XXXL Guitar: Pig Champion

You know what? Guitarists . . . guitarists are important. It's important for a rock and roll band to have a guitarist, most of the time. A good guitarist can help a band out a whole lot, whereas a shitty guitarist can ruin a band. But we're not going to talk about guitarists, we're going to talk about fat guitarists.

Having a morbidly obese guitarist in a band is a calculated risk—they can save a band, or destroy a band. And believe you me, they will always do one or the other. Bands with fat guitarists—or fat guitarists in and of themselves—are either among the greatest guitarists in rock and roll, or the worst.

In the interest of arming you, the reader, with the proper information by which to determine which records featuring fat guitarist you're going to buy, the writing staff of Danger is My Beer will, in the upcoming weeks and months, gently summarize the talents of both the greatest and most despicable fat guitarists in rock and roll.

Let's start with the greatest. The greatest being, in this writer's humble opinion, the late Tom "Pig Champion" Roberts, of the band Poison Idea.

Here, Mr. Champion is covered in blood, as is Poison Idea singer Jerry A., as they destroy the audience with what is no doubt a bone-crushing song of destruction

At his heaviest, Pig Champion was clocking in at nearly 500 pounds. But despite (or because of) his hefty carriage, this Portland, Oregon behemoth was one of the most nimble-fingered, face-melting guitarists in punk rock history.


Out of all the bands that attempted hardcore/metal crossover, Poison Idea among the select few that pulled it off. Champion was good at editing down what would be excesses in lesser guitarists, and every Poison Idea song was a hyper-kinetic vortex of awesome, misanthropic, frightening, and most of all melodic rock and roll assault. He excelled at guitar solo ass kickery, as well as mega-fast right wrist rhythm workouts—see "Plastic Bomb" offa PI's seminal Feel the Darkness, which is knocking on the door of Black Flag's Damaged when it comes to best American HC LP.

Pig Champion was an avid record collector, spending tons of dough on vinyl every month. In fact, the story goes that he scheduled a Poison Idea tour to follow the footsteps of an 80s hardcore band whose records he was looking for—this being before the internets and the CD reissuing craze. Poison Idea played every town this band had played a decade before (The Freeze, maybe? I read this somewhere but forgot) so Champion could go to all the record stores and look for their records.

This obsessiveness is reflected in his guitar playing—he sounds like a guy who has absorbed at ton of music and knows exactly what he's doing, and exactly what tone he wants. You'll find no aimless wheedly-wheeing in the Poison Idea catalogue, friends. It's all destruction, all the time. Which is why Pig Champion rightfully assumes the mantle of Lord Imperator of heavy guitar players the world around. Mr. Champion, we salute you.