Founded by ex-Public Image Ltd./ Killing Joke drummer Martin Atkins and former R.E.M./ King Crimson drummer Bill Rieflin, industrial metal supergroup Pigface have always had a revolving, shape-shifting line-up, and have collaborated with artists such as Trent Reznor, Red Hot Chili Peppers bassist Flea, Pixies leader Black Francis, and members of Tool, Ministry, The Jesus Lizard, Swans, The Orb and more.
The group’s 2003 album Easy Listening… For Difficult Fuckheads is a typically eclectic affair, featuring cameos from Kittie‘s Fallon Bowman, Revolting Cocks frontman Chris Connolly, former Clash/PiL guitarist Levene and, on it’s very rude, expletives-laden closing track The Horse You Rode In On, magician, comedian and actor Penn Jillette, one half of superstar illusionist duo and Las Vegas fixtures Penn & Teller. Melody-wise, it’s a song unlikely to give Paul McCartney sleepless nights, but with Jillette spitting lyrics such as “Fuck all the people that God fucking killed“, “Fuck God“, “Fuck the KKK“, “Fuck poseurs“, “Fuck cops“, etc over grindingly funky beats, it sticks in the memory.
And if you want to point the finger at someone for Jillette’s “fuck list”, then Fuck Capitalism.
“I was indoctrinated by American corporations as part of an orchestrated plan to move us into rock ‘n’ roll,” Jillette told me in 2014. “They came up with The Monkees when I was 12, and that came on TV, and I bought their records and then The Monkees led me directly to the Mothers of Invention, who were on their TV show, and Jimi Hendrix, who opened for The Monkees, which led me to [Bob]Dylan. By the time I was 14 or 15 I was listening to Zappa, Velvet Underground, Dylan, Captain Beefheart, etc,. And that was all from The Monkees being on TV.”
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Growing up in Greenfield, Massachusetts, the teenage Jillette wasn’t holding his breath for any major rock bands to pull into his “little dead factory town”, but, like the protagonist in a Bruce Springsteen song, his world would open up when he was old enough to drive.
“All that a driver’s license meant to me was the freedom to be able to see rock ‘n’ roll,” he explained. “When I first got a driver’s license, within a week, I drove 100 miles to Boston to see the Mothers of Invention. I drove up to Boston to see people like Chuck Berry, Jethro Tull, The Faces… but the life-changing one was seeing the Mothers: that 1973 tour when I was a child was one of the finest rock tours ever.”
By then, Jillette was playing music with local bands, first as a drummer, then as a bassist: “I basically loved rock ‘n’ roll so of course I wanted to play as well as listen.” The arrival of punk rock proved to be another liberating watershed moment for the New Englander.
“I was a fan of Jonathan Richman and the Modern Lovers first, then the Ramones,” he recalled. “And then a friend of mine who lived in England called me one day played Anarchy In The UK over the phone to me and said, ‘You have to find the Sex Pistols’, so the very first day that the Sex Pistols released anything in the US I had a copy. Teller and I actually had tickets to see the Sex Pistols in Atlanta on their very first US tour, but we got a show that night so we couldn’t go: shows were rare enough back then that we had to take every one we got, and so we had to miss the Pistols.
“From there I went to The Clash and Elvis Costello and Nick Lowe and that whole Stiff records set. And of course the Velvet Underground, who didn’t have to change their mould much to fit with the punks.”
“I was pretty into that New York rock ‘n’ roll scene. I was good friends with the Ramones, I was very, very good friends with Lou Reed, I went out with Debbie Harry for years.”
In her 2019 autobiography Face It, Harry credits Jillette with inventing (and patenting) an “orgasmatron” hot tub called the ‘Jill-Jet’ during their time together, but that’s a whole other story, so let’s not dwell. Harry also guests on two songs on Tattoo Of Blood, the alt. rock album that Jillette released under the name The Captain Howdy in 1994 on Shimmy Disc, the New York indie label founded by US underground legend Kramer.
“We just started hanging out in that world,” Jillette told me. “And then through Kramer I got into the whole Gwar, Butthole Surfers, Residents, alternative/noise/avant garde punk stuff. There were some very odd evenings back then. I’d finish up my show on Broadway and then hop in a limo and go downtown to CBGBs and play bass with Half Japanese or Mareen Tucker or Lou Reed, I’d be the bass player in punk bands while I was appearing on Broadway.”
The title track of the musician’s 1994 album was written by, and features, one of Jillette’s biggest musical heroes, and dearest friends, Lou Reed. Jillette was once the president of the Lou Reed Fan Club, a position he reluctantly resigned from when he and Teller became stars on Broadway. One night, as the pair began their show, they looked into the audience and saw Reed, and were so overwhelmed that they both “completely froze… could not function”, Jillette revealed in a 1997 interview.
“After the show, Lou came up and said, ‘This isn’t a magic show, this is rock and roll’,” Jillette recalled. “And I, of course, being a cool New York suave man of six foot six and 20, 35 pounds, began crying, which really impressed Lou.
“Lou said, You know, we should hang out. And it took me about six months to get up the nerve to actually actually call him. After hanging out with Lou a little bit, Lou finally said, ‘You know, you you’ve really got to calm down if we’re going to be friends’.”
While Reed wrote the title track of Captain Howdy’s Tattoo Of Blood, the song was actually inspired by Jillette.
“Basically I’d got a tattoo without ink, which makes it hurt more and makes it bleed more, and Lou thought that was a really great idea,” Jillette explained. “The theory was all pain and no gain! I was at a biker convention, for Harley’s 90th anniversary, and all these biker guys were getting tattoos. And I said, ‘Well, my relationships never last more than two or three years, so I’ll get a tattoo without ink.’ So I basically just let the tattoo guy scrawl on me without ink to create all these bloody scars all over me. Lou thought that was very, very cool.”
Jillette continued his rock ‘n’ roll adventures into his sixties, with his occasional group, the No God Band, the mischievous, maverick spirit that has infused his ‘day job’ very much intact.
“We tend to play one benefit show a year,” he explained, “for the James Randi Educational Foundation, and we get a couple of thousand people to come, and play for free but ask if people will donate to the charity and we make $30,000 or $40,000 each time. It’s basic dirty rock ‘n’ roll, no barriers are being pushed at all, but there’s a lot of blasphemy and a lot of sex. I don’t think you ever really get more than two lines without a mention of either blasphemy or sex.”