8 Things You Should Know About Pig Milk

Brooklyn-based foursome Pig Milk have been setting the city’s scene on fire over the past year.
Consisting of (photo: L to R) Mic Zammuto (vocals, keys), Allegra Driscoll (guitar), Jill Pesce (bass), and Lexie Viklund (drums), the LGBTQ rock band has become known for their live shows, which now draw capacity crowds at some of NYC’s most well-known indie music venues, including Bowery Electric, and Arlene’s Grocery.
Those crowds have also taken on a life of their own, shouting “Oink! Oink! Oink!” in the punk rock cadence of “Oi! Oi! Oi!” and generally being a rowdy good time.
With Pig Milk becoming one of the city’s must-see live bands, and having now seen them three times myself, I caught up with the foursome before their recent show at Arlene’s Grocery, and discovered the following eight things you should know about the band.

It all started with an unexpected Christmas gift
Lexie and Jill had become a couple long before Pig Milk came into existence, and it was after they’d been dating for a few months that Lexie surprised Jill with a gift that would turn out to be the genesis of the band.
It was also a bit of a risk as a gift.
“She bought me a bass for Christmas,” Jill remembers, “which is crazy, because I didn’t even get her a present, but I was like – I have to impress her. I have to learn how to play the bass.”
“Learn” being the operative word, because according to Jill, “I never played bass before in my life.”
Lexie says it didn’t take long for Jill to become proficient. “She picked up bass very quickly, because she’s a genius.”
The two of them then became a musical duo. “We started going into little practice rooms around the city,” Lexie recalls, “just messing around, playing covers. That’s how it started. Then we were like – this is so much fun, but we’re just bass and drums. We got all rhythm. Who’s going to sing with us?”
Jill reached out to her college friend, Mic.
“We stalked her,” Lexie says with a laugh, “We were like – you got a sick look. What do you sound like? And she sounds fucking amazing.”
The most recent member to join the band is Allegra, who now has a handful of shows under her belt. Lexie says that when it comes to the Pig Milk sound Allegra’s guitar skills have “brought it to the next level.”
They’re loud and proud
As noted earlier, Pig Milk is an LGBTQ band, and their Pride is something they take great pride in.
Mic explains, “Being queer is who we are, and all of our friends are queer, so yeah, we’re just ourselves, and we’re loud about it, you know?”
Jill adds, “We’re not making the show intentionally queer, but Lexie and I are dating, and that’s part of our lives, so we’re not gonna hide that, and I guess that intrinsically makes the band, and our shows, queer.”
With that, Allegra feels a special kind of freedom on stage. “Looking like this is not always an asset,” she says of her personal style, “but on stage it kind of is … Something that’s so powerful about the stage is that you can do whatever, and say whatever, you want, and you just have this power, and people are really listening.”
Mic seconds this, noting that knowing people are listening, “I wear sheer clothes on stage in almost every show intentionally, because when I’m on that stage I feel like my job is to bare my entire self, and I want clothes to match that.”
She continued, adding, “There’s an aspect of the sexuality piece of things where I feel like it is the space where I feel most free to explore that … people wanna see you overdo it, they wanna see you give a lot, they wanna see you be free, so they can want that for themselves.”

The band represents a first for each member
For Jill and Mic, Pig Milk is the first band they’ve ever been in. Mic, however, has been singing since childhood. This has included school talent shows, an audition for The Voice at the ripe old age of 13, an a capella group in college, and when she arrived in New York City she sang backup for Griffin Robillard. “That kind of acquainted me with what it feels like to sing with a band,” she says, “and also in New York venues.”
Allegra, and Lexie had been in bands before, but for Allegra this is the first band she’s been in that involves playing original music, and for Lexie it’s her first all-girl band.
“This is my first band with women,” she says, “which is something I’ve always wanted to do. So it’s very exciting to not be the only girl in the band.”
To hear them, you have to see them live
If you’re looking for Pig Milk on Spotify, YouTube, Bandcamp, or any other streaming service, you aren’t going to find them (at least not yet), because as of now the only way to hear the band is to see them live (with the exception of the occasional clip on social media).
“I think we’ve done something a little bit out of order,” Mic says, “we started paying live a lot before we had anything on streaming.”
Perhaps because of this, Pig Milk, while still in their relative infancy as a band, have become known for packing indie music venues throughout New York City. Word of mouth is the oldest promotional method, and Pig Milk have been proving it still works.
“There’s always our go-to people who come and support us,” Mic says, “but it’s like friends of friends, and then friends of their friends, and friends of their friends. It’s truly been a rippling out, and it’s been really really sick.”
@pigmilknyc is that..... was that... this is how carousel ends #nyc #les #indiebands #girlband #brat #lesbiansofnewyork ♬ original sound - pigmilknyc
The band won a unique award after their very first performance
Pig Milk’s maiden voyage was at a battle of the bands that Mic says, “We were thrown into.”
The battle was at Dave’s Lesbian Bar in Astoria, and Mic remembers it’s where a crowd reaction happened that’s followed the band ever since. “A big group of my friends started the oinking for the first time.”
As the band heard “Oink! Oink! Oink!” in the punk rock cadence of “Oi! Oi! Oi!” it was clear they had a special connection with the crowd. Because of this, when awards were handed out the band took home a unique honor.
“We won ‘Most Likely to Form a Cult Following,’” Mic says with a laugh, “We’ll take it. I love it. It’s still right next to me every night that I sleep, that trophy. I swear to God.”
They love the WTF aspect of their name
The name Pig Milk is a bit out of the ordinary. Lexie notes, “It’s a name that makes you be like – what the fuck is that???”
Originally what Lexie and Jill referred to themselves as when they were just a drum and bass combo, Jill remembers, “It became a joke almost because it was just so disgusting. We’d be like, ‘Hey, I’m free at 5pm. Wanna Pig Milk?’ Then it just stuck, and when Mic joined we kind of forced it upon her.”
Mic actually didn’t know the name of the band when she joined. “They didn’t tell me face-to-face. I found out at a volleyball game I was playing in for fun, and our friend was like, ‘Oh my God, I can’t wait to see you in Pig Milk one day,’ and I was like ‘The what?’”
She says, “It took until my friends started oinking organically for me to be like – I fucking love this! I’m behind it 100%.”
They want you to fall in love with the girl at the rock show
With a punk rock atmosphere, and a capacity crowd oinking, Pig Milk hopes concert goers will find some common bonds, and perhaps even a little romance when attending a show.
“You could fall in love at a Pig Milk show,” Lexie says, “or you could get laid at a Pig Milk show.”
Mic seconds this, saying when it comes to the crowd, “I want them to feel more capable of falling in love, and I want them to feel a little horny.”
@pigmilknyc Not shoegaze not indie not alt, rock. Next shows 5.13, 5.16 and 6.7 link in bio NYC #saphic #wlw #lgbt #nyc #rock ♬ original sound - pigmilknyc
They plan on releasing music … eventually
According to Lexie, Pig Milk will be coming to streaming services, it’s just going to take a little time.
“We’re going to keep writing,” she says, “and definitely hope to get something out before the end of the year, and just keep going from there.”
Until then, the band will continue to build their following through live shows. Their summer is already filling up, as they’ll be performing their own versions of country songs for Kiss Your Friends’ Hoedown on May 29th at Desert 5 Spot in Brooklyn, and then returning to Dave’s Lesbian Bar in Queens on June 1st for another Battle of the Bands. Those gigs will be followed by a headlining show at Baby’s All Right in Brooklyn on June 7th.
In what might be the biggest news, in mid-June Pig Milk will be performing their first show outside of NYC at a Road to Warped Tour date in Scranton, PA.
As their performance radius continues to grow, it’s only a matter of time until the entire country is shouting “Oink! Oink! Oink!”
For more Pig Milk, check out their linktree.
Comments