Pigmy Love Circus has been cranking out their special brew of American metal for over twenty years now, and Ray Carney was lucky enough to get guitarist Peter Fletcher and front man Michael Savage on the phone for this exclusive interview. This is the second of a three part feature interview. First, check out their early video, Kings of L.A., then settle in for a half-hour more of conversation with Peter and Michael. And as if that wasn’t enough, the transcription continues with Michael and Ray discussing Reno 911 and the ancient art of tattooing. Check this shit out:

Second half hour of the interview:

Ray Carney:

So, Mike, I went to Texas to look at a internship for tattoos man, and
I don’t have ten thousand dollars though.

Michael Savage:

Yeah it’s not cheap, you know.

RC:

No it’s not.

MS:

Tattoo artists are really weird too, you know. They act like they’re some
kind of star and they’re not. I was raised up in tattooing to look at it
as the two thousand year old art that it is, not a back-alley punk rock biker
outlaw thing, but that it’s more of an art.

RC:

Well yeah, yeah man. In the medieval times you know when they were at war
they’d grab a slave, you know, something like that and shave his head,
tattoo a message on it, let his hair grow out and send him into war to
give the message to the general. Yeah man it’s interesting especially when
we’re talking about tattoos. And me being in like fine arts bullshit like
oil painting, I wrote a paper about tattoos and they looked at me like I’d
asked them for a blowjob. They don’t revere tattoos very much right now.

It’s interesting though, five or ten years ago they really looked down on
comic books. And that is, they are… they love that shit now. Tattoos
will be up there soon man I garuntee you. It’s a big circle, you know.

MS:

Well, it’s all changing. Like our studio, we didn’t have any flash on the
wall. so if you wanted a tattoo, we’d design one for you. You couldn’t
come in and pick number 21 off the wall. There were no Rolling Stones lips
or Tasmanian Devil and that kind of shit.

RC:

Oh dude that’s beautiful man, I hate shit on the walls, because it’s just so
mediocre, I’d rather have… It’s kind of an experience if you go in there
and you have to actually design something, and kind of feed off each other
and put it down on paper and what have you, then on your arm or whatever.

MS:

Yeah, yeah definitely, I agree totally. I refuse to do any racist tattoos,
any gang work. I’ll cover up any gang or racist stuff you want covered up.
But I won’t do it. And I’ll never tattoo anybody’s lover or wife’s name
on them, I just won’t do it.

RC:

Oh man, that’s rules you need to live by. Because if you put your lover on
your arm in six months you’ve got another lover and…

MS:

Yep, I know, I found out the hard way. I’m real superstitious about
that but yeah she trained me to tattoo, and I do occasionally still, but
once she left town, ran away with Pig our guitar player, I kind of just…
I kept on doing them for a while because I had my own clientel, and my own
following. But over the years I’ve just kind of slowed down now. I do
custom pieces for pieces once in a great while. And I’ve got to tattoo on
my left arm too, pretty soon. I’ve got to finish this band I’m going to
put on there.

RC:

So you do your own tattoos?

MS:

Yeah, I do some on my arms and stuff, I like to work with single needles,
very tiny lines. I don’t like the new school graffiti styles at all,
they’re not for me.

RC:

I was looking through some of the stuff man and they have these tattoos that
glow in the dark and all this crap…

MS:

Yeah, put that in your skin for a while and it glows in the dark. That’s
real healthy, you know.

RC:

Exactly man.

MS:

Yeah, I’ve been doing them for a while and I kind of slacked off because I
got involved in other things. Touring, writing these albums, I work in
TV and film too.

RC:

What kind of media?

MS:

I worked on, and have a re-occurring role on Reno 911, and I also worked on
Arrested Development too.

RC:

Oh wow, Arrested Development was excellent and Reno 911 was fucking
hilarious.

MS:

Yeah, they’re crazy those people.

RC:

I bet dude. Do you guys script them or do they just come in and they’re like
“this is what we want.”

MS:

No, Reno’s completely improv.

RC:
That’s awesome, those guys are awesome, I’ve been watching a lot of those
guys since kids in the hall.

MS:

Yeah they’re really insane. Really insane guys to work with.

RC:

It sounds like all you guys are really into a lot of different projects and
shit.

MS:


Yeah we all pretty much stay pretty busy. Danny’s the only one who really
gets to do music full time because of Tool and the money that’s made there.

But with Tool and us, we’re like… in an interview he gave years ago in
Drum Magazine which is really cool, it’s like Tool is like this mathematical
cold calculated machine and Pigmys are this primal animal-like thing and
you need both like the yin and the yang, you know.

RC:

Yeah I love listening to Pigmy while I’m driving.

MS:

I think we’re pretty good driving music, makes you haul ass.

Download:

PigmyLoveCircus_HeadlessHorseman_ThePowerOfBeef.mp3 from
The Power of Beef

Don’t miss Part One and Part Three of this interview.