Pig Iron - A Tale of Three Metal Heads!

An English man, an Irish man and a Scotts man decided to form a band... that was in November 1999!

Throughout most of the 1990's "Big" Rich Hind (Bass) and Pete "Yeti" Rutherford (Guitar) had been through a number of bands together, but the chemistry was never quite right. There were covers bands and original bands, one line-up even managed to play a gig!

Following a 3 year break, forced on them by work and other commitments, Rich and Pete decided to give the band one more go and in mid 1999 started making plans. The name had already been picked, now the line-up had to be chosen.

Having ended up gigging with a drum machine last time, Pete decided to make the move from guitar to drums while Rich took up lead vocals, as drummers and vocalists always seemed most difficult to recruit. But now they needed a proper metal guitarist, fast forward a few months...

In late October 1999, Rich bumped into Neil "Madbad" Macnab (guitar) while returning a life-sized Viking figure to the Jorvik warehouse (don't ask). Having not seen each other for 8 years there was much catching up, but soon the conversation turned to music and so the line-up was completed.

PIG IRON's first jam session soon followed and serious rehearsals began in January 2000. The first set of songs to be learned included Black Sabbath's Paranoid, Motorhead's Bomber, Budgie's Crash Course in Brain Surgery and Deep Purple's Black Night. These are still favourites in the live set.

Over the years new songs have been added, always with the theme of Celebrating British Heavy Rock / Metal, so incorporating Irish bands and musicians (Therapy? and Thin Lizzy), Scottish (Biffy Clyro) and Welsh (Budgie). More recently the band has extended this further to bands with British roots, namely AC/DC, which is so often requested.

To celebrate our 25th anniversary in November 2024, Big Rich appeared on The Fox's Den show and spoke to Bill about the history of the band and plans for the future, this is now available as a (lo-fi) podcast.

The band has gigged in York, Ripon, Stamford Bridge, Leeds, Bradford and Castleford over the last twenty years but are now concentrating on recording and looking forward to playing a set of original material some time in the future. You can cantact them via social media (see home page) or email: PigIron@withhindsight.co.uk

Where does the name PIG IRON come from?

Pig iron is a term from the steel industry. When iron ore is first smelted it is poured into a mould to make ingots, they are arranged either side of a central channel and look like suckling piglets, hence pig iron, just your basic metal - like our band!

What's the story with the fluffy pig toy in the photos?

Rock Pig is a creation of the artist Edward Monkton and has appeared on our posters since 2006. The photos feature the soft toy version, with added guitar (a key ring) in a range of suitable heavy metal poses or being abused with an iron!