Pixies To Record New Album? At Least Half The Band Is Ready…

As the Pixies are finally reaching the end of their extensive North American tour playing Doolittle in its entirety, guitarist Joey Santiago and drummer David Lovering sat down with Spinner to discuss the band’s future, including the possibility of a new album.

Here are some of the highlights of the interview:

It’s a well-known fact that, since the band’s reunion in 2004, all four members of the Pixies have avoided talking about recording a new album. Here, however, Joey Santiago decided to finally come clear on the subject: “I’m gonna answer this honestly, for once. In the back of our minds I think we’re afraid that it might cause friction. Right? Don’t you think? It might, and that ‘might’ is gonna be an ‘Uh oh, what the fuck are we doing now?’ [...] Who knows once we get in there? But I think that makes good music. [The Kinks'] Ray Davies, you know, beating up his little brother, that friction, we’ve always kind of used it. Like ‘Oh yeah? Screw you, we’re gonna play.’ That little angst, it’s good.”

David Lovering, in turn, brought up the often-heard argument of protecting the band’s catalogue: “The thing is, we want to protect the legacy. If we do something, it better be good. And as we go along â€" it’s been seven years now â€" it gets more difficult to make that decision.” He added that the friction mentioned by Joey doesn’t necessarily come from the band’s other two members (Black Francis and Kim Deal, whose turbulent relationship is well-documented), but instead from “just the whole process of going into a studio and recording, just going through the learning stuff again. We haven’t done it in a long, long time.” However, Joey joked that “having said that, if there were two people to pick, Dave and I wouldn’t be the friction. It would probably be the other two.”

When asked how they felt about the band’s initial breakup, missing a chance of having commercial success, Mr. Santiago shared no regrets: “I did wonder what if Charles didn’t break up the band. If he just put it on the shelf while he explored his thing and never even mentioned that we broke up, and just said, ‘Hey, I’m talking a long-ass break from this thing.’ Then later on, have everyone go, “Oh yeah, damn, that was chemistry’ and like five years later we would’ve made those two albums that we were contractually obligated to. But we can’t think about that, you know? Should’ve, could’ve, would’ve”, with David sharing his thought by saying, “not that we did the right thing, but it turned out alright.”

Finally, upon the question of “what’s next” for the Pixies, the drummer admitted that “we’re gonna wear out our welcome soon enough,” needing to “plan to make something new”. Joey concluded, by adding, that “that talk about making a record will be in the forefront next because it’ll be time, you know. It’ll be time. We’ve definitely gelled as a unit and hopefully when we can all bury the hatchet â€" and we have â€" maybe we’ll go in there and hope for the best. You know, Bono even asked. Remember that? He’s like, ‘Please make a record!’ Goddamn, we can’t leave that unturned. That would frustrate me. It would. I think we should do it. But it’s up to everybody.”

Ironically enough, the last time the Pixies had any involvement with Bono was in 1992, when they were handpicked to open for U2 on their Zoo TV Tour. Those shows ultimately dissolved the group, and turned out to be their last prior to the breakup in 1993. Regardless of the possible Bono-related jinx, we hope the Pixies are able reignite the flame and write beautiful music again â€" given that Black Francis, the main songwriter of the band, has released almost one solo album per year since 1993, we’re willing to bet there will be no shortage of ideas.

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