Mental Madness

The conspirators are as follows: Matty Matheson (singer), who grew up in the Niagara hardcore scene (with his late 90's band, Hanging Hearts), and who has gone on to become a chef and restaurateur. Wade MacNeil (guitarist), an active member of Alexisonfire and Doom’s Children. The Romano brothers, Daniel (guitarist) and Ian (drummer), rock’n’roll veterans from Daniel Romano’s Outfit and Tommy Major (bassist) of Young Guv - Tommy and the Commies - Daniel Romano’s Outfit.

"It was during the pandemic and we were all back home," says Matheson. The conversations began - to make something heavy, noisy and touched on the classic 80’s hardcore we all love so much. Everyone showed up with a bunch of riffs, scraps of lyrics, talked influences and principles, bounced ideas back and forth, then got Chinese food. "We wrote 10 songs in one day," says Matheson, "and the next day we recorded them." What resulted is the band Pig Pen. And, from this flash of inspiration, the group’s debut full length, Mental Madness, will be released on Flatspot Records.

It’s tough and it’s harsh, the music is dark and noisy, and it’s got depth. There’s an ease to the energy too that spiritually aligns it with those rare fully realized hardcore demos from the classic era. Due to the band members’ extracurriculars, Pig Pen is starting off as a contained explosion and a distilled expression, which is what the music itself is about.

The subject matter on Mental Madness sticks to themes that Matheson describes as “mental health shit”: topics like isolation, loneliness, and “letting your mind destroy you.” A representative sample: “Teach me to hate myself, teach me not to care,” bellows Matheson in “Mental Mentality,” the band’s first single—“I’m sick, I’m sick, I’m sick,” during the bridge.

“Our love of each other is what makes it,” says Matheson. “Joyousness,” concurs Dan Romano. Friends having fun. It comes across on the record as an expression of happiness. Is that a dichotomy? Not exactly. “There’s a sense of community in that hardcore scene we came up in,” says Romano, “and those early enlightenments, they stay with you.” And though everyone in the band has branched out since those days, “hardcore is always the same in some ways,” Matheson says, “this is a scene of giving, of sharing, of going the fuck off. That’s it, really.” That’s Pig Pen.