Who is Pigbaby?

What we don't know about pigbaby, we can glean through his music. Palindromes becomes the agent of complexity, adding dimension to the otherwise two dimensional persona. The EP is a lesson in reference art. Within the span of six tracks and twenty-five minutes, pigbaby pulls samples from YouTube videos, field recordings, flims and Irish folk music. Stiched together with crackling guitar and ambient buzzing, the record feels like a tinnitus-infused fugue memory. Though inhabiting an otherworldly sonic landscape, pigbaby invites the listener, via breadcrumb trail of lyrical and musical clues, into his inner space. 

So what do we know about pigbaby?

• He’s Irish
• He lives out of a suitcase, currently stationed in [REDACTED]
• His favorite YouTube video is TURF-FEINZ RIP RichD Dancing in the Rain Oakland Street | YAK FILMS
• His favorite pig breeds are the Hairy Shetland, the Vietnamese pot-belly, the Polish, and the Bornean Bearded pig

Appreciating the irony of Vegyn in conversation with Pigbaby, we invited his friend/boss, Vegyn, real name Joe Thornalley, to ask the hard-hitting questions that only a good friend/boss can. 

VEGYN–What are you wearing right now?

PIGBABY– Fluffy green shoes, pink shorts–

V– I’d say that’s more like a rouge

PB– A tank top.

V– And a big–is that a big– does that say big baby or pig baby? A big, pigbaby chain?

PB– That’s it. I didn’t think, well I didn’t know how to dress.

V–I think that’s pretty on-brand.

V– So what’s real about pigbaby? What’s the realest thing?

PB– The music.

V– And what’s the noise? What’s the fakest thing?

PB– The music.

V–Then why the anonymity. What’s its importance to you?

PB– I think anonymity is important, just for the reason that it’s fun. Because music is insufferable nowadays. I hate seeing fucking GQ videos of like “what’s in this boring musician’s suitcase?”

V– Someone was like: what if product placement was the product?

PB– Yeah and then there’s like “can this artist make a beat in six minutes?”

V– And it’s never good, across the board. It's very rarely good.

PB– I do a lot of stuff publicly with my other art and that’s all focused very much on me and my experiences and my relationship and I just don’t want it to have anything to do with that. I don’t want someone to listen to my music and be like, “oh I know that guy.” I want to just play something fun, and I think costumes are fun. I love people who do stuff in costumes, like, I love Blowfly who always performed in costume. The thing about the mask, and all the playful stuff in the videos, is like, If I was just some guy. It would just be like some dumb, depressing, cringe video, or audio where you’re like ugh they’re crying again.

V– You’re doing that in this, though.

PB– It’s more character–caricature–character, not just like there’s that guy from Oxford crying at a bus stop.

V– It’s true, they do, you know, lap it up. You can be the simp we’ve been waiting for. I simp pigbaby.

PB– Yay!

V–Can you say that, in an interview?

office– Yeah you can say that.

V– We’re stanning now. Let’s all stan pigbaby.

office– Okay, so If someone were to be a pigbaby believer, what kinds of rituals would they practice?

PB– A pigbaby believer?

office– Or whatever you call your fans.

PB– We call them piglets, actually. But, I don’t know, that’s a really hard question. Be nice to your mother and stay in school. Buy my merch.

V– That’s a really good one! He’s sticking to the cue cards.

PB– Yeah, it’s been good so far. A lot of people have been cheering and supporting. I’ve got no complaints for the piggy group.

V– I definitely love how confused everyone’s been. That’s been great.

PB– I’ve been confused, like who would listen to this kind of music anyway? But some people have been like what the fuck is it? And it doesn’t help that, like, the biggest pop star in the world somehow found pigbaby, and his fans are very, you know, people who listen to the radio.

office– Wait. Who found pigbaby?

V– The Kid Laroi. Have you seen who he’s following on Instagram? He’s following pigbaby.

PB– Only pigbaby.

V– Sow-ing the seeds of destruction.

PB– What’s that?

V– A female pig.

PB– But yeah, I would do a song with him. I like a lot of pop. I listened to Justin Bieber a lot when I was a kid, or like, I love Phoebe Bridgers.

office– So what were some of your influences for this album?

PB– I’m trying to take all of my favorite stuff and mash it up together into a pink mud, a lot of times I’m trying to remake pop songs, but I can’t really play music or sing so good, so pigbaby songs come out. At the time of the record, I was listening to a lot of ambient stuff, noise stuff, and a lot of experimental weirdo shit. I really like Graham Lambkin, I like his field recordings, I like music that isn’t “correct” by general standards, I think it shows vulnerability, raw stuff is sweet and gentle and expressive and more emotional to me. Chill Out by The KLF is my favorite record ever, and I like American Football, Slint, Aphex Twin. I like old hobo stuff, weirdo tapes by random oddballs, outsider stuff. Suffering with mental health problems my whole life, people like Daniel Johnston speak to me, I am interested in people funneling pop inspirations through their own personal experiences to make something different. You know, like, Daniel Johnston’s favorite was the Beatles, his stuff sounds nothing like them, I love that.

office– Was this your first time making music?

PB– I was DJ-ing a lot from the ages of like thirteen to twenty. I used to play in shitty nightclubs in Dublin, sometimes like three times a day. I was a club DJ, like a bad club DJ. And I’m doing some stuff for NTS. Music has always been a huge thing for me. I was working in the Warehouse project when I was like twenty living in Manchester. I was the backstage photo guy. So i got to meet like Aphex Twin and Zomby and all these cool people. So, yeah, I’ve always been influenced by music and working with artists in creative ways, but not making my own.

V– What about film? What's a movie you've watched way too much?

PB– Well the whole record is named after, and like everything is based off of a film called Palindrome. It’s amazing. It’s a film about a girl who runs away that’s being forced into an abortion, but her character is played by like five different women. One is a twelve-year-old girl and one’s like a sixty-year-old woman, and the director was trying to show that these issues affect all different types of women. It’s really good, the director is really weird. Really interesting.

V– And what does the record mean to you?

PB– It’s a heartbreak record. On the inside of the record–

Spinning the translucent, hot pink vinyl in front of the camera

PB– it says “dedicated to my first love.”

V– So what are you at heart, if Pigbaby is the facade?

PB– I’m an artist, I like to make things, all different types of things, and I like those things to tell stories, and be sweet, and take you somewhere else, that’s all that’s important to me, making things and telling stories and that’s who I am. 

V– How is that conveyed through your music?

PB– The whole record is a story from beginning to end, it’s a battle between reality and fiction, between the real world and the online world, between love and heartbreak, life and death. I’m just trying to tell my story.

V– You made Palindromes during quarantine. What was your quarantine like?

PB– I was so bored and miserable. Because normally the art I do is about my interaction with other people. I do stuff with different communities and I couldn’t do any of that which was depressing. And then my partner at the time left, and I was just in London, alone. So I escaped to Mexico.

V– That’s right. And he’s been running ever since.

PB– Yep. running ever since. That was two and a half years ago. I lived in a suitcase for two and a half years and in the suitcase, I have an art studio, a music studio. Please note: office did not ask what was in pigbaby’s suitcase. This information was willingly volunteered.

V– Rabbits as well. He’s got a really big rabbit in there.

PB– It’s like a clown car.

office–Why Mexico?

PB– Cheap surgeries. I needed a BBL. I did get plastic surgery.

V– To look more like pigbaby?

PB– Exactly.

office– So, final question, who are you?

PB– Pigbaby. Oink!