Recoil: What made you decide to put together the Pigface "Best of" CD?
Martin Atkins: I think, more so than any other band that I can think of that has 10 CDs out there, the Pigface collection of CDs is a minefield. There are some well-intentioned CDs like Welcome to Mexico, Asshole that just sound terrible. God forbid that someone would see Pigface two years ago on tour and go out and buy a nine-year old CD. So we wanted to create almost like a roadmap to Pigface to guide people through the catalog. It is a pretty good overview of the high points of Pigface, for the Pigface virgins.

R: How did you decide on the tracks that ended up on the two CDs?
MA: I was thinking originally it would just be a single CD, like a "greatest hits" thing, but then I thought, "God, if I was a Pigface fan, I’d have all of these tracks!" Of course people will say, "Why didn’t you put this on there?" I’ve got a 17-and-a-half minute version of a track called "Divebomber." Me and Flea (Red Hot Chili Peppers), the first take... it’s unbelievable. I think we might just put it out on the Internet or something. I have seventy live shows. I have Vienna in ’92, London, Ogre (Skinny Puppy) and Trent (Reznor, Nine Inch Nails) onstage together in Pittsburgh.

R: Who are the newer people on the tour that are going to be making waves with Pigface and making waves on their own?
MA: I think Meg Lee Chin has got to be it, if there was sort of "one to watch." People all over the world are e-mailing and calling me. They love Meg. They love her record. She’s been on the Witchblade soundtrack, Queer As Folk on Showtime. People really love what she is doing, and so do I, and that is why I have worked with her. It’s just a no-brainer. She’s fucking brilliant. It’s strange to talk about Trent when you said to me, "Who are the up-and-comers on this tour." When Trent was involved in Pigface, he’d sold 5,000 albums in Cleveland.

R: And then look what he went on to do.
MA: Yeah! And you never know who or what is going to jump onstage with us and what they’re going to do. That’s why I love it. That’s why I’m still doing it.

R: What are some of your favorite Pigface moments on tour?
MA: There’s about a hundred of them. There’s launching the inflatable life raft. We did that at St. Andrew’s Hall in Detroit for the first time. It was just fantastic to watch Ogre having a ride on top of the audience. When I look at the photographs of that, from a philosophical standpoint, you could say that we asked the audience to literally support us, and they did. [Pigface] wouldn’t exist without the audience. It was performance art.

R: How have the events of September 11 affected the people that are on this tour and will there be any sort of artistic or public commentary on that?
MA: This is no disrespect to anybody, but I think it might be really helpful to have an evening where we don’t talk about that. When we celebrate life and its energy. Pigface has created, I think, a unity. And I think that the audience knows that they’re welcome onstage to do something. The best thing that I can do as an artist, that Pigface can do as a group of artists, and this whole tour can do collectively, is maybe not mention it. The last thing that we need is another commercial with an easy-to-install American flag for the hood of your car. There’s too much profiteering already going on. I don’t think that we need an acoustic tribute every night onstage in front of an American flag. I don’t think that is what America is about. If I was an asshole, I would say, "Don’t let the terrorists win! Come to the show! Show Bin Laden he has failed by coming to buy our t-shirts!" It’s not the time for that. It’s the time to celebrate some good stuff.