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By: Matt Butler
Imagine Buzz Osborne, a founder member of Melvins, sitting in a room with Dave Curran, who is both the bassist from Unsane and the lead vocalist in the monster noise rock band Pigs.
What do you think they’d talk about? Effects pedals? Their next meal? Tour-related aches and pains? Economic philosophy?
Try all of the above. But while the first three are most likely common topics among any long-time musicians of a rowdy nature, the latter may raise eyebrows the highest. But it is true. To be precise, Curran tells Echoes and Dust that Osborne “turned me on to” the libertarian economist Thomas Sowell and the conversation led to a track on Pigs‘ latest album, Wronger.
The song is called ‘Mouth Dump’ and is in stark contrast to the rest of the album. It features a banjo and excerpts from interviews with Sowell, featuring thought-provoking passages such as “the fancier your education, the more likely you are to spout off on things you don’t now much about,” and “you can see the tendency of people who think they are better telling us what to do – and if you don’t see that then I’m not sure what the future is going to be like”.
Curran explains that he included the extracts simply because he agreed with them – not to preach to listeners or change their views. He said: “Buzz had turned me on to him a year or two ago. His views simply spoke to me, but it might not speak to someone else. So for anything to effect change would depend on how the listener reacts, or even understands it.”
The rest of the album is not nearly as po-faced. In fact it is a noisy romp with plenty of hooks and, if there is any justice in the world, should feature on at least one best-of-2015 list. Unsurprisingly, Curran is very pleased with how it turned out.
“It was a different approach than our last record and it all came together well in the end,” he said. “We’ve always had an affinity to loud, abrasive, volume driven sounds. This is mostly where it comes from. If we can translate that kind of power into songs, then that’s what we need to do.”
Pigs is made up of Curran, drummer Jim Paradise of Player’s Club and bassist Andrew Schneider of Made Out of Babies and sometime of Unsane, which he does as well as being a producer in his own right.
And given that all members have bands of their own, they are inevitably called a “super-group” – a term that Curran says “cracks me up.”
As for their other bands, they “are all on hiatus for the time being,” says Curran. “Andrew is busy with recordings, I’m touring with Melvins and Jim is gearing up for the Pugs tour,” he adds.
Curran has been playing bass with Unsane for nigh on 20 years and it is now that he has been up front with Pigs that he can appreciate the different demands on a frontman – even though he shies away from that label, preferring to concentrate on the collective.
“With Unsane, I only sang a few songs during our sets. I now realize the extra effort involved in playing and screaming for 75-90 minutes straight,” he says. “I enjoy both for different reasons. I don’t feel that I’m necessarily the ‘front’, I think the band speaks volumes individually. I’m just doing my part.”
