Bitter Flesh Thing was an angry spectacle of grinding industrial-leaning heavy rock. It seethed, it raged, it antagonized. It brilliantly created solace within its agony, and a solid release within its apocalyptic tone. But like the bands that Bitter Flesh Thing was sonically related to - Nine Inch Nails, Ministry, Butthole Surfers - there was as much man as there was machine in the mix.

Zazu Pitts, the man behind Bitter Flesh Thing, put the band together in the late 90's and rode the lightning until he hung it up in the beginning of this century. A few detours into cover band purgatory and in groups he wasn't required to contribute to led to Pitts realizing it was time to resurrect Bitter Flesh Thing. He buried himself in his freshly built home studio. When he emerged it was with a new line-up - Alistair Godric, guitar; Chuck the Slice, bass; Drey, drums; and Torq (not an onstage member) - and a new album, "The New Infection," the first in eight years. Pitts sat down with City recently and waxed bitter. Here are our questions and here are his answers.

CITY: Can we call it a comeback?

Zazu Pitts: Yeah...we were basically on hiatus. I did a few other projects - I played drums in one [Comadrome], I sang in another [The Heaviest Thing On Earth] - then I finally decided it was time to get back to the roots. I built a full recording studio.

Why'd you hang up Bitter Flesh Thing? Had you had enough?

Yeah, I was ready to abandon it for a while. The guys from Comadrome were looking for a drummer and I liked what they were doing.

Why'd you decide to come back to this after all this time?

It was just being away from being able to create my own original music, and having that connection with the fans. When it's your own music and the fans relate to it, it's a little different than when you're playing in a cover band. That'll probably be the only cover band stuff I ever do. It was fun while it lasted but I think my heart is with the original music.

Did this hiatus rekindle the fire?

Definitely. There's a new passion, a lot of excitement around the new album and the new music and who I'm working with. I wrote the album with Torq. He's an electronic music guru, very proficient with [music software program] Reason and writing electronic music.

Gimme a little Bitter Flesh background.

We started in the late 90's. I was influenced by a lot of the industrial rock stuff that was going on, like Nine Inch Nails.

Besides Bitter Flesh Thing were any other groups tackling this genre locally?

If there were, it wasn't very popular. Nobody was really making any waves with it.

Because they were doing it wrong, or was there simply no market?

I would say they were not doing it to the extent they could have. And people weren't connecting with it.

What was the concept behind the band?

I wanted to do more than just play music for people; I wanted to give them an entire show, a presence, an image. Part of the concept of the band is we are flesh, but at the same time we're bitter about society and some of the things that are happening in the world, and that comes across in the music. When somebody came to a Bitter Flesh Thing show they knew they were going to see things they weren't going to ordinarily see. There was a little bit of shock value in the beginning.

Any of the shock value or stunts backfire on you?

I remember flinging pieces of raw meat at one show. I don't know how well that went over. The things that went over were just the raw energy on stage. Sometimes we'd smash the equipment on stage - people ate that up, they love when you start smashing things. One show we offered free sex to the first 500 people that showed up. There were a lot of people at that show.

Everyone got laid?

Basically, we ended up showing porn - "Buttman Goes To Budapest" - on stage. Looking back, people were so involved with what was happening on the screen that it detracted from the band playing.

How does "The New Infection" compare to the previous two records?

This is way beyond anything we've ever done. I'm very happy with it. The first one was recorded with an 8-track digital recorder, you know, bouncing tracks, like, 20 times. This time all the technology was there to do what we needed it to do, and we could focus on being creative. It was just a matter of capturing it. I think it's fairly original and modern and in line with what's going on today. But at the same time, it doesn't necessarily sound like anything else.

With an eight-year gap between your last record and this one, is there a missing link? Is it still the Bitter Flesh Thing fans remember?

This is a huge leap forward from the stuff we've done in the past. I hesitate to use the word "industrial" anymore because even though there are a lot of electronic overtones in this music, you'll hear crossovers into metal, straight-ahead rock - I've even heard people say hip-hop.

Your new album was inspired by the website "New Infection," which suggests that the government is trying to eliminate society's fringe through a specially developed virus. Did the website attract you factually, or as a conspiracy theory?

As a conspiracy theory. I mean, we know the government does things they don't want us to know about, so I guess it could be plausible.

It's a genetically modified virus to target people who are genetically prone to rebellion. Wait a minute - that includes rock'n' roll. We're doomed.

Exactly.

Bitter Flesh Thing

w/Torsos From Space, Safety Off, and Skull

Friday, September 25

The Penny Arcade, 4785 Lake Ave.

9 p.m. | Tix TBD | 621-7625