Dismayed by not touring, Alvie & The Breakfast Pigs Gets Creative, Visits Japan and Saves the World in their latest Comic Book Music Release.
Hi! Thanks for checking out this press announcement for Loud and Fast, our latest release containing two songs: Tokyo (lead single) and Jenny Flores (“B side”…even though it’s a digital release…). These pandemic times have made things really weird, but we’re still creating.
We imagine you’re busy and getting a lot of requests, so we’ve tried to make this super easy. As you scroll through this press release, you’ll find all the important pieces. We are happy to answer questions and can be available for interviews.
Cheers!
-Alvie & the Breakfast Pigs
Click for hi-res pdf
The two singles on Loud and Fast were produced and recorded by Alvie & the Breakfast Pigs at Ferment Drink Repeat Brewing Company in the Portola District of San Francisco.
Tokyo
Tokyo, the featured single, is about crossing the threshold into the unknown. It’s about questioning yourself, your role, and your reality. It seems that we are all dealing with a lot of unknowns right now, so the song seems to fit the current climate and shared experience.
Most of our songs are written over several rehearsals. This one, however, arrived in a nearly-complete form in just one writing session. It was like the music gods downloaded it into our fingers from somewhere in the collective unconscious of rock and roll. It’s not normal, but we’ll take it when it happens.
About the comic book: Alvie & the Breakfast Pigs go to Tokyo
Normally we would book a tour to support a release. We’re a live band. We write and record music so we can play it on a sticky, beer-splattered stage. In the last few years, we’ve been playing up and down the west coast, and even eastward in Nevada, Utah, and Colorado.
We thrive in the chaos of a tour, because that’s where stories are born. Like the ubiquitous experience of having a sound engineer no-show and having all the bands come together to run the show, as happened in January. Or, like the time our drummer Jake walked up on another band’s van (The Yawpers) as it was being robbed, chasing the thieves away while pounding on the window of their SUV.
He broke his hand. And still played the show. If you dare, click here to see his swollen hand ;)
So in this peculiar era in which Alvie is robbed of crowd-surfing, Matt and Phil can’t stomp around and make far-too-intense eye contact with fans, and Jake can’t whirl his sticks around, we’ve had to project our creativity in a new direction. If we can’t be heroic on the road, we’ll do it in our imaginations and take our fans with us.
The song Tokyo took on an additional life, serving as source material for a comic book we are releasing with this song. The comic is set to be released page-by-page on Instagram (links below) leading up to the July 31st release day.
The comic, written by The Pigs and illustrated by the talented and eager Noah Wilson, sends the band on a Tokyo adventure. Can they harness their rock energy to defeat the nefarious crime group planning to flood the global airwaves with bubblegum pop? What kind of trouble will they find along the way?
You might be wondering why we’re pairing this release with a comic book. It’s a good question. We wanted to make this special for fans and have something in addition to the music to get excited about. We wanted to push our creativity a bit, too, and see what kind of engaging story we could come up with. And, what band wouldn’t want to see themselves as superheroes??
The song lends itself to off-shoot creative works, but we’re fairly limited in what we can do thanks to this pandemic. We couldn’t really do a video - luckily we had some footage from our recording sessions. We can’t build an epic live show and we can’t tour. With our extra time, and thanks to the fact that we just love to work, we concluded that a comic book would be a new and interesting thing to do.
Before our shows were canceled and rehearsals were banned, we never considered writing a comic book...it just didn’t occur to us. Now we see it as a kind of special edition merch item our fans can enjoy for a long time. And it’s something we can show our own kids years from now to prove...or at least make the case...that we were once cool. (Side note - none of us have kids yet.)
How does a band make a comic book? To be honest, we had no idea what the hell we were doing. We talked to a couple different comic book experts and learned how to structure the story.
We zoomed for hours over multiple days. We poured sweat, drank beer, and occasionally threatened each other with overly-aggressive hugs, even though we still haven’t all been in the same physical space together since our last show on March 6.
The writing meetings were emotional - we laughed, we cried, we smoked, Matt quit the band twice - but, in the end, we prevailed. And we’re stronger for it.
The story was sent to Noah, and so began a back-and-forth with our illustrator as he brought the story to life, incorporating the physical likenesses and behavioral quirks of each Pig. As mentioned, it is going to be released digitally on Instagram leading up to the song release day of July 31st.
For your viewing pleasure, here are the first four pages:
Jenny Flores
Jenny Flores, the one-minute-nineteen-second B side, is a raucous call-out of the Trump administration’s inhumane treatment of child immigrants.
Don’t be deceived - this isn’t a pretentious “think piece”. It’s rock n’ roll, infused with the punk rock snarl we grew up on.
Album name: Loud and Fast
Songs: Tokyo (lead single) and Jenny Flores
Release date: July 31st
Produced by: Alvie & the Breakfast Pigs
Recorded by: Alvie & the Breakfast Pigs at Ferment Drink Repeat Brewing in San Francisco, California
Mastered by: Piper Payne at Infrasonic Sound
Band members: Alvie Adams (vocals, guitar), Matt Logan (lead guitar), Philip Thorneycroft (bass), Jake Natkin (drums)
Label: We’re proudly and purposefully not on a label.
Budget: We crowd-sourced most of our budget from our amazing fans via a raffle for two comic book cameos.
Photo © 2020 A Strong Photo - astrongphoto.com
Loud. Fast. Rock n’ roll. We didn’t come to reinvent the wheel. We’re not here to serve a brand new cuisine. We’re serving up those classic high-gain recipes you grew up on. It’s burgers and fries out here in the dives of San Francisco, cuz we know you’re hungry.
Today, The Breakfast Pigs are one of the last remaining rock bands in the city, and we’re not going anywhere. The newest musical offering, “Loud and Fast”, is an explosive two-single release that took us outside of our box, thinking about more than just ourselves. It’s full of political strife, vengeful manic energy, and wanderlust. It’s an expedition overseas into the imagination, and a journey through the difficult and uncomfortable history of our country’s southern border.
We are trying to thrive, COVID-be-damned. We’re still hustling and trying to get Tokyo pulsing in as many ears as possible. That’s why we reached out to you, hoping you’ll find this story and approach worthy of sharing with your audience.
We are openly trying to get 10,000 plays on Spotify on release day. Our mantra is “10k first day.” A lofty goal? Yeah, sure is.
We also hope the song gets the attention of music supervisors - it’s definitely a dream to hear our music supporting a badass show, movie, or video.
We’re also selling a variety of merch, which includes print copies of the comic book and apparel that goes with each of the songs.
Our ambition is to fund our next release, which will be our first full-length record. If all goes well with Loud and Fast, you can expect a full-length next spring.
We hope you put us on the front page of your publication and maybe even ask for an interview. Of course, we’d also be thrilled if you share this in any capacity and tag our band on your favorite platforms. Rock and roll doesn’t exist without the listeners and music writers - we hope we’ve given you a good reason to share this story with your audience.