“When recording ‘Pig,’ our main goal was to make the whole thing feel like it was constantly one too-tight corner away from going off the rails.
I wrote the bass part first, and did my best to channel my inner Tina Weymouth. Laura delivers this perfectly, leaning into an athletic, busy playing style, but with room in the mix to breathe, and still ultimately driving the song as the whole thing crashes forward. To add a feeling of urgency and alarm, Mikey added a guitar track that’s intentionally played to sound like a siren, riding a fine line between melody and dissonance. Rounding it off with a dose of camp was producer Mike Davis’s decision to mix an actual air raid siren into the intro, which, amazingly, just kind of works. The video leans into this Emergency! Warning! vibe, with roving colored searchlights bouncing off us while we wiggle around and try not to break character.
The song’s about an actual person in my life, but I kept the lyrics intentionally ambiguous to hopefully make the listener think (it is about cops? a cheating husband??). The general message is meant to be pretty clear: men, even the seemingly upstanding ones, have a sickening capacity to be, well, pigs. I think the resulting feeling is a little like having your best friend throw their passenger door open and say “STRAP IN,” before peeling out to go egg your high school bully’s car, then maybe do some donuts in the parking lot.” -Stephen Steen / Megadose
Megadose is a power pop quartet from Seattle, fronted by Stephen Steen. The group delivers punchy pop rock anthems, freewheeling between new wave, slacker rock, and power pop.
The group’s roots originate from Steen’s hometown of Anacortes, Washington, where he and guitarist Mikey Ferrario were inspired from a young age by a small but renowned community of DIY organizers, invited as youngsters to perform alongside artists such as Mount Eerie, Karl Blau, The Blow, Mirah, and Laura Veirs.
Forming just months before the Covid pandemic, Megadose managed to write and record their first full-length record over lockdown, which was quickly followed by the band’s live debut in late 2021. Megadose immediately turned heads thanks to their uninhibited on-stage presence, careless hooks, and tight musicianship.
Now fresh off a West Coast tour in Summer 2022, the group is pushing their early new wave and garage leanings to new, expansive heights, as well as uncovering areas of genre-play that suit the band’s hook-heavy songwriting and dense lyrical themes.
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