Tomorrow marks the release of an album that almost never saw the light of day: Pygmy Lush’s fourth record Totem. But after collecting dust for a decade, the ensemble got back together after a long hiatus and chose to finally put it out into the world. An affiliate project of Virginia hardcore-punk band pageninetynine, Pygmy Lush hail from the same commonwealth and formed in the mid-aughts to give vocalist/bassist Chris Taylor and guitarist Mike Widman a chance to stretch their legs and creative impulses. As a result, Pygmy Lush wound up sounding so different from pageninetynine that one wouldn’t believe the projects are related, aside from the sprinkling of screamo that found its way into the former band’s discography.
Pygmy Lush went into hibernation after releasing their third LP, 2011’s Old Friends, but their decision to reunite last year was met with such excitement that they soon found themselves on NPR, playing the Dark Days Bright Nights festival, and even securing a coveted spot at the esteemed Roadburn. As for Totem, Pygmy Lush have said it went unreleased for so long (it was recorded and mixed in 2016 by Kurt Ballou of Converge) simply because the band saw no path forward for themselves at that point. But now they want the record released, so as to properly document Pygmy Lush’s history.
In honor of that milestone, we caught up with Taylor and Widman to pick their brains about other matters that we thought would pique their interest, your interest, and our interest—and the guys did not disappoint. Find an early stream of the new/old LP below ahead of its formal release tomorrow, and read on for our chat.
What’s the biggest dick move you’ve made on accident but still feel bad about?
Mike Widman: We were at a hotel in the UK, and I had a couple of drinks. Everything’s kind of funny in the UK. The people in the UK are funny—they say “fucking hell” all the time. It’s just the way the English language works over there. So it was like four o’clock in the morning or whatever, and we had to get up that morning to cross the ferry. Everyone was kind of grumpy. I saw this funny sign—it was “cheeky,” as they say. It had a bowl for a dog and this funny little statue next to the bowl. And the sign said, “Water for dogs and short people, too. We don’t discriminate.” Chris got really, really mad at me laughing, and I was like, “Sorry, bro, but this is too ridiculous.” It’s sort of a misappropriation of the word “discriminate,” isn’t it? My argument was, “It’s just a flat-out insult. It’s like, ‘Here’s dog water for short people.’” But I guess it was a dick move for me to laugh as hard as I did.
What’s the one show you wish you had never played?
MW: You go for it, Chris. I’m not much of a regretter.
Chris Taylor: I’m not much of a regretter, either, but we played a show in a Jamaican or Ethiopian cafe in D.C. that lasted one and a half songs. It ended because some people didn’t like our music so much so that they got angry. But there was one kid that did tell me that it was the best show they ever saw. I looked at him and was like, “Really?” Like, what was his rationale? Probably because the whole scene was like a Jerry Springer episode.
What was the last great book you read?
CT: That’s an easy one: Joseph McMoneagle’s [The Ultimate Time Machine: A] Remote Viewer’s Perception [of Time and Predictions for the New Millennium]. He was in the CIA and had all these testimonials that he put in a book that starts with his own biography. He walks you through some of the protocols of how psychic functioning works. But his biography is especially interesting because he basically died after getting in a motorcycle accident. He got revived, and then he died again in the Army and got revived there, too. Later on, the Army had him tested because they discovered that when he was with his battalion in Vietnam, he could always sniff out danger after those near-death experiences. And his squad made it through crazy situations, like firefights and stuff. That’s how the Army was picking some people for programs and tests and psychic stuff in the ’70s. It’s good shit.
MW: This is gonna sound kind of boring and a little woo-woo, but I think the last really great book that I read was A New Earth: [Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose]. Eckhart Tolle talks about how to achieve world peace. I love Eckhart Tolle, period. I’ve read it a few times, because it really stuck with me.
Who killed JFK?
CT: In short, it was three guys who were Cuban nationalists hired by Nixon to kill Fidel Castro and Che Guevara and Fidel’s brother. Then, when Nixon didn’t get elected, and Kennedy did, all kinds of shit happened. Khrushchev and Kennedy were gonna dismantle the nukes because there were generals and intelligence [operatives] going under the President’s nose and doing a lot of crazy DEFCON 2 shit. Kennedy got so pissed, he got [CIA Deputy Director] Allen Dulles fired. So then, that handful of generals were repurposed as a hit squad that Nixon was going to use to kill Castro. They all went down to Dallas and killed Kennedy and also groomed Oswald. He was supposed to miss, because [the Kennedy assassination] would allow us to invade Cuba, and Oswald was a Cuban sympathizer.
So they sent a cop to kill Oswald because he was gonna tell the story. Then they brainwashed [Jack] Ruby in jail and hired him to do the hit on Oswald. And then, once they got Ruby in jail, they used all their CIA drugs to brainwash him because he went crazy. And the reason Watergate happened was because a lawyer thought Nixon could be implicated for hiring that death squad, even though he put [the squad] together [to help] Castro. None of it was legal, but it really was sanctioned by the government. That’s the long and short of it.
My hunch is that at least one of you have had an alien encounter?
MW: So I was in my kitchen at 3 a.m. one night and looking in the sky, because I aways look for UFOs. I saw something strobing and starting to move around, and I was, like, “What the fuck is that?” So I open the door, and my dogs were out there looking with me, and this UFO was coming right toward me, and I’m like, “Holy shit, it’s a fucking UFO!” I actually started getting scared because I’ve always wanted to see one, but I’ve never wanted to get abducted. I got super scared because it was starting to get close to my house. But as soon as it did, I could hear a motor. It was a fucking drone. But it was huge—the size of a small car. It wasn’t a hobby drone. It stopped and hovered over my house, and I took out my phone to get video of it. Then it flew away from my yard. I think it had a camera on it, which was why it slowed down. Then it went beyond the trees. There are all sorts of mysteries out there.
