THE PIGS

bring

‘Hillbilly Synthesiser’

down from the mountains

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WAY up in them thar hills, there’s a sound like you’ve never heard before, and The Pigs are bringing it to town with Hillbilly Synthesiser, the new single from Australia’s architects of barefoot Hillbilly pop.

A tribute to electronic music, but played only on acoustic instruments that has the feeling of Frankenstein coming alive, and possibly taking up banjo, Stretch Pig wrote Hillbilly Synthesiser during a trip to see his lederhosen-wearing city cousins in Berlin.

“We were all sitting in an apartment in Kreuzberg, we had a week off between gigs and we just wrote songs – ending up with six songs for the album,” he said.

Rumour has it all the songs were written in German, as a gift to their distant German cousins, and translated into English for their English-speaking listeners.

“The Germans are very big in terms of electronic music,” T-Bone Pig said.

“It’s pretty easy to be inspired in that way over there. As much as we love country music, and bluegrass particularly, we also love 70s and 80s music and pop music with synthesisers.”

Hillbilly Synthesiser tells of the journey to a shack in the mountains of Australia where they find their friend building a homespun electronic instrument.

The moonshine is flowing and the synthesiser is making sounds like an old jug band – it is hillbilly, after all.

“I really love old synthesisers,” Stretch said.

“My imagination just went wild as I pictured this primitive, homemade synth that mythically comes to life.”

Starring 2016 Musical Saw World Champion, Cousin Azo Bell Pig, Hillbilly Synthesiser, again sets The Pigs apart from their musical compadres.

“We had this idea of crowning the song with an epic musical saw solo but were quite nervous about how it would actually sound… so we were very lucky to get the world champion,” T-Bone Pig said.

Cousin Azo nailed the track within half an hour, sawing his way into the hearts of The Pigs and their co-producer, Matt Fell.

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Hillbilly Synthesiser was released on November 30, complete with an accompanying video, shot at the Deni Ute Muster. The video stars Aussie fans of The Pigs acting out the parts of the band, dressed in the height of Australian hillbilly fashion – the blue singlet – and rocking out, Deni style.

“We debuted the song on the main stage of the Deni Ute Muster this year and got a whole bunch of people in the crowd dressed in blue singlets, playing our instruments and looking like The Pigs,” Stretch said.

“We are celebrating the blue singlets and the Deni Ute Muster and it has a bit of a Mad Max feel about it.”

Stretch is hopeful this single may encourage further use of the synth in Aussie country.

“The synthesiser is something that’s underused in country music,” Stretch said.

“It was fun mimicking the kind of unnatural arpeggios that synths make, with banjo, guitar, double bass and fiddle.”

This is not a new concept for these Pigs, though, with their past four albums all featuring plenty of pop songs that have had the acoustic bluegrass treatment.

Hillbilly Synthesiser is the first single and title track of The Pigs’ fifth album to be released on January 18. The album, co-produced by Matt Fell, is their first offering filled to the brim with original songs with not an ounce of space for a cover.

The Pigs will launch their album with a national tour, beginning at the Tamworth Country Music Festival, where they are perennially known as one of the hottest tickets in town.

The single was released through all digital retailers on November 30.

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AMNPLIFY – DB