Why the Pixies are turning back the clock to the album that helped shape Nirvana’s Nevermind
It’s been a long and sometimes bumpy ride for the Pixies — the seminal rock band that influenced Nirvana and Radiohead. So why are they going right back to the beginning to tour Australia?
Entertainment
Don't miss out on the headlines from Entertainment. Followed categories will be added to My News.
Pixies front man Black Francis doesn’t much care why punters turn up to his band’s shows – just as long as they do.
The singer-guitarist born Charles Michael Kitteridge Thompson IV founded the seminal alt-rock band with his university buddy Joey Santiago in 1986 and once the line-up was completed by bassist Kim Deal and drummer Mike Lovering, the Pixies became one of the most important bands of their generation.
Like the Velvet Underground before them, they may not have ruled the charts or the airwaves during their late ‘80s and early ‘90s heyday, but bands from Nirvana to Radiohead to Arcade Fire have named them as a major influence. That revered place in the rock pantheon – amplified by the rise of music streaming services – has also earned them a new generation of younger fans. But Thompson says old or young, casual fan or completist – all are welcome in the Pixies family.
“It seems to be a nice even spread between younger fans and then a range between those people and people that are our own age or maybe even a little bit older,” says Thomson. “We’re happy about that. But we wouldn’t complain if they were all old timers and we wouldn’t complain if they were all young either.
“We just want the customers – whoever they are. You’re always happy when your fans are, say, smarter right? But you can’t complain if you get a few dumdums in there too. Because the dumdums, hey, they paid the money too.
“It’s like the fans who only came to hear one song. Well, yeah, it would be great if they knew all the records, but if they are just there to hear Where Is My Mind, so be it. They paid the money and they deserve it. It’s a democratic kind of situation.”
The chemistry in the Pixies was always volatile – particularly between Thompson and Deal – and after the mini album Come On Pilgrim and four albums Surfer Rosa, Doolittle, Trompe le Monde and Bossa nova the band members went their separate ways in 1993. Thompson embarked on a successful solo career as Frank Black, Deal played with sister Kelly in The Breeders, Santiago played in various bands and Lovering became a magician. They reunited to a rapturous reception a decade later, and finally made it to Australia for the first time in 2007, headlining the inaugural V Festival and selling out sideshows in minutes. A return tour to celebrate the 20th anniversary of Doolittle got a similarly warm welcome in 2010 but Deal baulked at the prospect of new music, leaving the band again in 2013, just as work started on Indie Cindie, the first new Pixies album in 23 years. Head Carrier followed in 2016 and last year’s Beneath the Eyrie with replacement bassist Paz Lanchantin.
So while there are two distinct eras for the Pixies, Thompson insists it’s one body of work.
“It’s all one big album, all one big tour,” he says. “It’s not compartmentalised from our point of view. That’s the one thing about being in a band for a long period of time – the time-space continuum is not linear. It’s all existing the same kind of space from our point of view.”
Certainly both eras will be getting a workout when the band arrives in Australia this week for the Golden Plains festival and sideshows around the country. Tracks from last year’s album are sure to get a workout but they’ll also be turning the clock back to play Come On Pilgrim and Surfer Rosa in full.
The latter album – home to Where Is My Mind, Gigantic and Bone Machine, which became Pixies staples – is particularly revered as being a forerunner of grunge. Kurt Cobain said the album was instrumental in the creation of Nevermind and later hired its producer Steve Albini for Nirvana’s In Utero. Thirty two years on, Thompson says “there’s a certain naivete to some of the material but I am not embarrassed by it”.
“That’s usually a good thing,” he says. “I can’t say that when the Pixies were first together that there was a lot of self-editing going on because there was demand for the content and we were just kind of recording everything pretty quickly. There wasn’t a lot of time in between records.”
Nostalgia tours, with veteran bands performing revered early works in full have become a dime a dozen in 2020, and can often be viewed with a somewhat cynical eye for what looks like a cash-in on former glories. Thompson has no time for such an outlook – being in a working band its own reward, so why would any artist want to give that up?
“You don’t have any day job, you get to play gigs and you get to stay up all night in recording sessions when you have one of those,” he says. “That’s really all that matters to me. And I would say that’s probably the case for a lot of other musicians. That’s basically the goal. And then being in a band is maintenance of that goal.”
“So when you see some old guy performing at an Italian restaurant on a Sunday night and he’s singing along on his acoustic guitar with a drum machine and he had a hit in 1971 and he’s still pulling in a few people, that may seem pathetic to some people, thinking ‘oh gee, I saw him in 1971 when he was huge – he was playing at the Opera House, and now look at him’.
READ MORE:
THE PIXIES SECRET BEHIND MILEY’S POST BREAK-UP TATTOO
WHY SUPERGRASS SPLIT AND WHAT REUNITED THEM
RICK SPRINGFIELD: ZOOT WERE UNDERRATED
“But hey, if you’re not working a day job, then man, oh, man you are in it. You’re an artist. It’s the same with any artist, any painter, any writer – anybody who can continue to do what they do and not have to f--king dig ditches then that’s it – that’s what it’s all about.”
Golden Plains, Meredith Natural Amphitheatre, March 7-9 (sold out); Palais Theatre, March 9-10 (sold out). Fortitude Music Hall, Brisbane, March 12 (Ticketmaster), 13 (sold out); Sydney Opera House Forecourt, March 14 (sold out), 15 (Ticketmaster); Fremantle Arts Centre, March 17 (sold out).