THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “When we heard EJ screaming ‘pedigree pig!’ for the first time while recording, we knew we had found a name for the album,” explains drummer Taylor Clark of Seattle trio Anthers. “During our creative process with this album, lyrics weren’t fully done until we were in the studio. Finalizing them in real-time was a very fun experience.
“What is a pedigree pig, exactly?” he asks. “For me, it conjures a strong mental image of greed and over-abundance. It’s not the only animal alliteration in the song — golden geese are also present, making the song feel like a dark fairytale or Bosch painting to me. It’s my favorite song on the album!”
Pedigree Pig is the first full-length release from the noisy post-punk outfit, which also includes aforementioned singer-guitarist EJ Tolentino and bassist Kevin Blanquies. And if you think the album has an interesting title, try some of the other tracks’ handles on for size: You’ve got Blow Mold, Gantuan, Tsunba, UGGO, Mussels and the closer ggbb.
“This song may have come together the quickest on the album,” says Taylor of the latter. “We write at a very slow pace, because every time something comes out sounding ‘normal’ we either nix it or try to make it more interesting and weird. There are also never any riffs written outside of practice — we write everything together.
“This particular song started with the drum beat — EJ was asking for something specific in drumspeak (which always sounds goofy but can yield great results) and I wanted to make the beat as close to what he was envisioning as possible. I often struggle with coming up with unique stuff to play on drums, so I absolutely love the challenge of translating my bandmates’ ideas — it’s just more interesting that way in my opinion. Once the beat was done, everything fell into place quickly.”
