Led by Grammy featured record producer-songwriter-artist Esjay Jones, We Are PIGS is starting off 2023 with the degenerate love song, “PIGS.” The single—an expansive pallet of Jones’ melodic vocals alongside haunting instrumentation--is out today, January 27.

Listen to “PIGS” now: https://onerpm.link/PIGS

Co-written and co-produced with William Patrick Corgan (The Smashing Pumpkins), “PIGS” is a tribute to the late Bjorn Thorsrud: a friend to both Corgan and Jones who passed in 2021. Thorsrud was a respected music producer, programmer, and audio engineer who produced film scores and albums for rock and pop artists. A long-time Smashing Pumpkins collaborator, he engineered, mixed, or contributed production or programming to every album from 1998's Adore to 2012's Oceania.

“I started writing this song in 2018. It was the very first idea and original blueprint for what became my current project, We Are PIGS,” shares Jones. “However, I’ll take you back to 2007 to a small town in South Africa called Durban, KwaZulu Natal. I was in a not so little band with a couple of number one hits called Stealing Love Jones. My guitarist at the time was previously in a band that had been flown to Chicago as a finalist in a Smashing Pumpkins cover song contest. There he met our dear and late friend Bjorn Thorsrud, who became the catalyst for Billy adding his genius to and finally finishing this song.”

After a short time of conversing with Thorsrud over email and phone calls, Jones flew him to South Africa in June of 2008 to produce the second Stealing Love Jones album Bleed to Bloom. He became a close friend and mentor who championed her work as a producer, songwriter and artist. Thorsrud, who had worked on many of the Pumpkins records, was how she first met Corgan in Chicago at one of his extraordinary NWA wrestling matches.

When covid hit in 2020, Jones and Thorsrud wanted to work on something together, so they started sending files back and forth. It was Bjorn’s idea to get Corgan involved and thought he would love the project so sent a few ideas over to Pumpkins engineer Nikola Dokic to check out and pass along to Corgan who lent his hand to the production and further writing on the song.

Characterized by a pig-masked front woman, We Are PIGS was started by Esjay Jones as an alt metal hybrid project combining brutal riffs, brazen screams and ethereal melodies with strong lyrical messages. After debuting with a cover of Slipknot’s “Duality” in 2020, followed by original single “Pulse Queen” in early 2021, We Are PIGS has found an incredible following and support through playlist placements on Spotify, Amazon Music and Apple Music.

Recent releases have included “Anorectic” with Terry Corso (Alien Ant Farm, Powerman 5000), “Kids” with Brian “Head” Welch of Korn and Love And Death as well as “MOOT” featuring KITTIE’s Morgan Lander. Jones has also worked behind the scenes as a sought-after producer for acts including Grey Daze (Chester Bennington).