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Music

Pig Destroyer's Lyrical Genius J. R. Hayes Is Inspired by Death and Loves Fugazi

"As long as it sounds good, people don’t really give a fuck. And that's fine. I just think that it’s cooler if you can offer a more complete package."

Photo by Josh Sisk

Listen to any Pig Destroyer record, and it’s more than likely you’ll find every ounce of unreleased rage and insanity within yourself suddenly manifested in songs that rarely break the two-minute mark. They've been one of the most influential American grindcore bands for the past eighteen years, rising up like a boil from their Virginian roots in 1997. PxDx signed with seminal extreme music label Relapse Records three years later, and haven’t looked back since. While the band’s music alone has been more than enough to garner their well-deserved accolades, the streetpreacher-on-speed vocal furor of J. R. Hayes remains what’s perhaps the group’s most distinctive quality.

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Reading over Hayes’ lyrics is a crucial part of the PxDx experience; each stark, surreal vignette is a history lesson, a cautionary tale, or a murderous fantasy—sometimes all three. Hayes imbues each line with an unfiltered realism that rages as much as it reflects on the human experience. As a way of celebrating the 25th anniversary of Relapse Records, Noisey reached out to Hayes—who’s long been the brains behind one of the label’s most successful and utterly unforgiving acts—to talk about his lyrics, his reading habits, and the value of putting the bullshit to the side.

Noisey: You’re well-known for your lyrics, and have been since PxDx's earliest days. Have you seen the things that inspire and inform your lyrics change, or has it largely stayed the same since the beginning?
J. R. Hayes: That’s an interesting question. I think as you get older, not only do your influences change, but your attitude changes about things you liked when you were younger. I don’t listen to those records the same way that I used to, you have a whole lot more experience and knowledge. I just think that everything is changing, even if it’s changing too slowly to perceive it. Everything is in a constant state of change – your mind, your body, the band. From a creative standpoint, it’s about capturing whatever moment you’re in, whatever that might be.

As an example, when we did the Book Burner album, I was not reading as much fiction as I normally do. Most of the things that I was reading were philosophical, theological. I was watching a lot of religion debates on YouTube. I think those lyrics don’t have the flowery imagery in some of my other lyrics. They’re a little more straight forward and stark, and naked. I don’t necessarily know if I like that or don’t like it, but that was the way my mind was working when we made the record. So it’ll be interesting to see when we do another record how the things that I’m influenced now will impact what I write then. I have a lot of lyrics written already, but sometimes you have to make the record before you know what you’ve made.

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Do you feel that aging has had an effect on you being more aware of your own mortality, and is it something you see informing your work more now?
As far as the mortality thing, I think that from the time I was probably thirteen, I’ve felt the specter of death. Whether it was because I was suicidal, or the type of literature that I was reading, I’ve always been fascinated slash haunted by death, morbid thoughts, and morbid subjects. That’s reflected in the things that I write, and the things that I’m influenced by. I think actually now maybe I’m a little less fatalistic, which is not to say that I believe in an afterlife or that I’m a religious person. I just look at it as an unavoidable thing, and there’s no point in worrying or getting upset about something that I can’t change. I don’t know. I think death is the ultimate inspiration because it’s the ultimate mystery. That’s what art is all about, it’s about trying to nail down something that’s impossible to nail down and to put complex feelings into words. It’s also about reaching toward something and never really getting it. That’s kind of the quest.

Do you see your involvement with music, especially extreme music, as kind of a conduit to confront that depression and deal with those thoughts you’ve had since childhood?
Oh, absolutely it has been. I don’t know if I got into it for those reasons. I just wanted to be in a band and I knew that I wanted to play extreme music. Once I started writing lyrics, reading poetry, things like that. You start to see that it can be used as a therapy. I’ve never gone to a psychiatrist in my life, but I think a lot of that is because of my band. I’ve watched a lot of other people that I know have to struggle with things that luckily I can go on stage and get out of my system. You don’t have to be in a band, but it’s really important to have an outlet. I think that’s why so many people need therapy is because they don’t, whether it’s exercise, or doing anything creative to occupy the mind. A large percentage of life is distracting yourself from something, whatever that might be.

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Reading your lyrics, it’s immediately apparent that you’re quite well-read. Was that fascination with literature something you saw dovetailing with musicianship early on?
Yeah I mean I think it was that. I read through school, but once I read Burroughs for the first time, I read that and I had never read anything like it. I realized hey, there’s a lot of really awesome stuff to be found here. Then you start moving toward people like Céline or Sartre, and there’s so many visceral authors out there. You just have to find out who speaks to you. I think that’s what turns people off. They read something that doesn’t speak to them. And then they think this is bullshit, I’d rather watch TV. That’s totally understandable, but I was lucky enough to find writers that connected with me. That was very important to me. But I grew up listening to DC punk music. DC bands traditionally don’t sing about the same shit that most punk bands sing about. Listening to a band like Fugazi allowed me to come at things from different angles than I would have come at if I had just listened to the Cro-Mags. Not that the Cro-Mags had shitty lyrics or anything. Lyrics were just a big influence on me, too. I think that lyrics can be important, but they don’t need to be. In the context of music, most people don’t care. People can listen to a song for twenty years and not really listen to what they’re saying. As long as it sounds good, people don’t really give a fuck. And that's fine. I just think that it’s cooler if you can offer a more complete package.

I also don’t want to get on stage and sing a bunch of dumb shit that means nothing to me. If I’m gonna sing a song, I wanna be singing something with some kind of meaning. When we’re making a record, I want to make every song and every line count. I like to try to keep the regrets to a minimum when making a record. I’ll write a story to go with it if I can do that. I think that’s the cool thing about making a record. You have an audio aspect, a visual aspect, and you combine them into a whole. When you’ve got all these different things coming together, it can produce all these different effects. People can latch onto whatever they feel the strongest about. I want to help people digest it and think about it and have it be something special to them. I think that’s what makes music special is how you interpret it for yourself. Everyone always wants to know what the artist wanted the song to be about, what their attention was. That doesn’t matter. What does it mean to you? Does this speak to you? If it doesn’t, then throw it away.

In retrospect, what do you see as the most valuable lesson or most profound point of growth for you that you’ve experienced since you wrote your first lyric?
I mean, I never thought that we would still be a band sixteen years later. That never crossed my mind. I’ve always been in the moment because that’s all that you really have. The past is gone. So it’s really about what you’re doing in the moment and the experiences that you have going through your life. The experiences that were most important to me were connecting to fans. The fact that the band means so much to so many amazing people. Another thing is being able to connect with people that inspire me. Being able to play a show with Napalm Death or EyeHateGod. EyeHateGod is my favorite band, and I’ve played with them in their hometown. It doesn’t get any better. And then going through this whole journey with the band, the friendships I’ve made along the way. Hanging out with Scott and Blake, all those guys. I wouldn’t trade any of it for any amount of money. Those are the best parts of being in a band, is the people. That’s all you’ve really got.

It’s like what I said earlier about feeling your own mortality. You have to know that it could end any day. Any time. Not just your life but the band. Somebody could call me tomorrow and say they don’t wanna do it anymore. You’ve just gotta try to treat everyday like it could be your last. I worry about shit just like everybody else. Ideally I try to just push all the bullshit aside and focus on the things that are real, which is your friends, family, and music. Jonathan Dick is waxing lyrical on Twitter: @jonathan_k_dick