MORGAN Y. EVANS: You guys have a heavy, blues based sound and it makes sense in a lot of ways to see this stoner-blues torch picked up anew by a British band if you look at how white, English kids in the ‘60s embraced the blues. If they hadn't, rock’n'roll would never have been what it is today. I don't mean that to take away from black pioneers, more that a lot of huge and influential bands would never have happened.

HUGH GILMOUR: Firstly, Johnny is a huge fan of the blues, and his knowledge, tastes and musicianship (especially on the harp) are hugely influential on the band and its direction. We’ve never taken an easy route because we want to do exactly what we want to do, and after eight years, it doesn’t feel as if we’ve got very far sometimes! But you’ve got a point about how the blues took off in this country in the 1960’s, which I think a lot of people overlook. There was a programme on TV over here recently exploring how in the early 1960’s a lot of very young, middle-class white kids picked up on the blues. They referred to it as the Thames Delta, as most of the bands were from the Surrey commuter belt, near and around the River Thames. Pig Iron was actually formed in Kingston-upon-Thames in Surrey, and the area is bang in the middle of this “delta”, as Epsom (where Jimmy Page was from) is a couple of miles up the road, Richmond, where the Rolling Stones, and then The Yardbirds, held residencies at the Station Hotel, is a couple of miles in the other direction. Eric Clapton went to Kingston Art College (where I studied), and bought his first guitar in Kingston. Sandy Denny studied there, too. There was a pub up the road called the Toby Jug where Zeppelin and Tull had played in 1969, which sadly isn’t there anymore. So, there must be something in the water, but the area doesn’t get enough credit for producing so many great and influential musicians, but that’s probably because of it being a middle-class, suburban area. You gotta suffer to play the blues, after all.

JOHNNY OGLE: My parents raised me on good music. I was exposed to blues from a very early age and it struck a chord with me (no pun intended), somewhere deep inside. No joke. Elmore James, Muddy Waters, Little Walter, Howlin Wolf. I then got into heavy music, through AC/DC and Metallica, etc. I want to combine the two. It was not a preconceived thing for this to happen with Pig Iron—it’s just happened and I am running with it. To combine the heartfelt lyrics and harmonica with the gut-wrenching heavy guitar is a thing of beauty to me.

MYE: It is cool you guys have played with and are friendly with Leaf Hound. One, they have one of the best band names ever (so does Pig Iron) and two, they are certified legit old school. How does it feel knowing your band can hang with such greats as those guys or as different a band to play live with as Iron Maiden!?

HG: I flatter, and feel privileged, to call myself a friend of Pete French; the man is an absolute legend, and deserves to be much more appreciated than he is. He’s very cool and very down to earth, and is blessed with one of the best voices in rock. The rest of the Leaf Hound guys are cool too, and easy to get along with. In fact I designed the artwork for their last album, Unleashed. I’ve also worked with Iron Maiden for a long time, having had a professional relationship with them that goes back around 15 years. I’ve talked at length elsewhere about the time we played with Maiden, suffice to say that playing with them was an absolute privilege. Bruce and Janick came to see one of our early gigs, something like our fifth or sixth show in 2002, and Bruce asked us to play on his radio show, but only if he could sing a number with us. That wasn’t a problem.

JO: For me, it is completely bizarre, as I only recently discovered Leaf Hound, through a compilation. I heard Growers Of Mushroom and freaked out a bit, wondering why I hadn’t heard of these guys before now. The next thing I knew, we were playing a gig with them. The Maiden thing was equally bizarre. Bruce and Janick came to see us play and left before the headlining band started. I thanked Bruce for coming, said it was nice to meet him. He responded by saying, “Ah, yes. You and me might be singing together soon!” And walked out. I watched the rest of the headline band, but couldn’t even hear any music, I was buzzing that much. Life is good, sometimes.

HG: I’m good friends with the guys from Orange Goblin, and it was probably Pete that told me about groups like Leaf Hound and making tapes of bands like May Blitz.

MYE: When I heard "Golden" for the first time (I am new in hearing your band, but a big fan of the genres you dig) I was hooked on the amalgam of Skynyrd harmonies and just get-you-in-the-gut riffing. It is anthemic and uplifting yet raw with a certain grim honesty. Can you tell me about the chorus of that song, lyrically? I like the use of "eternal".

HG: You’d have to ask Johnny, who came up with the lyrics and the vocal lines. Myself and Ben (our “new” axe slinger) came up with most of the riffs, then the four of us worked up the song over a weekend, then went straight into Toe Rag studios, where the White Stripes had recorded Elephant, and put “Golden” and another new song down over a weekend. We love Lynyrd Skynyrd, but we seem to get stick for having an “American” sound, or a Southern influence, which apparently is a crime if you come from Surrey or London. Apart from the things mentioned above, I consider Free, a band that formed in South London in 1968, to be the single biggest musical influence on Lynyrd Skynyrd. The Stones and Yardbirds were big influences on them, too.

JO: I am extremely proud of that song. I can’t wait to get it properly mastered and released. The lyrics kind of came to me in the weird moments when you are drifting off to sleep…I had the flu and the phrase “I’m not feeling too golden, today” popped into my head. I thought to myself, “that sounds cool,” so I used it. The chorus is about not being afraid of death, hence the “eternal” bit. It brought to mind the scene in Almost Famous when he said, “I am a golden god!” and jumped off the roof. Not being afraid–giving in to the idea of what comes after dying–and the curiosity of what awaits us–if there is life after death.

HG: I love Almost Famous. I think the, “I am a golden god,” was originally from Robert Plant, as recorded by Cameron Crowe when he was a journalist at Rolling Stone.

MYE: How did Johnny get into playing the harmonica? It adds a great element to the songs. My friend Andy Parker from this band Butter would dig you guys. He designs harps and he's making one in the shape of a pistol.

HG: A pistol shaped harp sounds really cool. Quite literally, a Big Iron.

JO: I got into the harp though Little Walter, Howlin’ Wolf and Paul Butterfield. It’s that simple. It just clicked with me. I am the kind of person where if I am going to do something, I will do it properly and this applied to the harp. I stayed in my bedroom between the ages of 12 and 17 and didn’t let anyone hear me play until I thought I was ready. (There is nothing worse than a bad harp player.) I went to a blues jam session in a local pub and was asked to join a band that day. I played harp for years and eventually built up the courage to sing, which I always wanted to do ever since I heard Bon Scott. Now, I wish I had the confidence to start singing earlier.

MYE: People lament rock’n'roll has all been done, but then in the “stoner” influenced or rock scenes you have bands taking the basic blueprints we all know and have been weened on, like you guys, Baroness, Bible Of The Devil, NYC's She Wolves or Casket Architects, and proving there is still life in rock-based songwriting, whether you tweak it out or not. Even if it is based in classic formats, that doesn't mean you can't write great new songs that know where they come from!

HG: We choose to make “heavy” music, because we like “heavy” music, but not for its own sake. The song always comes first, and if the song isn’t good enough then we won’t pursue it. People have short memories. Sabbath would do a ballad or a quiet number on virtually every album, but they’re still Sabbath. You’re also talking about four individuals in this band with quite different tastes, but when it’s all thrown in the blender, what comes out is Pig Iron, I guess.

JO: We don’t deliberately set out to sound any certain way. I guess my voice and my harp makes things sound a certain way, but it’s not a conscious thing. I just want to sing good songs and sing them with conviction. The fact that everything in Pig Iron seems to click is just down to chemistry, I guess. We just all seem to be on the same page. I definitely had a background of stoner rock. I love Kyuss, Goatsnake, etc., and initially, I probably wanted Pig Iron to be a little heavier, but our sound is what came out and we are not completely ruling out the heaviness for the future. I want to make heavy music, but with catchy choruses.

MYE: It seems like a lot of bands get weary real fast trying to live up to these external expectations of “what they have to do” instead of also remembering to have fun and let the music reward you back. The music is not supposed to just be something you do in pursuit of riches. It seems like you guys really put your sweat into the art form.

HG: Like I said before, it’s hopefully about good songs and good music. We put out our own records on our own label, so we’re not tied to a release schedule at all, so we can work at our own pace. On the other hand, I am quite angry at ourselves that it took 18 months to make our second CD, especially when you take into consideration that all of the tracks were fully written and arranged at the beginning of the recording process, and all of the backing tracks were done in one day. To then spend a year and a half doing overdubs is ridiculous. Who are we, Queen? I feel we lost a lot of ground we’d made in 2005, and I hope we can reclaim that with the next record. We certainly haven’t been spoiled by fame.

JO: Maybe that is a record label pressure thing? We don’t have that, so we can do exactly what we like. We do put a lot of blood, sweat and tears into the music, and I’m glad that it shows. BUT it is always important to remember not to take life too seriously. We’re only here once and when I am onstage, singing with my mates in the band, playing a decent gig somewhere, having a few beers I am not exactly going to think, “How does my hair look?” or anything like that. I am just soaking up the moment.

MYE: Let's talk about the new live album Helvete Ja! How did it come about and what was it about this show in Sweden that made it awesome enough to be your first real concrete live document?

HG: The recording had been in the can for four years, and I’d always wanted to release it, but it seemed a bit early in our career to stick out a live record. There is a practical reason to putting it out now, which is to reduce the gap between albums and remind people we’re still out there gigging. We do like the recording, and if you read the liner notes to the CD booklet, it was a very special trip for the band, a definite step for us towards taking ourselves a bit more seriously. You must remember that the band hadn’t released one CD at this point, so we were fairly unknown, both at home and abroad. Those Swedes like their rock music, though. Another reason for releasing it was as a “tribute” to our years with guitarist Dave, who has now moved to Canada to be a film producer. Ironic, as Johnny is actually from Canada.

MYE: What do you guys think of all these America's and Britain's Got Talent type shows? Why doesn't someone do a show like that with a panel of real rockers ripping to shit all the usual fake types that go on American Idol or whatever? Like, explain to them why they actually suck!

HG: We’d never get through the auditions, unless it was to have the piss taken out of us. We’re hardly some nu-metal band with the right haircuts or the right t-shirts. I have trouble stretching most of my t-shirts over the beer gut. I don’t have a problem with shows like America’s Got Talent or American Idol, as it’s not really about music, is it? It’s a mass entertainment show.

JO: I love that show, believe it or not. I have two kids now, and when I see a little girl of 5 years old singing her ass off in front of 20 million people. I can’t help but think how proud I would be of my kids if they ever did that. Sometimes, I do think that people expect to have stuff handed to them on a silver platter. Occasionally, a singer will go on a show like that and say, “Music is my life. It’s all I care about,” and I just think, “go and join a fucking band, then and do it properly! Get some gigs, record an album,” etc., But they go on there and they don’t want to put the hard work in. To me, the work is part of the fun.

MYE: Have you guys played the US before? What would you like to teach us across the pond? It seems like there is a good rock scene booming again in England, even younger hardcore like Dead Swans, who friggin' crush.

HG: I am so out of touch with what’s going on, so don’t know Dead Swans. I was a fan of the Swans though, who I saw in 1992. We’d love to play the States as I think American audiences would really dig us, but until we can get some form of deal or representation it looks unlikely. We should pull our fingers out and play SXSW, that’d be cool.

JO: We seem to go down really well with people in the US. We’d love to play over there and we are looking into getting some in-roads for when the new album comes out. There has always been a good scene here. We know lots of great bands who don’t get the attention they deserve. We’ve been very lucky.

MYE: What is it about rock’n'roll that can be worth all the hard work and the sometimes strain that it exerts in other areas of life, in your experience? It's not easy being in a band in the best of times and now we have everyone and their mother being broke around the world more than ever!

HG: I’ve been playing guitar and reading Kerrang! and listening to AC/DC, Sabbath and Motorhead for something like 28 or 29 years, so it must just be in the blood. We’ve definitely had some ups and downs over the years, but it amazes me that we’ve been going since 2001, back when the mainstream hated rock music, where as now you can buy MC5 and Motorhead t-shirts in Top Shop. If we had to rely on the band for our livelihoods, then that would be another story, but we manage to juggle our lives in and out of the band. We wouldn’t be doing it if we didn’t love it.

JO: I don’t think money comes into the whole rock and roll thing. It’s not a question or a lifestyle choice, people just do what they do. We don’t make money from Pig Iron yet. What little we do make goes back into the band, so it’s not like we give a shit about the cash, but it would be nice.

MYE: If there was one classic concert event from the past, or a present one also, that you guys could go back (or currently be on) and make yourselves known, what would it be and what antics would result?

HG: Antics? We watch documentaries on penguins, play backgammon and cribbage, whilst we drink tea… The Iron Maiden show was obviously amazing, as was playing on Bruce’s BBC6 show in 2002. All three trips to Sweden were a lot of fun. We did a short tour with Waysted last year, and that I really enjoyed. We did one gig in Grimsby at a place called The Yardbirds, and it turned out to be the local Outlaw Biker chapter’s club house. I thought they’d be a tough crowd, but it was one of the best gigs we ever played. We played at Hard Rock Hell last December, and that was a great show, too. We must’ve gone down well, as they’ve asked us to go back for two years running, which is unheard of.

JO: I would have loved to have played at the original Woodstock festival. It was a complete mess, a complete financial disaster, but it was a beautiful thing and brought out the best of the performers who played there. The line-up was amazing—and to think of staring out into a field full of 500,000 people is unthinkable. Plus, we probably would have been tripping on brown acid during the show… Joe Cocker was off his knackers during his gig, and he put in the performance of a lifetime!