Sam Mulligan Photo credit: Sam Mulligan
We may not all remember when we had our first slice of pizza, but Sam Mulligan certainly remembers when he wrote his first song about pizza. The Western Massachusetts-based chiptune artist, multi-instrumentalist, and Battlemode guitarist had signed up for a songwriting challenge a few years ago, and needed some lyrics to doll up an instrumental he was feeling. So he reflected on a recent tragedy – scoring a tasty slice of pizza after a concert, only to drop it face-down on the sidewalk before taking that sweet first bite.
His first pizza banger was fresh out of the oven. And from there, Mulligan’s appetite for pizza-themed songs only grew stronger, working their way into his live set, taking over his creative headspace, and even appearing as secret tracks in the prolific artist’s catalogue.
Now Mulligan’s savory vision is fully cooked and ready for consumption, as he presents Pizza Forever, a delectable and entirely pizza-themed album released on digital and CD a few weeks back on National Pizza Party Day.
Now he’s serving up the new DIY video for “UR NOT INVITED (to my pizza party),” which The Big Takeover is exclusively premiering ahead of its wider release this Friday.
The flavorful record, a DIY pizza-core affair featuring eight songs, one for each slice of the pie (plus appetizing intro), is a whirlwind of chiptune bleeps and bloops, grungy indie rock guitars, and punk rock energy, with Mulligan’s clever wordplay and passion for video game music (VGM) acting as the perfect topping for this wacky project. The deluxe CD version arrives in a handmade mini-pizza-box packaging, golden interior, and a six-panel accordion-fold lyric and art booklet (more on that down below).
“While I don’t see these pizza songs as being about pizza,” Mulligan reasons with a wry smile, “they all relate to pizza in some way. A recurring theme with a lot of my ‘pizza songs’ is trying to squeeze in a fair amount of pizza puns and wordplay, but also trying to not get too cheesy with it.”
Pizza Forever takes the particular brand of lyrical, comedic, chiptune-rock music that he’s been performing live since 2012 – while also playing in bands like Electric Street Queens, the aforementioned Boston electro-pop heroes Battlemode, and his Compost Shark collaboration with Dave Richardson – and adds some extra stylistic toppings to the sound.
Mulligan utilized an even split of his Nintendo Game Boy and a Dirtywave M8 tracker as the primary musical background for all of the tracks, with extra accoutrements to build out a sound that’s somehow both minimalist and maximalist all at once. The songs were mastered by Stemage (Metroid Metal, Super Strikers, Rebecca Sugar), the influential VGM producer whose guitar acumen and overall mixing advice helped develop the album’s collaborative sound.
New music on the way? Pitch Big Takeover Exclusives.
