DESCRIPTION:
Visit thethunderpigs.com to download music, check shows and read about The Thunder Pigs. In this video The Thunder Pigs play "You Only Bring Me Down." This song was played on Feb. 17th on Genya Ravan's "Goldies Garage" show on Little Steven's Underground Garage, Sirius/XM Channel 21 and Genya said the song is a hit. Two other songs from our CD, Thunder Pigs I, were played on the April 20th show and on an upcoming May show. Our web site is www.thethunderpigs.com. This is our first video attempt so expect to see more in the near future. We have three other YouTube videos, a demo video for a new song, "The Man in the Empty Suit" a band interview, and a meeting with Ron Paul and the pigs.

Harvey Kubernik Interviews The Thunder Pigs (part below, see it all at www.thethunderpigs.com .
Harvey Kubernik is a Los Angeles native and a Southern California resident. Kubernik has been an active music journalist since 1972, and a record producer since 1979. He is a former West Coast Director of A&R for MCA Records. While at the label he suggested the pairing of engineer turned producer, Jimmy Iovine, to helm Tom Petty's debut album for the company and also instrumental in the signing of John Hiatt to MCA.

In 1976-1981 Kubernik provided studio session percussion efforts for producer Kim Fowley for his album production of the Runaways, and later for producer Phil Spector on his recordings and albums from Leonard Cohen, the Paley Brothers, and the Ramones. Kubernik subsequently produced over fifty spoken word, poetry and music albums in the last twenty five years.

Harvey Kubernik's writings have been published nationally and internationally over the last third of a century in Melody Maker, The Los Angeles Free Press, Crawdaddy!, Musician, Record Collector, Goldmine, MIX, The Los Angeles Times, MOJO, Discoveries, UNCUT, Music Life, Classic Rock, HITS, and Record Collector News.

Kubernik's hardcover 384-page book, "Canyon Of Dreams," his history on the Laurel Canyon musical legacy, is published by Sterling/Barnes & Noble on October 2, 2009. The volume incorporates over 350 rare and unseen music-related visuals and artifacts and spotlights over 200 Henry Diltz photos. Doors' Ray Manzarek has penned the book's introduction and Lou Adler wrote the Afterword to Kubernik's endeavor. Kubernik's second book, "A Perfect Haze," was released in November and is receiving rave reviews.

The Thunder Pigs were thrilled to be interviewed by Harvey in late September, 2011. In Harvey's own words, "Man, what a collective group interview! Potent."


The Interview

1. HK: How did the band get the name?

Frank Fusco (FF): The band started out as a trio. The three of us would propose name ideas while eating pizza and having drinks before rehearsals. As I recall Dave and Larry would propose the most "gawd-awful" (southernese) ideas and I lived in fear of being out voted 2 to 1 and ending up with, to clean it up, the wrong name. We also considered some names that were current and topical for the immediate time. These of course faded away over subsequent weeks. So here's the truth. Two good friends suggested name ideas, and one referred to her dog as a "love pig". So I brought this idea to Dave and Larry, who take great pride in changing anything I propose. But this time they got hooked on the words we kept tossing around substitute words and like rolling the dice Larry threw out the word "Thunder"...Thunder Pigs, and it felt perfect to all of us. It was timeless, not too serious, and felt musical.....

Larry Fernandez (LF): Originally, the band adopted the name of "Idle Americans" and went for the industrial 50's Soviet look in our prospective artwork. Were thinking of going heavily into contemporary social commentary -- but, as fate would have it, we had a pile of pretty good "love" songs and more humorous social songs, that really seemed to work better. At that point, we decided we needed a name that stood out from the crowd. I think Frank started the "pig" talk and many iterations and logos later, the Thunder Pigs came together as a name. I think the crowning achievement was when Frank handed rubber pig snouts out to Dave and me, and we were able to perform wearing them. It was a scene right out of a famous Twilight Zone episode.

Dave Patterson (DP): We threw around a number of names at first, having a "favorite of the week" that we'd try on like a pair of shoes. One practice Frank mentioned that he had heard of a band called The Love Pigs. We all liked the sound of it. I believe it was Larry who said: "We aren't Love Pigs. We are Thunder Pigs.' It stuck.