Pixies (2014)
Interview Background
Too young to appreciate Pixies during their first incarnation, like a lot of my generation I was brought to appreciate the band via covers by the likes of Placebo and David Bowie, as well as inclusion on taste-making soundtracks and compilations. By the time of this interview in 2014, I’d caught the band live (at a freezing 2007 festival in Hobart called Southern Roots), and had spent plenty of time thoroughly exploring their back catalogue. With the band having turned down a number of interview requests on earlier Australian tour runs, I was keen to chat to drummer Dave Lovering about 2014 album Indie Cindy, the band’s first album without iconic bassist Kim Deal. While Dave was an upbeat interviewee, I didn’t feel I was able to really get beyond cheery ephemeral topics with him. Even so, reading through the additional copy which didn’t make it to the final cut years later, I feel there is some interesting information in here. Maybe it’s like Lovering’s favourite pastime metal detecting - you can find some gold if you keep digging…
The following is an edited version of an interview first published in mX, May 2014.
Pixies - Golden Revival
by Scott McLennan
When Boston’s alternative rock pioneers Pixies reunited for a performance at California’s Coachella festival in 2004, drummer Dave Lovering had no idea how the band’s status had changed in the decade since their 1993 split. Financially reduced to moving between hotels and friend’s couches, Lovering says the sight of a huge audience singing along to classic Pixies songs such as Monkey Gone To Heaven, Where Is My Mind? and Debaser was a stirring sight.
“It was a surreal experience,” Lovering admits. “That gig was the first time I’d walked out and seen a sea of people. A lot of people were my age, but the majority were kids that weren’t even born back in the day! It’s been like that ever since – that’s our demographic and it’s amazing. We are very fortunate to be a band with an audience spread over such a wide demographic. The kids know all the words to all the songs and it’s a surreal thing.”
By happenstance, Lovering is backstage at Coachella when he speaks with mX, with Pixies having returned to the lauded Palm Desert festival on the 10th anniversary of their reunion show. This time though, things are different. Not only are the band promoting Indie Cindy, the first Pixies studio album since 1991’s Trompe Le Monde, they’re also missing founding bassist Kim Deal, who quit the band last year.
“She originally recorded five songs with us, but Indie Cindy is completely without Kim Deal,” Lovering says. “When she left we wished her all the best in the world and told her that she was always welcome back, but I don’t know if it will ever happen. It would be nice, as she will be missed.”
Pixies never made it to Australia during their initial eight-year tenure, but the re-formed group’s third Aussie tour will soon see them playing four exclusive Vivid LIVE performances at the Sydney Opera House. Lovering says current Pixies sets are seat-of-your-pants experiences – for both fans and the band.
“We don’t write our set-lists now. We walk onstage knowing what the first song will be, but after that we don’t know where we will go and we just call songs out off the top of our heads in quick succession. That ensures it’s exciting and adventurous to play, but it also makes it a different show every night for the audience as well.”
Is there a risk of the songs descending into chaos if songwriter Black Francis forgets where he is or guitarist Joey Santiago gets a guitar solo wrong?
“Yes! It might be we don’t remember the exact notes or we have the wrong tuning. Sometimes Joey doesn’t even have the right guitar! You never what’s going to happen.”
Between 1987 and 1991, Pixies released a breathless five albums. Frontman Francis’ unhinged lyrical fairytales were matched by his bandmates’ boisterous musical creativity, setting a rock blueprint as significant as The Velvet Underground 20 years before. Even so, the critical acclaim surrounding albums such as Surfer Rosa and Doolittle wasn’t matched by universal public support. Lovering recalls being greeted with complete apathy while opening for U2 on the Zoo TV Tour just months before Pixies broke up.
“I remember opening for U2 at Boston Gardens on St Patrick’s Day, which is a very important day in Boston as there’s a big Irish community. We are playing our hometown, no one cares we are playing and everyone was there to see U2, so it was a weird evening. The whole tour was like that, so I really don’t know how many fans we converted. It was like another world.”
Kurt Cobain once self-effacingly admitted Smells Like Teen Spirit was his attempt to “rip off the Pixies”. Last month the late grunge icon’s band Nirvana were inducted into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame, yet Pixies – a band also lauded by musical heavyweights including David Bowie, Radiohead and The Strokes – are yet to be similarly inducted.
“Ah, I guess we don’t please anyone?” Lovering suggests of the oversight. “Those awards are often about your popularity and how many records you’ve sold, but it doesn’t bother us.”
Forget gold awards. For Lovering, it’s all about the gold nuggets. Whenever the alternative icons take a break from touring, the 52-year-old swaps the drumsticks for his metal detector.
“I’m really into metal detecting – I love looking for gold!” he gleefully admits. “Metal detecting is a pure joy to me and I’ve been doing it since I was 12 years old. I want to come down to Australia, head to the goldfields and start searching…”
Indie Cindy (Pias)
Unpublished Interview Material
It’s Good Friday here today and I saw you at Easter time seven years ago at an event in Hobart, Tasmania. It was so cold that Pixies hoodies sold out before you’d even played a note.
“I do remember it did get a little cold and windy, yes.”
Do extreme weather conditions affect you up there on the riser?
“Well the lucky thing about it is that I’m closer to the lighting rig and I’m warmer when it’s cold, but the other thing is I’m also moving more than everybody else and sweating. I’m pretty comfortable generally. I do watch the crowd though and we’re doing four or five new songs in the set. Luckily from my vantage point it doesn’t seem like people are using the rest rooms right now, so I’m very happy with that.”
Counting Come On Pilgrim, Indie Cindy is Pixies’ sixth album. Monkey Gone To Heaven told us the Devil is six, so is there a devilish side to this album?
“Ah, interesting. I don’t think it is! I can’t speak with confirmation as Black Francis wrote all the lyrics, but from what I’ve heard of his explanations so far I don’t think there’s anything Satanic so far.”
You’re heading to Australia for the Sydney’s VIVID event. VIVID often welcomes one-offs and special events that Australia ordinarily doesn’t get to see, such as Karen O’s Stop The Virgens opera or a special appearance this year by electronic maestro Giorgio Moroder. Have the organisers requested something different for your VIVID appearances?
“The only thing I know that is different now is that we have an amazing lighting rig that we’re bringing down. An interesting thing that we are doing now is that we don’t write our setlists. We walk onstage knowing what the first song will be, but after that we don’t know where we will go and we just call them out off the top of our heads in quick succession. Sometimes I’ll yell, ‘No, not that one – it’s too fast and I’m too tired!’ You never what’s going to happen Scottie, so it adds an excitement and it’s nice.”
Considering a lot of fans never expected to see you perform again, let alone in Australia, you’ve played a number of tours down here since your re-formation. Have any Australian moments stuck in your mind?
“Oh gosh. I’m not going to be biased – I love Melbourne, Sydney, Adelaide, Perth. It’s wondrous to have finally visited Australia and get around to all the major cities. I think it would be bad to say whether I enjoyed Sydney or Melbourne better, but I enjoyed both of them. The food, the people, everything is fantastic.”
There are so many areas to choose from for metal detecting. Bendigo and Ballarat were big prospecting sites around the same time as California in the mid 1850s, but you’ve also got places in Western Australia such as Kalgoorlie out there on the Nullarbor. A gold detector like yourself will have endless fun.
“Someday I’ll do that trip. I’ve been metal detecting everywhere and found everything. It’s a huge hobby for me.”
I believe Bill Wyman has his own metal detector range.
“He does! Bill Wyman has his own metal detector. (laughs) It’s interesting!”
Can we expect a Dave Lovering signature edition?
“That might be a little too much – I’ll let Bill Wyman take that prize.”
Does Coachella have a special place in your heart because it was where you re-formed 10 years ago?
“Yes. It was a little steamed last Saturday as there was a wild sandstorm, so you couldn’t breathe, you couldn’t see and there was sand in your eyes. It’s hard for us to judge but we got a great response. It’s wonderful – it’s good to be here and be able to play Coachella again 10 years later. Hopefully this Saturday will be the last show before I head to Sydney, so I want to stick around and check out Queens Of The Stone Age.”
22 years ago on this day you were touring with U2. You were the first band to join U2 on the Zoo TV tour, playing around 30 dates with the biggest band in the world at the time. Considering how far their aesthetic was from Pixies, was it a worthwhile venture?
“I think we got something out of it… We got paid a nice fee and it was a fun tour to be on. The best thing about it is that you’re on at seven at night and then you have the rest of the night free, so that was one benefit of being the opener!”
Larry Mullen Jr has always seemed somewhat embarrassed by U2’s more grandiose and foolhardy ventures – did you have some drummer time together?
“No, not really. We hardly fraternised with them. Maybe in the years since The Edge and Bono have come up and fraternised with us and been very nice, but I never really spent time with Larry.”
Paz has dealt with the egos of Maynard James Keenan and Billy Corgan in the past. Is dealing with egos a skill that is a requisite in Pixies?
“(laughs) No! She’s great and she’s getting along with everyone. Everyone is so happy with her and there’s a calmness to everything she does. She’s doing a fantastic job.”
Isabel Tamen on the cover of Surfer Rosa looks strident, strong and in control, despite being topless. Did you ever meet her?
“That image, we were all like, ‘Oh geez!’ - there was so much talk about her back in the day! I don’t think we ever met her, but let me think… I’d have to ask the other Pixies, but she might have come to a show in London. I imagine if I did meet her I would have remembered it! Everyone wanted to meet her and it was a big thing. My memory is a little foggy there, Scottie.”
I once spoke to Daddy G from Massive Attack and he was annoyed how the use of Massive Attack’s song Angel in a pivotal scene in Guy Ritchie’s film Snatch took away listeners’ chance to find the music’s nuances on its own. Did you ever feel that David Fincher’s use of Where Is My Mind? in the massive Fight Club finale recast the song in a skewed light?
“Well I never really thought about it in that context, but I can’t tell you the amount of people who talk to me and relate that song back to Fight Club. I don’t know how to explain that – has it taken on a stronger meaning just because of that movie or has it been interpreted differently? I don’t know, but I have so many people talk about the closing song of Fight Club.”
You recorded Indie Cindy in Wales at the same studio used by everyone from Queen through to Oasis. What was the decision there?
“We were thinking of doing new material and the obvious choice was Gil Norton as we’ve worked with him on the previous three albums. We feel very comfortable with him and he knows how to control us as well, so in order to have that tie-in with the old Pixies that studio was his suggestion. He was very comfortable there and has done a lot of music there in the past, so that was the choice he mad.”
Can you feel the history in the walls?
“Oh, it was amazing being there. In the control room sits the piano Bohemian Rhapsody was played on – that’s the piano right there! I asked Kingsley [Ward, Rockfield Studios founder] where Brian May set up the guitars and he pointed to where Brian set up his stack of AC30s in this room over here. I’m a huge Rush fan and they recorded A Farewell To Kings there. If you watch their documentaries they’re standing in the same place, in the same courtyard… it’s pretty wild! It was very nice being there.”
Before I let you go, one last question: how many Frank Black solo albums do you have in your collection.
“How many Frank Black solo albums? I have one CD… errr, the first one, but I don’t remember its name…”
Too young to appreciate Pixies during their first incarnation, like a lot of my generation I was brought to appreciate the band via covers by the likes of Placebo and David Bowie, as well as inclusion on taste-making soundtracks and compilations. By the time of this interview in 2014, I’d caught the band live (at a freezing 2007 festival in Hobart called Southern Roots), and had spent plenty of time thoroughly exploring their back catalogue. With the band having turned down a number of interview requests on earlier Australian tour runs, I was keen to chat to drummer Dave Lovering about 2014 album Indie Cindy, the band’s first album without iconic bassist Kim Deal. While Dave was an upbeat interviewee, I didn’t feel I was able to really get beyond cheery ephemeral topics with him. Even so, reading through the additional copy which didn’t make it to the final cut years later, I feel there is some interesting information in here. Maybe it’s like Lovering’s favourite pastime metal detecting - you can find some gold if you keep digging…
The following is an edited version of an interview first published in mX, May 2014.
Pixies - Golden Revival
by Scott McLennan
When Boston’s alternative rock pioneers Pixies reunited for a performance at California’s Coachella festival in 2004, drummer Dave Lovering had no idea how the band’s status had changed in the decade since their 1993 split. Financially reduced to moving between hotels and friend’s couches, Lovering says the sight of a huge audience singing along to classic Pixies songs such as Monkey Gone To Heaven, Where Is My Mind? and Debaser was a stirring sight.
“It was a surreal experience,” Lovering admits. “That gig was the first time I’d walked out and seen a sea of people. A lot of people were my age, but the majority were kids that weren’t even born back in the day! It’s been like that ever since – that’s our demographic and it’s amazing. We are very fortunate to be a band with an audience spread over such a wide demographic. The kids know all the words to all the songs and it’s a surreal thing.”
By happenstance, Lovering is backstage at Coachella when he speaks with mX, with Pixies having returned to the lauded Palm Desert festival on the 10th anniversary of their reunion show. This time though, things are different. Not only are the band promoting Indie Cindy, the first Pixies studio album since 1991’s Trompe Le Monde, they’re also missing founding bassist Kim Deal, who quit the band last year.
“She originally recorded five songs with us, but Indie Cindy is completely without Kim Deal,” Lovering says. “When she left we wished her all the best in the world and told her that she was always welcome back, but I don’t know if it will ever happen. It would be nice, as she will be missed.”
Pixies never made it to Australia during their initial eight-year tenure, but the re-formed group’s third Aussie tour will soon see them playing four exclusive Vivid LIVE performances at the Sydney Opera House. Lovering says current Pixies sets are seat-of-your-pants experiences – for both fans and the band.
“We don’t write our set-lists now. We walk onstage knowing what the first song will be, but after that we don’t know where we will go and we just call songs out off the top of our heads in quick succession. That ensures it’s exciting and adventurous to play, but it also makes it a different show every night for the audience as well.”
Is there a risk of the songs descending into chaos if songwriter Black Francis forgets where he is or guitarist Joey Santiago gets a guitar solo wrong?
“Yes! It might be we don’t remember the exact notes or we have the wrong tuning. Sometimes Joey doesn’t even have the right guitar! You never what’s going to happen.”
Between 1987 and 1991, Pixies released a breathless five albums. Frontman Francis’ unhinged lyrical fairytales were matched by his bandmates’ boisterous musical creativity, setting a rock blueprint as significant as The Velvet Underground 20 years before. Even so, the critical acclaim surrounding albums such as Surfer Rosa and Doolittle wasn’t matched by universal public support. Lovering recalls being greeted with complete apathy while opening for U2 on the Zoo TV Tour just months before Pixies broke up.
“I remember opening for U2 at Boston Gardens on St Patrick’s Day, which is a very important day in Boston as there’s a big Irish community. We are playing our hometown, no one cares we are playing and everyone was there to see U2, so it was a weird evening. The whole tour was like that, so I really don’t know how many fans we converted. It was like another world.”
Kurt Cobain once self-effacingly admitted Smells Like Teen Spirit was his attempt to “rip off the Pixies”. Last month the late grunge icon’s band Nirvana were inducted into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame, yet Pixies – a band also lauded by musical heavyweights including David Bowie, Radiohead and The Strokes – are yet to be similarly inducted.
“Ah, I guess we don’t please anyone?” Lovering suggests of the oversight. “Those awards are often about your popularity and how many records you’ve sold, but it doesn’t bother us.”
Forget gold awards. For Lovering, it’s all about the gold nuggets. Whenever the alternative icons take a break from touring, the 52-year-old swaps the drumsticks for his metal detector.
“I’m really into metal detecting – I love looking for gold!” he gleefully admits. “Metal detecting is a pure joy to me and I’ve been doing it since I was 12 years old. I want to come down to Australia, head to the goldfields and start searching…”
Indie Cindy (Pias)
Unpublished Interview Material
It’s Good Friday here today and I saw you at Easter time seven years ago at an event in Hobart, Tasmania. It was so cold that Pixies hoodies sold out before you’d even played a note.
“I do remember it did get a little cold and windy, yes.”
Do extreme weather conditions affect you up there on the riser?
“Well the lucky thing about it is that I’m closer to the lighting rig and I’m warmer when it’s cold, but the other thing is I’m also moving more than everybody else and sweating. I’m pretty comfortable generally. I do watch the crowd though and we’re doing four or five new songs in the set. Luckily from my vantage point it doesn’t seem like people are using the rest rooms right now, so I’m very happy with that.”
Counting Come On Pilgrim, Indie Cindy is Pixies’ sixth album. Monkey Gone To Heaven told us the Devil is six, so is there a devilish side to this album?
“Ah, interesting. I don’t think it is! I can’t speak with confirmation as Black Francis wrote all the lyrics, but from what I’ve heard of his explanations so far I don’t think there’s anything Satanic so far.”
You’re heading to Australia for the Sydney’s VIVID event. VIVID often welcomes one-offs and special events that Australia ordinarily doesn’t get to see, such as Karen O’s Stop The Virgens opera or a special appearance this year by electronic maestro Giorgio Moroder. Have the organisers requested something different for your VIVID appearances?
“The only thing I know that is different now is that we have an amazing lighting rig that we’re bringing down. An interesting thing that we are doing now is that we don’t write our setlists. We walk onstage knowing what the first song will be, but after that we don’t know where we will go and we just call them out off the top of our heads in quick succession. Sometimes I’ll yell, ‘No, not that one – it’s too fast and I’m too tired!’ You never what’s going to happen Scottie, so it adds an excitement and it’s nice.”
Considering a lot of fans never expected to see you perform again, let alone in Australia, you’ve played a number of tours down here since your re-formation. Have any Australian moments stuck in your mind?
“Oh gosh. I’m not going to be biased – I love Melbourne, Sydney, Adelaide, Perth. It’s wondrous to have finally visited Australia and get around to all the major cities. I think it would be bad to say whether I enjoyed Sydney or Melbourne better, but I enjoyed both of them. The food, the people, everything is fantastic.”
There are so many areas to choose from for metal detecting. Bendigo and Ballarat were big prospecting sites around the same time as California in the mid 1850s, but you’ve also got places in Western Australia such as Kalgoorlie out there on the Nullarbor. A gold detector like yourself will have endless fun.
“Someday I’ll do that trip. I’ve been metal detecting everywhere and found everything. It’s a huge hobby for me.”
I believe Bill Wyman has his own metal detector range.
“He does! Bill Wyman has his own metal detector. (laughs) It’s interesting!”
Can we expect a Dave Lovering signature edition?
“That might be a little too much – I’ll let Bill Wyman take that prize.”
Does Coachella have a special place in your heart because it was where you re-formed 10 years ago?
“Yes. It was a little steamed last Saturday as there was a wild sandstorm, so you couldn’t breathe, you couldn’t see and there was sand in your eyes. It’s hard for us to judge but we got a great response. It’s wonderful – it’s good to be here and be able to play Coachella again 10 years later. Hopefully this Saturday will be the last show before I head to Sydney, so I want to stick around and check out Queens Of The Stone Age.”
22 years ago on this day you were touring with U2. You were the first band to join U2 on the Zoo TV tour, playing around 30 dates with the biggest band in the world at the time. Considering how far their aesthetic was from Pixies, was it a worthwhile venture?
“I think we got something out of it… We got paid a nice fee and it was a fun tour to be on. The best thing about it is that you’re on at seven at night and then you have the rest of the night free, so that was one benefit of being the opener!”
Larry Mullen Jr has always seemed somewhat embarrassed by U2’s more grandiose and foolhardy ventures – did you have some drummer time together?
“No, not really. We hardly fraternised with them. Maybe in the years since The Edge and Bono have come up and fraternised with us and been very nice, but I never really spent time with Larry.”
Paz has dealt with the egos of Maynard James Keenan and Billy Corgan in the past. Is dealing with egos a skill that is a requisite in Pixies?
“(laughs) No! She’s great and she’s getting along with everyone. Everyone is so happy with her and there’s a calmness to everything she does. She’s doing a fantastic job.”
Isabel Tamen on the cover of Surfer Rosa looks strident, strong and in control, despite being topless. Did you ever meet her?
“That image, we were all like, ‘Oh geez!’ - there was so much talk about her back in the day! I don’t think we ever met her, but let me think… I’d have to ask the other Pixies, but she might have come to a show in London. I imagine if I did meet her I would have remembered it! Everyone wanted to meet her and it was a big thing. My memory is a little foggy there, Scottie.”
I once spoke to Daddy G from Massive Attack and he was annoyed how the use of Massive Attack’s song Angel in a pivotal scene in Guy Ritchie’s film Snatch took away listeners’ chance to find the music’s nuances on its own. Did you ever feel that David Fincher’s use of Where Is My Mind? in the massive Fight Club finale recast the song in a skewed light?
“Well I never really thought about it in that context, but I can’t tell you the amount of people who talk to me and relate that song back to Fight Club. I don’t know how to explain that – has it taken on a stronger meaning just because of that movie or has it been interpreted differently? I don’t know, but I have so many people talk about the closing song of Fight Club.”
You recorded Indie Cindy in Wales at the same studio used by everyone from Queen through to Oasis. What was the decision there?
“We were thinking of doing new material and the obvious choice was Gil Norton as we’ve worked with him on the previous three albums. We feel very comfortable with him and he knows how to control us as well, so in order to have that tie-in with the old Pixies that studio was his suggestion. He was very comfortable there and has done a lot of music there in the past, so that was the choice he mad.”
Can you feel the history in the walls?
“Oh, it was amazing being there. In the control room sits the piano Bohemian Rhapsody was played on – that’s the piano right there! I asked Kingsley [Ward, Rockfield Studios founder] where Brian May set up the guitars and he pointed to where Brian set up his stack of AC30s in this room over here. I’m a huge Rush fan and they recorded A Farewell To Kings there. If you watch their documentaries they’re standing in the same place, in the same courtyard… it’s pretty wild! It was very nice being there.”
Before I let you go, one last question: how many Frank Black solo albums do you have in your collection.
“How many Frank Black solo albums? I have one CD… errr, the first one, but I don’t remember its name…”
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