Grindcore giants Pig Destroyer plan brutal gig for Townsville venue The Warehouse
The Warehouse has secured its biggest international booking yet with US metal pioneers Pig Destroyer preparing to shake Townsville's foundations for the first time. See when they are touring.
Townsville venue The Warehouse has made good on a promise to book international acts by locking in a legendary American metal band to unleash mayhem in the moshpit this September.
Hailing from Virginia, Pig Destroyer has carved out an impressive three decade career playing an extreme form of heavy metal known as grindcore – what you get after putting punk rock and heavy metal music into a blender.
It’s a good thing that the band’s members have day jobs because their discography is the antithesis of commercial appeal, with extremely heavy songs that don’t overstay their welcome.
Speaking on the eve of their first Australian tour in 15 years, the band’s frontman and co-founder JR Hayes said they never set out to be a big band, they were just single-minded in their approach of playing brutal music.
He was stoked to see a Townsville stop added, giving the band an opportunity to explore North Queensland for the first time.
“I loved (touring Australia) and love the people down there. It’s obviously a beautiful country but on our last tour we actually were driving to a lot of the shows, which is stupid to do,” JR said.
“It was our tour manager’s idea. We were making like 16-17 hour drives through the outback and stuff.
“The shows were amazing but the entire time we were there it was pretty much playing and driving and it was just really exhausting, mentally and physically.”
This time around he planned to spend more time hanging out with the fans, and to see a sight or two along the way.
Offering it as a compliment, he said the warmth and friendliness of Australians reminded him of Americans, which seemed to be absent while touring through Europe, when it felt like “people don’t even really like us”.
Despite a seven year gap since their last album, JR wasn’t too fussed with their lack of recent creative output saying that they worked at a different speed, balancing members’ other creative projects, day jobs, and familial responsibilities.
With about half an album of new material written, he was confident that their Australian fans would be treated to some punchy new material, which harks back to their earlier days.
“All of the new songs that we have are like really short, really fast, and really to the point, so I don’t know if the other half of the record will continue in that direction, but … so far we’ve got short little crazy blasters,” he said.
“(When we hit the stage in Townsville), expect as much energy as we can bring and you know, hopefully the audience will feed off that and we’ll have a good thing going,” he said.
“There will probably be copious alcohol consumption as well.
“At the rate that we do things, the next time (Australian fans) see us, they might be dead or I might be dead. It could be a while. So, I would say like now is the time. Don’t miss it.”
For tickets, visit oztix.com.au.
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Originally published as Grindcore giants Pig Destroyer plan brutal gig for Townsville venue The Warehouse
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