in japan and then re-hooked up with the kmfgm guys writing with them again andwe were out in seattle recording that stuff in the mid 90s and onwards and they were all like in the studio and I was working on lead albums and songs with them and touring but I was like I was off half the time in the most dodgy parts of town scoring getting in real scrapes coming back getting [ __ ] out my skull contributing but it was all I was slightly in a different place I felt

Mike: wowso it’s it’s a it’s a fascinating thing to like want to artistically find yourselfand really get in there like in that soul that space that isyour inner core of you usingyou know drugs and alcohol and everything and it ends upproviding you with some amazing creative art but also damages you at the same time it’s just uh

Raymond:you hit the buffersyeah you’re right after a while you always wanted to go I would be and I was just going where do I go from here where do I go what am I going to write about next what the [ __ ] have I got to do have I got a [ __ ] top myself but then there’s no I can’t come back and write about it so it was kind of it sort of hit the buffers and ended I just didn’t know where to go and also I was working to be doing shafts fine kmftm and it was just non-stop non-stop locking myself in my studio the whole time for days and days getting absolutely obliterated writing some really weird music and then eventually i’m really actually glad that it stopped

yeah

Raymond:because I needed to just go away from it for like years and

Mike: yearsdo you thinkdo you think that the the irony of thatbeing so busyand but still doinga lot of like drugs and alcohol but but still being so busymight have saved your life in some weird way because you were busy you were creating but you were which didn’t lend yourself to getting so messed upto the because you had idle timewhat I mean like you were busy so it did keep you moving forward in some respects

Raymond:i mean basically it’s having something toeven though I was [ __ ] up there was something to be said but you know

Mike: there was a goal there there was a goal

Raymond: having having something to do having someone to love and having something to look forward toand I mean having something to look forward to something to do is really important for me

Mike:um I know you knowyou mentionedworking in in japani’ve always noticed that the japanese records that you put outhave different songs on them or different versions and was that something that was prethat was planned and is that a thing that you’re still doing now or was that again just something to because it just kept you busy

Raymond:i mean I just kind ofjust make the discography a bit more interesting change the tracks around all the usb from the from the american version and sometimes they go i’ve got some extra [ __ ] here what am I going to do i’ll put it on that one take those ones off and we still do that to a certain extent

Mike:because like the vinyl

Raymond: not to be not to be awkward but just to make things a bit more interesting right a bit less boring like the vinyl has two two two tracks on on it that the album doesn’t have right this oneum solet’s let’s get intopain pain is god and we can just kind of like get to the end of this because I don’t want to take up too much of your time but I want to talk about pain as god the record that just came outhow’s the collaborative effort during the global pandemic andthis whole thing like did you feel like you worked the same or was there a little bit more kind of difficulty here and there

Raymond: no I mean to be perfectly honest I was I was already in the trenches of doing this [ __ ] record when the [ __ ] storm landed and so outwardly my life didn’t change that muchi’m still sort of sending vocal files to a nationfiles to to nh in berlin to do vocals bits of guitar he did say with steve white in seattle michelle who’s in australia I sent her stuff sosasha gray in la she stuffit was all by sending files which used not to be my favorite way of working butneeds must

Mike:yeah that works

Raymond:and it’s justobviously there was no tour happening there’s not going to be god knows if that would ever stop I just spent a little bit an extra couple of months on the album released it so I could work on it a little bit longer andthat’s that’s that’s how it’s here

Mike:during making this record since you’ve been in this in this quarantine environment like have you I know you and sasha havemore or less are on speaking terms you worked on a track with on the last album that he was working onhas there been any furthertaking advantage of this opportunity that is the pandemic and and maybe working together a little bit more on some things or expanding that relationship

 

Raymond: we did talk about some things but he’s I think he’s doing a record withlucia a solo record of her so he’s got some things and i’ve got a few things there’s nothing nothing planned but you know

Mike:yeahi mean you figure you guys have mended a little bit of that relationship it would be kind of cool to say well we have this opportunity let’s seeif we work on one more other tracksee where that goes um

Raymond:i mean we did some I mean i’m reallyi’m really proud of the work I did withwith those guys and I think it really stands to stands up over timeit’sthere’s some really good stuff there and I think I don’t know there was something about there was something about the way it workedfor example those some of those thingssome of the people in the orbitwhen when bill rieflin came in and did things on nihil summer gunter’s guitar stuff just was next levelyou knownh when when nick just brings something and it’s just like he brings a little bit of magic dust and you just go [ __ ]where the [ __ ] is thathe’s justpain out there and he seems so well I spoke to I spoke to nick or next people know him the other day oh god it seems he’s looks fantastic oh good he’s really he’s he’s clean and sober and [ __ ] really looking great and yeah

Mike: I miss him very much I i sent him text messages here and there to ask him how he’s doing and i’m sure he’s busy and everything but I was genuinely concerned from the last time you guys came to new york and he was in a little bit of a in some pain here and there with his lower back so i’m happy to hear that he feels better um

Raymond: yeah

Mike: that’s good i’m glad to hear thati am digging the new album and a few of my favorites are kicking ass and what is the other one here that I really dig a lot like the I like the sort of I guess moodiness of is it confession the sacrificial mixi’m really digging that stuff I like the celebratory darkness industrial vibe again which is likethe horns and everything but it’s still it’s still therewhat songs really stick out to you personally andmeaning like which song when you were creating it was the one that gave you the chills more or less I meanhow that goes

Raymond: wellit’s it’s an interesting question though actually because they I meanwhen I start when I was going I look i’ll do kicking ass because it’s like something I know and it’s such shared kind of it’s such shared territory with me and then ash and then it was fun to get cetera and stuff but I kind of knew what it was going to be like working on songs like I mean suffer no more was quite weird the way that turned out that’s the final track on the album because that’s some [ __ ] that I had lying around actually that goes back to the last bit of [ __ ] I wrote before I stopped for over 10 years there was some stuff lying around none of the vocal lines but chord progression and stuff right basically well they’ve been kicking around since like 2003 2004. so when it started coming together with that sort of gospelly vocal thing going on and that kind of lyric and stuff I was like where the [ __ ] did that come from so half the time i’m kind of going jesus this is where the did I write what the [ __ ] is that way well blah blah blahand and also it’s quite weird because I i I don’t know where this stuff comes from I mean the lyrics also I mean I just write and then I bash them back and shave and hopefully i’m going what the [ __ ] is this oh I see what it’s about so i’m just like somebody else reading it listening to it hearing it often for the first time sowhatever you call it your muse your channeling what what the [ __ ] ever I do I f and I don’t really want to know too much about it if it comes whatever that is when the spirit is upon me then whoa hallelujah

Mike:i find the same thing like i’ll go through an archive of ofchord progressions that i’ve doneyou know stuff that i’ve sent to nick for Slick Idiot at back in the day and i’ll go back to that and just gowhere did this come from who like who did this and it’s just an amazing revisiting of writing something at the time that maybe didn’t have a place to to reside and needed a couple oflike maybe a decade or so for it to sort of mature sitting on a hard drive and then you you just kind of those happy accidents are amazing I love that

Raymond: yeah

MIke: so

Raymond: yes it;s all weaird

Mike: so raymond thank you thank you thank you so much for being on the show I really appreciate talking to you I hope you had a a great chat here I think we covered quite a bit of some interesting territory

Raymond:the only thing is that I don’t think we talk quite enough about drugs that’s the most we didn’t really cover we didn’t really cover every corner of that particular sordid cupboard because I tell you man there’s a whole load more [ __ ] that needs to be swept out of there and smeared all right

Mike: well what we will we can I would love to do that with youwe’ll we’ll definitely go there because i’m sure I have my own my own level of stories that I can smear on there too solet’s do thatthank you

Raymond: listen when I didn’t see you man I hope we aren’t gonna sort of hook up in the not too distance so let’s just hope for the best prepare for the worst and to see where it work see where it goes

Mike: let’s all hang in there and then we we owe each other like long hugs and everything I justspoke to nicole blackmanleft her message on her herphone the other day to tell her happy birthday so i’m just trying to keep in touch with everybody and just you knowhopefully that everybody’s still making it through this thing and when we see each other again it’s gonna be it’s gonna be crazy I think it’s gonna be really emotional and and relieving at the same timewhat I mean

Raymond: well as long as everyone takes the [ __ ] vaccine let’s hope

Mike: i know right thank you raymond I really appreciate it thank you for taking out the time and and moving the schedule around I appreciate it

Raymond: Cheers all the best.

Mike: I will talk to you soon please keep in touch