When Anthony Pirog describes what changes when saxophonist James Brandon Lewis joins his avant-noise-jazz trio the Messthetics onstage, he talks about space.
“It gives me the ability to stop playing, which is huge,” the guitarist says. With Lewis carrying a melodic line, Pirog can let the guitar drift into texture as bassist Joe Lally and drummer Brendan Canty – the rhythmic core of punk icons Fugazi – navigate the twists and turns.
That sensitivity to space runs through Pirog’s playing more broadly. Based in Washington, D.C., he’s spent years moving through punk, jazz, noise and free improvisation without settling into a single lane. What connects those projects is a curiosity for what lies beyond the familiar. “It’s always about knowing where the comfort zone is and pushing just beyond that,” he says.
Blues and rock music filled his family’s house when he was young, but the early ’90s grunge scene brought experimental guitar sounds into daily rotation.
Seeing Sonic Youth’s Thurston Moore and hearing the rough edges of Kurt Cobain’s solos made unfamiliar textures feel natural. But by growing up in an era that downplayed virtuosity, Pirog didn’t fully engage with advanced technical study until his twenties.
But in the Messthetics, Pirog has free reign to indulge all sides of his artistry. On the band’s self-titled 2018 debut and its 2019 follow-up, Anthropocosmic Nest, his playing veers from the asymmetrical brilliance of J. Robbins, another D.C. scene veteran, to feedback-laden dissonance.
Partnering with Lewis and his energetic sax lines on 2024’s The Messthetics and James Brandon Lewis provided new melodic avenues, a collaboration they continue on Deface the Currency, released in February.
“When we play with James, that changes the textures available to us,” he says. “The weight of what I do increases instead of being normalized throughout a set.”
Pirog leans on fuzz and Octavia-style circuits that allow the guitar to sit inside the band’s sound rather than cut across it. Distortion becomes a way to blend timbres, flattening the edges between instruments. Delays, harmonizers, and ambient effects serve a similar role, shifting the guitar’s function within a groove instead of drawing attention to it.
Pirog is also creating new sonic landscapes with his wife, cellist Janel Leppin, in their duo Janel and Anthony as well as the band Skullcap, which released Snakes of Albuquerque in 2025.
As Messthetics album number four takes shape, Pirog avoids thinking about the destination. “It’s one thing to think about it and try to plan it,” he says, “but the way we play together is something you can’t really calculate.”
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