Submitted photoPlaying Pink Floyd material in front of skeptical fans can be challenging, "But I feel like we’ve proven that we can do it — at least on a good night,” said Pigs on the Wing guitarist and vocalist Jason Baker, center. The Portland band has been covering Pink Floyd since 2006, and will do so again Saturday at The Belfry in Sisters.

Jason Baker is a child of the 1990s, raised on a steady diet of Red Hot Chili Peppers, Nirvana and Alice in Chains.

“That’s what I grew up learning to play guitar on, that kind of stuff,” he said. “But Floyd was there all along. My parents were fans of that kind of music.”

Twenty years later, the Portland musician is the front man for Pigs on the Wing, a Pink Floyd cover band coming to Sisters Saturday (see “If you go”).

Back in 2006, Baker and fellow musicians decided to play, live, the album “Dark Side of the Moon,” Pink Floyd’s 1973 psych/prog-rock masterpiece.

That original show, Baker told GO! last week, “started as one single show where we played ‘Dark Side of the Moon.’ That was fun, so we thought, ‘Why not do this a little more?’”

Playing actual Floyd material made a certain sense because, at that time, he was also playing in a band that “kind of referenced Floyd a lot — part of the sound we had was kind of psych-rock,” Baker said.

“We just thought, ‘We love that album, and wouldn’t it be fun to actually try to play it all the way through?’ Sure enough, it was fun, and it was fun for the audience, too.”

He’s still having fun playing Pink Floyd music nine years later, and so are audiences. On Saturday, Pigs on the Wing will perform at The Belfry with its current lineup of Baker, Matt Jones (keys) Eric Welder (bass); Bryan Fairfield (drums), David Lindenbaum (guitar, vocals), Keeley St. Clair (backing vocals) and Pete Galluzzo (sax).

Baker and Jones are the only band members who have been involved since the group’s inception. The name Pigs on the Wing is lifted from the song of the same name on 1977’s “Animals,” in case you’re not an aficionado of the British group, founded in the mid 1960s and inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame three decades and a zillion guitar solos later.

Pigs on the Wing covers Floyd songs, mostly the 1970s golden era of Floyd, and in that way is devoted to capturing the Floyd sound. They are not a tribute act, re-creating the band’s look or heyday via wigs or other gimmicks.

“We don’t get into dressing like or impersonating anyone,” he said. “That’s not at all what we’re about. We’re trying to give people a good rock show and (get them) to appreciate the music of Floyd.”

They do, however, get into the production elements, with lighting, projection and lasers, when there’s room. “We do have a pretty ridiculous amount of gear we travel with … so that part, we try to, but it’s nowhere close to Floyd (or) arena levels.”

Being in a band that covers Pink Floyd means there’s a built-in supply of fans ready to pony up some cash and hear the music they love.

“It shouldn’t be a surprise, but maybe was to us, a little bit. I think anyone who plays original music regularly, rock or whatever, you face the empty-room syndrome a lot of times. You know, that can be discouraging.

“We found that when we’re playing Floyd, that really doesn’t happen. People are interested,” Baker said.

Building up their reputation was not completely without obstacles. “There is kind of a hurdle to overcome, in people thinking that you’re any good at doing Floyd. It takes time to build that trust with people,” he said. “Fans are pretty discriminating, maybe a little skeptical, about someone playing covers of their favorite band.”

“I feel like we’ve proven that we can do it — at least on a good night,” he said, chuckling.

Baker said he’s always making new discoveries about Pink Floyd. The songs are something of a puzzle to be sorted out, and that can sometimes make his band feel tied to the original Floyd.

There’s a possibility that Pigs on the Wing is “having the same kind of conversations maybe Floyd had when they were standing around trying to figure out how to arrange something,” Baker said, quickly adding, “I’m assuming. I don’t know that for sure, but there are parts that are just ‘Wow, that’s really hard to play that live. What are we going to do there?’ I can only imagine they probably had a similar conversation that may or may not have turned into an argument,” he said. “So that’s interesting. Just being big fans ourselves, it’s kind of neat to think about seeing that from their perspective.”

— Reporter: 541-383-0349, djasper@bendbulletin.com