Pig Pen, the hardcore band fronted by acclaimed chef and The Bear actor Matty Matheson, wasn’t formally unveiled until earlier this year, just weeks before their sold-out debut gig in Toronto. But the seed for the project was planted decades earlier, in the fertile soil of the Niagara-area punk scene of the late ’90s and early 2000s. Back then, you could usually find Matheson and his Pig Pen bandmates – Alexisonfire’s Wade MacNeil, the prolific solo artist and former Attack In Black frontman Daniel Romano, Daniel’s brother and frequent collaborator Ian, and Young Guv’s Tommy Major – either onstage or in the pit at the punk squats and church basements of St. Catharine’s and Port Colborne, at clubs up in Hamilton and theaters down in Buffalo.
