Transcript of "Pixies"

Jay, did you comb your hair this morning?

No, it's still uncomb. I haven't combed my hair since working on Little House in the Prairie, to be honest.

'82, '81?

1981, I think it was.

Wow.

I'm wearing a hat because you told me that my hair was bad, and I got a haircut, and I didn't want to show you what it was.

I didn't say it was bad. I said it was under product. Oh, very good. Product did.

Well, you know it's not bad? What? Next episode of SmartLust here comes.

Smart. Smart.

How are you feeling? Are you feeling better today, Jason? Look at him.

Not really. The doctor figured, since I had COVID- Sure. And then the immunity system, whatever it's called- You're Are you still seeing Dr. Figured?

She figured that my system's all run down, and so that's why I got the head cold from Maple right afterwards. I know why I can't lick it.

She must have gone to... It sounds like she went to a hell of a med school to put that together. Oh, man.

Yet she can't give me anything to fix it.

What about... Wow. But maybe it's because you finally calm down for a sec. You were so busy, and now it's like...

Yeah, that could be it. I do like to do nothing.

Yeah, it suits you.

Yeah. You'll feel better tomorrow. You feel a little better today, yeah?

You sound like shit.

Yeah. How do I... I shouldn't be doing this report.

You look great. You always look great. No, you look great. Thank God you had all that surgery. All that surgery covers up. You did all that face work.

Yeah, this is a great time. It's really settled. It's really settled.

Your face is really settled, dude. I wanted to say that the other day.

Do I still look surprised? I think I had I stitched the eyebrows up too high.

What do you take, Jade, what do you take when you feel like that? Yesterday, you took Theraflu. I used to take that all the time, and then they discontinued it.

No, I got a black market.

Oh, you did? I do. I take one of those Sudafeds with all everything. Well, this got all the heavy duty shit. I'm like, Yeah, I want the fucking thing that gets me all.

Yeah. Yeah, you have to ask for it behind the thing, right?

They got to fucking unlock it. Are you sure you want? I'm like, Look, I'm not making math in my bathtub, man. I'm just trying to get through today.

But does it knock you out and make you all I guess that's not-No, it gets you all jazzed up, and then you crash and you feel like shit.

But you get through the day.

But it's like a shot of prednizone or something.

What did you guys do last night?

Last night, we went to... We went and put the lights up on a tree at our friend's house with the kids.

Just a very random tree?

Just a random... I go around the neighborhoods.

You know what I said to Maple the other day? She said, You hear all these Christmas? Because I always have the Christmas music on in the car from Thanksgiving forward. It's all day, every day. I love that. She's like, Where do they do Christmas caroling in the world? I said, Well, just in everyone's neighborhood. I said, You should do that with your friends. You should just start walking around some neighborhood and you just stop on the sidewalk in front of someone's house and you just start singing. The people inside hear it. They come to the door of the window and they look and they're charmed and they're warmed, and it's that spirit. She's like, Oh, I'm going to do that. I think she's going to do that next year. It's too late now to learn the songs and everything.

What do you mean learn the They can read them off the book.

They get them in every cold of their own.

We wish you a Merry Christmas all night.

Remember, Sean, you used to do that at your house. You used to sit behind the piano.

Fuck it, J. B, I would love to see your face if a bunch of people came singing out your door. You'd be like, Get the hell out of here. What the fuck?

I'd get up my B. B. Gun.

I'm trying to watch Jen Sacky right now. What are you doing? You're interrupting Rachel Maddow.

I paused MSNBC for this bullshit.

What's going I tell you, you can sing.

Look at the segment. I tell you, you can make a lot of music that people would give anything to see them outside their door, including me. I would give almost anything.

Do they make beautiful music?

Our guests today are two musicians who helped. They really changed the direction of music in my view, and a lot, I'm not alone in that. One is a songwriter whose work showed that songs could be everything from melodic to abrasive to emotionally direct. The other is a guitarist whose approaches can be only described as textured and full of tension and restraint. Never heard you say textured. I know. I'm so excited. I'm buzzing a little bit. 54 years. Yeah, I'm just together. They created a band whose influence could be heard across decades of music, shaping and influencing artists from Nervana to Radiohead. Jason just talked that. I think everybody who came after them had to be influenced by them. Certainly, their music has just been... Their legend has grown since the moment they started making music. Please welcome Charles Thompson, also known as Black Francis, and Joey Santiago. They are Pixies.

Oh, wow. Jesus Christ. What have you done?

You guys.

Good morning, Ben.

Wow.

This is me. Wow. This is anybody else.

Oh, Willy. Guys.

Will. Will, are your pants even on?

I hope that's okay. They weren't supposed to know, man.

Like Will sitting on plastic. This is Will. This is his- Gentlemen, Joey, I heard you sipping your coffee or tea or whatever you've got.

Both of you. Charles, you got one going, too. It's fresh. First of all, where are we finding you guys today? Let's just start there. Where we are now.

I'm in Los Angeles.

Beautiful.

Hey, Joe. To get home okay? Yeah.

Tell us what happened.

Because I'm not in Los Angeles. I'm in Northampton, Massachusetts. But I I don't know. I feel like I just got home last night, but really, I guess we ended a couple of weeks ago, but it took me a couple of weeks to get home. You walked. Now, Joey, I just haven't talked to him since the last time we were in Honalulu.

You guys We just haven't talked since you were doing a show or something? Were you guys on two-a-hour? Exactly.

We were in Honalulu. We were like, All right, see you later. All right, see you.

Honolulu? Well done.

I was like, Oh, hey, Joe, where are you? Did you go home? I went home. I mean, it took me two weeks to get here. Anyway, I'm sorry.

No, I like this.

I'm having a offshoot conversation already here.

No, Charles, you have to know that you heard us catching up. This is where we catch up with each other, too.

Yeah, exactly. Do your housekeeping right now. We'll wait.

Let's get into some admin. Joe, you got home okay.

Yeah, thank God. Yeah. I mean, nonstop. If I were to stop, it would have been the Pacific Ocean.

Yeah, exactly. What about... It's an 11-hour flight over there to Massachusetts, though, right? That's a big trip.

With a bunch of other big trips, though, that were right behind it. So it was... I did binge watch. I'm getting very cranky with the media available. I like it when I have... I have to download a bunch of YouTube videos to get me through those 12-hour flights and stuff. I feel terrible. I wish I had more patience for the films or television programs, but I get all, I don't want to watch this. Then I change it, I don't want to watch this. Then I...

What did you bid to?

What did you get through? I have so many options. I remember. Do you remember People's Express Airlines? Sure.

Yeah.

I think it was $149. And you paid. Didn't you pay when you got on the plane? You paid like some guy who came down the aisle. And I remember paying in cash.

Yeah, for snacks.

To fly to LA. Oh, wow. And you could bring a lunch. Everyone brought a brown bag to lunch.

It was an economical way to fly. I remember because I grew up in Toronto and you could go to New York, so we'd take a bus to Buffalo Airport, and then you could pay. It was like $100 to fly to New York from Buffalo.

There's an airline out there that's proposing you could stand up.

Apparently on this airline, you can roll the windows down, too.

Roll the windows.

You can. That's what they said. They fly at a real low altitude, roll the windows down, relax.

You know what I was amazed by? I just learned a year ago, when you look at the stats, when you're flying, that it's 70 below zero up there.

Wow. Oh, Sean. Outside.

I didn't know it was that cold outside.

Sure. It's really cold when you get up there. I didn't know it was that cold. Have you ever seen videos of people climbing mountains before?

Yeah, but it's not 70 below.

I mean, they're not in Hawaiian shirts most of the time. I don't know if you notice that. They're not in speedos when they're going up Everest, dude.

This would have been a good question for us to ask. What was that scientist we had on that I marveled? I really impressed him with my skills, my questions and stuff. Neil deGrasse? Yeah, this would have been a good question for him. Since we're closer to the sun, why is it closer?

Listen, we got pixies on. We're wasting time. We're talking about... Guys, this is really cool. Gentlemen, this is really, really cool. You guys, I love When people... When great things start from basically chance encounters, if you will, you guys live next door to each other. Is that true?

There's this... What's the name of that? That dormitory, Joe? Sylvin. Sylvin. At UMass Amherst, there's three buildings called Sylvan or whatever. Yeah, I guess they're all Sylvan. Anyway, what do they call those, Joe? They're-suites, right? You have seven roommates. It's like a suite, and you share. It's like a little... It's like a cinder block building. It's literally like a... I shouldn't say it's like a prison because I've never been to prison, but it's like a prison. Without bars, but it's really a rudimentary... There was a living room, and then there's three or four bedrooms, and then there's a bathroom shower area. There's about seven of us in a suite. We were in the same suite at our freshman year.

You just freak Jason out because he's thinking about the communal shower already. I saw his arms go up. Jason, you're out. You're gone.

I'm just not going to shower until junior year when I have my own apartment.

Wait, so this is at UMass Amherst? Yeah. This is what year? Is it '84? Am I going to say, or is it earlier?

Something like that. Yeah.

'83.

'83, '84. You guys are sharing this cinder block suite as Charles, you made it sound so beautiful. You guys are in there. What happens? Who goes, Hey, do you want to start a band? Like, I just love this.

Charles was playing. You had your acoustic guitar already and you were playing a lot.

I had some annoying songs that I would lay around the dormitory on a regular basis. Joey was kind enough to sit in and plunk along. He got his guitar out. Neither one of us were, what you call, guitar weanies or whatever. We were hanging out, playing the guitar all the time. We weren't that... We appreciate the art form, but we weren't beholden to it or anything like that.

Were you looking for people to listen? Did you care?

I don't know. I think we were pretty like... We didn't know what we wanted. I think that I remember I worked at the university campus store, and they had the radio on, You win tickets tonight. I remember it was James Taylor, I think it was, and nothing against James Taylor. But at that time, that wasn't necessarily at the top of my list. But call now, I called from the back room, and they gave me a pair of tickets. Joe, do you want to go see James Taylor? And I, Okay. It was all like, nothing to do. It was like, Okay, let's do that. Even when we started being a band, dealing with record company types, they would make us It was a suggestion and we would say, Okay, because we didn't really know how anything worked. It was all good. It was like, it was action. It was something that was going to happen. Anyway, I lost my point there.

No, you're right on point. I was going to say, so you guys, you're there, you're playing, for lack of a better term, jamming, as dumb as that sounds. But you are. Thank you, Jason. So then you guys, you're making stuff, and then you guys, I'm going to jump a little bit, you make what's known as the Purple Tapes, right? It was like a demo, but not really, if I'm right. It was like the first time you recorded. My question is, what was the first time that you guys said, All right, we're making the... Let's write a song, or did you just by mistake write a song, or did you go out to make these songs? How did that happen? I love the idea of We're aligned. I got an idea.

Well, we got separated a little bit because he was back in Nammerst, and then I went to San Juan, Puerto Rico. I was supposed to go for the year, but about halfway through, I hadn't even gone to a class. I wrote him a letter. Do you remember we used to write letters? I forgot that we used to write letters, but I think I wrote Joe a letter saying, Let's meet in Boston and we'll start the band finally. He wrote back and said, Okay, we'll see you in January. You know what I mean?

By the way, Charles, I found the letter.

We didn't have phones or anything.

Wait, Joe, what happened?

I found the letter.

No way. Oh, really?

You found the letter? Yeah. My wife wanted to go... Or my girlfriend, but she's newly married. But she wanted to go over my trunk at the house that I grew up in. I mean, there's nothing in there. When it went in and it's like, Fuck, the letter is in here.

That's fucking rad. That's cool. Joe, you get this letter from Charles and you're like, what? It gets you. You're like, okay, cool. You start thinking about this.

It was goading me to drop out.

What were you guys studying in school? Was there a path that you guys had to derail to pursue the band dream?

I was undeclared until the last moment. There was this a spoof on April first that the people that undeclared were going to go to some war in Granada or something. And I go, I remember that. I got to find a fucking major.

Or you're going to have to serve in Grenada.

Yeah. So I just picked economics just to get out of the war. But it was It was a spoof.

What about you, Charles?

I was trying to remember what happened when they did that spoof. That's the same thing that caused us to think about the bigger questions because it was the college newspaper there, right? And Umeas called the collegiate, whatever the fuck it was called. The collegiate. And it was April Fool's. And then it was like, Yeah, it's going to be a draft. Fuck. It's going to be a draft. You believe You believed it for a good hour and a half.

I love that the paper knew how dumb and pliable the student body was.

Yeah, I was thinking about Canada and stuff.

We would have welcomed you.

I didn't care about having to quit school. I think we were both looking for reasons to drop out of school because school was like, it was okay, but I don't know, it didn't ring the bell quite.

But clearly, you guys weren't novices at playing music, right? At this point, you guys were knew what you were doing. No, no, no. A little bit. You knew some cords.

How about that? Yeah, yeah. I mean, in the best possible way. I don't mean that it was bad that we didn't know what we were doing, but it wasn't like we were like, shit, we've been slaving away down in the basement for so many months now or so many years. No, it was none of that. It was just like a little rinky-dink-dink-dink-dink once in a while. Then let's drop out of school, start a band, see if that happens. It's amazing. I meet you in Boston, and we met there, and he had an apartment on one side of the park. Where was he? You were over there by Berklee School of Music, Joe. Remember you had that brown apartment? You had that epiphany where everything was brown in your life? We can come back to the brown epiphany.

Charles, why am I so depressed? You go in my fucking place, it's all brown. It's like, this could be the reason right here. Everything's brown.

You guys come back to... And then, first of all- I feel guilty because Joey, today, sometimes he'll dawn the brown, and he'll look nice.

You know what I mean? I'll say, Shit. Joey looks nice, and he's wearing brown. I gave him shit about everything being brown. I was frowning on the Brown, but there was nothing wrong with it. It was like he had it together.

Brown does get a very bad rap. I don't think it's fair.

He lived in this Brown apartment, and I lived in some other apartment across the park. We used to go to It was naive. We used to go to the club called the Ratzgeller in Kenmore Square, which is no longer there, but it's an old venue because I believe my parents used to hang out there when they were teenagers. Anyway, we used to time how long the sets were for the bands because we had to figure out, Well, how do we do that? How do we get from just having a couple of rinky ding tunes on our guitars here to having a full-fledged band where we're doing what those kids are doing? We used to hang out in clubs and we need 25 minutes or whatever. We need to, who do we got to talk to? It takes a while to figure out. You got to send a letter to that person. You got to send the pets to the soundman's girlfriend, Maria. She's the one you have to get the tape to. Now, here's the tape. There's this process of getting the tape to the right fucking person and then finally getting the Monday night and then the Tuesday night.

I suppose it's the same thing with comedy or anything.

Was there a particular night that you had at the club that really caught on? You could feel the audience was like, Oh, these guys are rad. I'm going to sign up to come see them wherever they play next. Did you know that you had an audience?

Like, you started to have a fouling. Following was developing.

I'll tell you when I knew we had something going. Remember we were practicing at your apartment there in Fenway, and we heard a door knocking. The door knocked. Yeah. It goes, shit, we're too loud. It was the maintenance guy. We answered the door and goes, I just wanted to tell you guys, you guys are sounding good.

Yeah. That's fucking That's great. This is a place right near Fenway?

Yeah. You live in the Fenway at the time.

In the Fenway, yeah. That's where we had our first real... Well, our first real rehearsal space was somewhere else, but we eventually ended up with It was like a place with a sewer cap in it. It was down in the basement, and there was a bunch of bands down there. It was very expensive even then. It was like fucking $500 a month for a little windowless room with a sewer cap Then when it rained, there were all these bugs suddenly flying in the space, and it smelled like shit. It was just a God awful place. But that's the best that we could get.

Those are two opportunities where Jason would have quit the band with a shower and then the sewage space.

And the reversal space.

Happy to produce. I'll see you guys at the mixing studio.

But wait a second. Were you guys- See you at the Hollywood Bowl. When did you guys become Pixies? What was the moment you guys became? How How did the name come up and what was the moment? Like, Okay, now we're Pixies.

Well, I suppose it would have been our second show, officially, because the first show, we were listed as the Puxies. So officially, we were the Puxies in our first engagement. And then the second engagement. It was a typo? They got the spelling right. Typo. The Pixies. But I suppose Joey picked the name of the band. He was saddled that responsibility or took it upon himself. You were We had a dictionary, right, Joe? I'm using a dictionary right now to hold up my computer. But I believe you were in the P's and there were a lot of P names. No way.

Did you just throw a dart?

It just looked good. I had an X in the middle. That's funny. That's really funny. Also, what's the definition? Mischivist little elf. I love that. That's a good one.

I'm going to start calling you, Willy. Thanks, Yeah, you're my little Pixie. Get over here. We will be right back.

Now, back to the show.

You guys are playing, you're practicing, and you were open. When you guys... Sorry to go back to Purple Tapes, but that was your first recording. Were you opening for other bands? Were you guys opening? Where did I read a long time? Were you opening for throwing Muses or something. Is that right? Do I have any of that right?

Yeah, we did.

Sure. Yeah, we used to open up for them because they were a little further along than we were with all of the show biz. They had a record out and they had a manager and stuff. But we got hooked up with them and some of their people, some of their crew and some of their manager. We had the same manager for a while, but the same producer for a little while. But I suppose that was if there was any camaraderie, that would be the one band that was the... If we had any camaraderie. There wasn't a lot of camaraderie in Boston. Really? For us, I think. I don't mean in a negative way, even. I just mean that we didn't bother with that. It seemed very clear and apparent to us that we had to get out of Dodge in order for it to mean anything significant. We had to... Because those bands that come through that are from other places, you see them come through. There was this Australian band. What are they called? Celibate Rifles. I remember the Celibate Rifles used to come through and they would have to draw 50 people or whatever every time they played at the Ratskiller.

But it was like, wow, I don't know. They figured out how to get all the way here from Sydney or wherever they're from, and they're playing a show. I don't know. It seems pretty fun to me. So How do we get on that thing that they're doing? And of course, it's not that glamorous, but it doesn't have to be glamorous when you're 20 years old. It's like you want to travel or meet people or whatever.

I think that there's also that thing of maybe where you're from the place and you want to be... There's something mysterious about a band that's coming from somewhere else. You want to be from somewhere else. I don't know if that figures it into it either, to just add to the mystique. Is that part of it or am I reading that wrong?

Well, I suppose Joey and I both probably were the same exact age and we both had the same... He's originally from the Philippines, and I'm originally from Massachusetts, but we both have the same level of Beatle knowledge and Beatle brainwashing or whatever. You know what I mean? And other stuff from the '60s and '70s, but just for the sake of conversation, putting Beatles at the front of that pack. So by the time we met up when we were 17 or 18, it was like, Oh, you like the Beatles? I like the Beatles. Yeah. It's like, we have that... If you love the Beatles, then you have some affection for that lure, for the Liverpool thing and the little club. And when they went and played the strip clubs in Hamburg and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, the Star Club and all of the history and all of that. Even if you've never been there, you have a lot of romantic feelings about those histories. And so when you finally get to go on tour and then you're there and you're playing in those clubs in those same cities, you're like going, This is what it was like, and this is what it's like to record at the BBC radio studios or whatever, whatever the experience is.

Sometimes it matches right up with the With your heroes, it'll be the same building, the same stage or whatever. And so that's satisfying to be out on the map somewhere far from where you're from and be like, Yep, but I'm doing the same thing that the FAB 4 did. It's as corny as that, but that's the way it is.

Was there a band that was really doing it when you guys got started that you had your eye on and said, Boy, if we could go in In that direction, we'd have something. That's where we want to go.

They were doing it in tonally that you liked that you were like, Oh, this is... Was there any of that influence-wise?

At that time?

I don't know, Joe. What did you think? I'm trying to think. Did we talk about that stuff?

I like the Zulus's. I remember the Zulus's. I don't know that. They had something just wild guitar, wild vocalist.

Yeah, I want to jump to, so you guys are doing this stuff, and you put this stuff together, and you do... The Purple Taste becomes basically, Come on, Pilgrim. Is that right? But then your first real Full length record is Surfer Rosa. That's 1988. That's your introduction on a bigger scale to you guys, the world. It's meant with a ton of critical acclaim. This puts you guys front and center in what's going on. I'll tell you something, man. Knowing that you guys were coming on, I have three sons. My 15-year-old son is really into music, and we've been listening to you guys a lot the last couple of days, in the car and stuff, and I keep going, Oh, man, we're going to have these guys on the podcast. I was playing some of your songs, and I'm like, Yeah, this record came out in 1988. My son's like, No fucking way. Because it seems so relevant musically. It seems so present. Everything about it just seems so, for lack of a better word, modern or current or whatever. You realize how ahead of the curve you guys were in terms of just sonically, I think.

I know that, and I'm jumping all over the place. I know that since you guys, you put out five records in a really short period of time, and then you took a break for a number of years. It was almost like after you guys, the first time you broke up, people went like, Oh, we missed that. We didn't realize at the time how great these dudes were, what these guys were doing.

Fuck you.

Yeah. Was there a sense of, Fuck you? Okay, fuck. Let's hear it. Was there ever a Fuck you? Or, We told you so, man. We were making... When other bands started coming, because I know everybody, I mentioned the intro, Kurt Cobain, the guys in Radiohead, they've all talked about how much you guys influence them, and When you're like, Is there a little bit of like, Yeah, we're trying to tell you that, man.

No. I don't know. I don't know if we take it all that seriously. We take it seriously in the sense that we thoroughly enjoy It's really enjoy it. You know what I mean? Yeah. You thoroughly enjoy the whole routine, the whole whatever it is you got to do. You know what I mean? Play a show. I don't really like doing TV shows, but you got to do that sometimes. Go record a record and you're in a friendly way competing with some other people maybe that are, I guess, contemporaries or whatever. Plus competing with your heroes and everything. It's all really fun, but you can't take it too seriously. I don't know. I don't know, especially because I don't know if I... It's not like I feel like we went to music school for 20 years and slaved away for trying to just absorb all this stuff and worked so hard at it. I mean, we just love it and we like doing it, and we're not... I don't know. If other people like it, it's like, Oh, good. I like you, too.

But, Charles, you talk about doing TV shows and stuff, and then I wanted to get in this, and this is all in no particular order because I'm just vomiting my obsession with you guys. I was thinking about how much the influence you guys have had. Well, first of all, I was thinking in media, if you think about where is my mind, where you guys felt about where is my mind being? The last song comes up a lot, I'm sure. So I'm sorry. Forgive me. It plays over the very end of fight club, and then the world is falling apart. And that was, I think, for a lot of a new generation, an introduction to you guys. Everybody was like, holy shit. When you see a song that you wrote, I'd like to know where your mind was when you wrote that compared to what it's been applied to, because now it's represented in a different way, the end of the world and stuff. What is that gap between where it was when it started and when you wrote it and what it ended up symbolizing later because of its use in the movie?

I don't really know. I don't have a lot of memory of putting it together. Or feeling that it was-Important? So notable or anything like that. But my girlfriend was... Usually, I played in the bathroom because it was the one private space in a little apartment. But she was in there doing makeup and said... And I saw I was in the bedroom with my guitar playing those cords and working out maybe an arrangement of the song. And she stopped what she was doing and said, Finish that song. She said, That's a good one. And I went, Oh, okay. But that's the only memory I have of it, really. I guess when I go back and I analyze it, it just sounds like a silly little folk song or something that I would have learned how to do stuff like that when I was in about third or fourth grade, I used to hang out with a lot of hippie folk music types in Newton, Massachusetts. They schooled us in a lot of singalongy things that were cool, actually, in retrospect, including Woody Guthrie and all that stuff. To me, where is my mind just fits in with that, Here we go, third verse, same as the first verse.

Here we go, everybody. It's not even a sensical song or anything. It's just some delightful words to trip over while you're skipping through a melody.

I know. Well, that's nice. But that's interesting because we all have... I have had so many experiences listening that song myself in deep moments in that, haunting that Joey, that guitar. That whole... It's had another life, as you probably know, on social media and TikTok. My kids see it all the time that it's used in all these different ways. Again, Charles, I know it's so funny to hear you that like, yeah, you're just coming up with it in a moment, and then it goes on to have this other application. It must be trippy. Like, Jory, when you hear that guitar rift, it must come up. Sometimes you hear it. Do you remember recording it when you guys recorded it? Do you remember that day or thinking like, this is cool?

I do remember it. I remember you showed us a song at your apartment. We had some Vietnamese food. Then that part came right away and it was like, I'm done. That's what I said, basically, I'm done. Because I wanted to do that little Chuck Berry thing, but I didn't do the double note. So I just wanted to fit that in and go, yeah, it's good.

Does it matter more or less for a song to have a long life Would you rather a song be super duper memorable because of its tune, because of its melody, or because of the words that it says? Charles, you were saying it's like, it's just a couple of chords here and some words that you might What is more important to you of the staying power of a song, the melody or the words that what you're trying to say? Does it matter?

I mean, both work, right? Because you have people that feel very warm or poignant or whatever about a particular Lyric or whatever or the meaning of the song. But then a lot of times it's just sounds and combinations of sounds and cords and things that give you the chills or the goosebumps. I don't know. I don't think any of our... I mean, half of our audience doesn't speak English, so they speak rock English. You know what I mean? I suppose they can connect to it a little bit. That's a good point. But There's a lot of other stuff mixed in with it, I suppose. I don't want to put too much... It's nice when words can be good, but when someone can declare, Oh, this is indeed a fine libretto. But at the end of the day, it's a rock music context. So it's like there's a lot of... You know what I mean? There's a lot of other elements that are coming to the party also. You know what I mean?

Where's the most surprising place you have found a dedicated fan base? What corner of the world are surprising to you.

Like, wow. You show up in Lisbon, and all of a sudden you're like, Wow, we got a lot of fans.

We found that in Iran, we have a big audience.

No joke. Yeah, for a podcast. No way.

It really blew our minds.

We were like, What? What?

We're lucky enough to have a pretty far-flung audience, but I don't know if we've discovered that enclave of whatever, someplace somewhere way off of the beaten path, I don't know, like Inner India or somewhere like that, where they've somehow discovered our music or whatever. But we do play a lot of places. I'm trying to think of some place we've played. I mean, talking about Portugal, we do really well down on Portugal. There you go.

What did you guys think about, Charles and Joey, what did you guys think about what was the way that people used to talk about... They used to try to Because I hate when people get categorized, but when they tried to call it the soft, quiet, loud or whatever, what was the term that they used? Do you remember that they used to try to describe you guys?

Loud, quiet, loud.

Yeah, loud, quiet, loud. Yeah. When you heard that, were you like, Oh, okay, well, that's just us. Like, whatever.

We certainly didn't invent it. I mean, Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture had fucking cannons.

Sean?

That's very true. Yeah.

Go ahead, Sean.

I was just going to say something about touring. When you guys... So you guys still tour, it sounds like a lot. When you do, do you see each other before a show or is the first time you see each other when you're on stage? Do you hang out backstage before the show?

Yeah.

We hang out about an hour before the show. We convene, and there's an Espresso machine in our tour manager's office, and we all go there and get an Espresso. That's good. Then we sit down in the dressing room, and then we have some acoustic guitars there. There's one acoustic guitar. Then I think Dave, you should just find something to tap on. Then we sing for about a half an hour, 45 minutes, and go, Oh, yeah, that's how we play. Then we go on tour. But we don't live in the same city anymore. I think I don't know. I don't want to call it that we're lazy, but we've just been doing it for so long that we don't really-It's okay.

We're lazy.

Go over it, over and over and over.

I mentioned before, I want to jump back. You do Five records in a short amount of time, ending with Tramplemon, which, again, another one of those records that years later, everybody's like, Oh, man, this record is amazing, and we should have recognized it at the time. You take a long break. You guys were basically broken up for, I don't know, 10 years or something? Twelve years. In that time, you all go off and do different things. Frank, you do. I call you Frank because in that time, you were known as Frank Black. You put a bunch of records out as Frank Black. Of course, Teenager of the Year. I didn't know this. Teenager of the Year, by the way, I just want to say a Pixie's side note, if I can, Charles. I didn't know that you had actually been named Teenager of the Year in high school. I read that somewhere. Is that true, that you were named Teenager of the Year?

What does that mean? It's an award that was given at the high school that I graduated from. I don't know why it's given, but I think it's like a-It's the greatest thing for- It's the greatest game for them. It's for the good kid that didn't do that much, but he stayed out of trouble and he seemed nice. We got to give him something, and it's like a little, Hey, you're the Teenager of the Year.

I was the class Ghost.

Wait, is that true? Is that true, Joe?

The class ghost. No pictures of me in one year on the yearbook. I refuse to have my picture taken. I didn't even exist.

Joe, what a perfect pairing. You're the class ghost and the teenager of the year together. It's almost meant to be, man. It's like written in the fucking stars. So then you guys have this twelve-year hiatus from Pixies, and you get back together.

Is that what it was? Was it just a hiatus to do other stuff, or was there acrimony? You guys were like, No, fuck this. Let's not do it.

No, we broke up. The band was broken up and we had to go pay our dues, I suppose, because we didn't really pay our dues the first time around. I'm not saying that it was all super easy, but whatever. It was like every band's got five years, as they say. You do it all in five years and it all implodes. Then we imploded. We were just, whatever, Tread and Water for 20 years. I mean, not Tread and Water because I know Kim actually had some pretty big success with her band, The Breeders, and she had a big hit and everything. I It wasn't... It sounds like a complaining, but I'm not. But it's not like we were doing all these amazing projects that were so successful, whatever. You just over and around and staying in it as best as you can. And plenty of humbling experiences, I suppose, to go along with it.

Well, you inspired in that time. Little do you know. I will tell you one more sidebar, Charles, which is years ago, what is it? 2025. 14 years ago, I was trying to come up with... I had this idea for this show that became a very little watched show on Netflix called Flake that I wrote. I was flying over to the UK, and I was just outlining this dumb idea, and I was like, What is this thing? What is this thing? I was going to meet my partner, Chappie, who's a great friend of Jason's.

You got the greatest name in the world.

Mark Chappell, great writer who wrote, we've written a bunch of stuff together. He wrote, Is this thing on with me? With Bradley, our new movie. Anyway, so I'm going over there, and I was listening to Teenager of the Year, and I was listening to Freedom Rock, that track, Freedom Rock. It goes, for you guys who don't know, it goes, My name is Chip, and I'm different. And I just wrote that down, that lyrics down in the thing while I was writing this synopsis with no idea Yes. A couple of days later, Mark and I were writing, and I looked back on my notes and I said, This guy's name. It really helped me get into this guy, into this character that ended up becoming this character, Chip, in my show. It was based on listening to Freedom Rock. So just so you know, when you thought you were doing nothing, you ended up years later really inspiring me. So thank you. That's cool.

I'm glad that worked out. I think it's just if you have any love of language, it doesn't even have to be, I don't know, academic or whatever. It's just the way you play around with words, words that you like. Sometimes you find a word or a name or something, then somehow you incorporate it into your thing.

We'll be right back.

And back to the show.

Anyway, Anyway, so you guys go do that. Then what happens? What is the moment 12 years after you break up? Who calls whom? Who goes? Because you guys all get back, right, Joe and you, Charles and Kim, you guys? What's the moment? Who makes the first call? Who has the idea like, Fuck, let's get the band together?

Was it just a text that said, You up?

No, because it was still, believe it or not, I suppose people send texts, but I think that even in 2003 or whenever this was, people weren't quite glued to their phones. It was a fax. Of course, the way they are now. But I did an interview on a radio show in London, and it was an early morning show, a lot of joking around. They're like a bunch of Brits, and they're talking circles around me, and they're being all nuanced and everything. I'm only getting half of what's going on. But anyway, I start trying to joke around with them. They're saying, Do you see the other band members? I'm like, Yeah, we jam all the time. I'm just being sarcastic and kidding around a little bit. Then they knew I was being sarcastic, but they decide to pretend that I wasn't. They're like, We got you. You said it. You said you guys are back together and you're jamming. But I was being, obviously, like I said, not serious. But after I left the radio station, they kept... That was their little thing they talked about, I guess, the rest of the show or whatever. Because by the time that I got home to my hotel or whatever, I don't remember, but there was a world, remember, there was a where we'd suddenly, CNN was 24 hours.

And so everyone was aware of the ticker. Yes. The idea of a ticker, of a news ticker. And for most, I suppose, Joe Blow people, common people that weren't following stocks or whatever, it would have been the CNN would have been the ticker that they would have been aware of. And somehow our reunion made it onto the ticker. Made it onto the ticker. And so people started. So I don't know. Joey might have called me, I think, and said, What the fuck is going on? Because I'm watching CNN here and we're back together.

Joe, you're reading the ticker and you're like, Joe, you're like, what the fuck, man? Are we getting back together? What's going on?

I was pissed I didn't buy Apple.

Yeah.

No. No.

Get in line. Get in line, man.

Yeah, I suppose. I remember a little differently, but yeah.

I love this.

I I remember Charles calling me. I guess I didn't have CNN. At the time. I still try not to watch the news. That's smart. I guess it's always been bad, but especially now, I just can't fucking watch it. But anyway, he called, and then that was it.

Wait, that's it.

I think I asked Joe. I think Joey agreed to call Kim. I said, Would you call Kim and see if she's up for it.

Well, my friend started saying, You guys are getting back together. And it's like, What? I didn't know until I got the call from Charles. And then it's like, Oh, it is true. Because every five years, people would tell me, When are you guys going to get back together? There's always this rumor that we're going to be going to Coachella or something. There's always this thing.

But Joe, you must have known. You guys had to have known because you're You guys were so beloved and so missed that what happened, the touring company or manager, whoever calls and goes like, Hey, guys, this is great. We're stoked.

Yeah, but I'm sure that there's still that other element, which is much more delicate and nuanced, which is I don't want to be the one to say, Hey, guys, should we do this? Because the other person on the other end of the line might be like, Yeah, no, fuck that. What are you talking about? I'm not getting back together with you. Like someone's got to pull their pants down first. I would imagine that's a real delicate part of any reunion with any band, with any group.

Pulling the pants down is certainly a delicate.

Is there a belt? Is it zippers? Is it a buttonfly? It's It's complicated.

Well, Charles, you were busy. So, Kim, Dave and I got together to practice the songs.

Wow.

Together because you We were somewhere else. And then we made a deal, no pun intended, that if this thing's going to sound like crap with the three of us, we're going to shake hands and move on.

Oh, wow. But it See, I didn't know about this deal.

Yeah.

Well, it's true, though.

If it wasn't going to work out- No, it seems reasonable enough.

Very reasonable. But the first three songs that we went over, we just smile and go, Oh, my God. We still It still fucking sounds the same. Because my Marshall has Sharpie marks on it, so all I had to do is like dial it in. That was that sound. But more importantly, the quantizing of the groove. I mean, we had it.

That had to be such a rush to hear that the first time. Yeah, no shit.

It was almost comical.

Yeah. Wow.

What did you say the quantizing of the groove? What does that mean?

The way the bass and the rhythm, it pushes and pulls.

You mean the actual combination of your sounds individually together to create one singular noise?

Yeah, just like the nuances of the push and pulls. Yeah. We had it. Oh, that's great. It's just a feel.

You had settings on your amplifier that were specific to that Pixie sound that you had to get back to?

Yeah, it was sharpied on there. So I just like... That's wild.

That's cool.

It's like a recipe. That's really cool. Yeah.

That's awesome. By the way, Charles, you get with these guys. You don't realize that until today that they made this deal that they're like, Hey, if it doesn't work out, we're not going to do it.

No, but I suppose I had other concerns or whatever.

Okay. So I was thinking about. Let me just ask you this because we got a lot to get in, and I got to let you guys go in a minute. I outlined again, and not at risk of embarrassing you, which I talk about influence on other musicians and artists throughout the years. Is there a moment for each of you that sticks out, like a cool moment that somebody came and said, somebody that you like or somebody whose music you really respond to who said, Hey, man, I like what you guys do? Is there a moment like that? Because I've had moments like that in my career. I think we all have where somebody who we respect comes and says, Hey, you've done good.

The biggest damn one, Charles, come on.

Who's that?

We were playing at the Orpheum at the time, and then our tour manager says, Hey, someone wants to come by after our show and say hello. He goes, Oh, Like, who the fuck is this? He goes, Oh, it's David Bowie. It's like, wow. Oh, wow. Yeah. That's cool. David Bowie came by, and this is the club, and said, They like us. That's really cool.

That's really cool.

He likes us. That'll give you It was a fuel for a few years. That was it. Yeah.

There you go. Charles doesn't remember.

No, no, no. Definitely he looms the largest, I suppose, in those kinds of terms, in terms of musical royalty or whatever. Yeah, for sure.

Charles, were there other ones for you? Other bands who you liked, who were more... I mean, Bowie is an iconic. It doesn't get bigger.

Well, I remember the first TV show we did was in New York. Do you remember there was a late night program hosted by David Sanborn? Oh, yeah. I forget what the name of it was, but he would have on four or five different people, and they'd all come on and do a song. They did this jam at the end, which was a little awkward, as I recall. But he had on the Sunra Orchestra. They were these old jazz musicians, you know what I mean, who had really been around for a long time and seen it all. Anyway, we did this ridiculous number called Tame, which is the epitome the loud, quiet, loud dynamic. Then we had the… In the quiet part. Then in the loud part, right? Anyway, it does get quite loud. I guess I have a loud voice or whatever. It's very minimalist in terms of its orchestration and our musical idea. It's very minimalist, but it does get loud and it does get quiet. Anyway, but one of the gentlemen from the Sunrise Orchestra, I don't know if he was complimenting me, but he just said, he said, boy, he said, You sure can holler like that after the show.

I was just like, Yeah. I was like, all right. One of those guys thought I was cool. He was basically saying, Good holler, good utilization of your loud chops or whatever. He didn't quite get it necessarily musically, but he got what we were trying to do. I liked that validation a lot from a cat, so to speak, from a jazz cat. Felt really great.

Yeah. From somebody who doesn't play the music that you guys do to acknowledge it in that way, it's got to be- Someone who's truly paid their dues, shall we say.

Yeah. To get validation from them or whatever, I felt like, okay, all right, so maybe we're on to something. It's real or something. It's got some mojo or whatever. We have some magical thing going on. It is But we are special. We have something.

Yeah, we're good. Wait, but now you paid your... You got to admit now you paid your fucking dues. You guys are 40 years in. Basically, you're doing a 40-year reunion. Not reunion. I shouldn't say that. At all. You guys are doing a 40th, almost like an anniversary tour, if you will, this year with your... Is it your ninth studio album? Is that right? Ninth or 10th?

Something like that.

The Night the zombies came?

I'm not sure about this 40th anniversary angle. I feel like- That's me. I was telling Joe that if it was 50th, maybe we'd be like, All right, we got to own it. We're really old, and we've been doing it for 50 years and whatever. But 40 feels a little bit like, shh. We really need to talk about how long it's been going on. No. Just talk about me. I don't mind you bringing it up. I'm realizing, because we don't necessarily I'll choose the hook that maybe a publicist or somebody is employing to promote your next little run of shows. And recently, I learned it was like, 40th anniversary. I'm like, Fuck, man, 40th. I'm not going to have a anniversary with anybody.

Yeah. Listen, this is a good note for your publicist right now. Your publicity team will let them know to drop that from all material is going forward, but you guys are going to-It makes sense.

I get it. It's a good hook, but whatever. I guess a little... What's the word? I guess I'm vain is what it is. Is that what it is?

Yeah, we are too, man. It's hard to imagine that Jason's vain by looking at him, but he is very vain. Do you guys When you go out on this tour this year, you just finished, it sounds like a couple of weeks ago, a show. But when you go out on tour, because you guys are so prolific. As I mentioned, your ninth or 10th studio album, how much do you mix up new stuff with... I mean, you've got to have people going like, Please play Here comes your man, or whatever. You must have... Do you play some of the songs from across your catalog? Sure, yeah.

We usually rehearse up 50 songs, and then we just call them out when we play a show. Then we know which are the top 10, and we know which are the ones that We like to play that sound good, I think. I don't know if everyone gets to scratch their itch with the setlist that's chosen, but there's a lot of songs that they fall flat or whatever. You think, Oh, that one, they're really going to go crazy for. But then when you do it every time, it's like, It's okay. I think it always gravitates towards... We just learn a batch. Our brains can handle about 50 numbers. That's a lot. All right, let's just fucking go on towards it.

By the way, Charles, that's a lot. Fifty is a lot. Joe, do you have a song that you have always loved to play? When you just start to play it, do you have one? I'm sure it's hard to narrow it down, but do you have one that you get into a thing with it and you just love it?

It depends on the night. I do like to play Tame because I feel like a wise ass on it. I think the song has three cords the whole time, Charles. Yeah. I do one.

What?

You give him up.

Charles, it must feel good, though, after all. I mentioned, Here comes your man. I mean, that was a song that you wrote. That was an early song of yours, and it still got this... Talk about a song again that's just got this staying power that still feels just as relevant today as the moment you dreamed it up. It must be gratifying.

I have grown to like the song eventually. I think that when we played it in our early repertoire, it was one of the ones that were maybe a bit poppy that we didn't know if it was too poppy or too nice sounding. But the producer, G that we did a couple or three records with, four records with. He really liked that one. So it got resurrected from the early repertoire, finally, to the record that it showed up on, which was Doolittle, our third record. I believe that the record company that was distributing our record in the USA was, what were they called, Joe? Elektra. Elektra Records. They had all kinds of connections to show biz. I remember that was the only time we did some real artsy-fartzy, Screw You All, We Don't Care, Move, was they wanted us to play that song on what show, Joe, was it?

Our City Hall.

Our City Hall. That felt too weird to us to like, Oh, that's silly. That's our silly song, or that's our song that's too sweet. Maybe we don't understand. It's all going too fast. They want us to play in Our City Hall, and we have to do that song. There's no other song we can do. That's the thing that's going to represent us. I think now we'd be like, Oh, awesome. Tv, yeah. But at the time, I think there was a little bit of a concern of being... There was a little bit of a too... We didn't have a big too cool for school attitude, but a little bit once in a while. We We don't do that.

Yeah, we've all been there.

I feel badly because it wasn't anything against any particular program or whatever. It's just the idea that that feels too mainstream. It seems too late.

Our senior is mad at you. Too late. Listen, man, I want to say what I love about that particular song, I will say that it feels like it could have been written any year from 1950 on. There's something about it to me that just cuts across everything. There's something, I don't know, timeless. I I love that song in particular. That's just me.

We play it every show. I enjoy playing it now, and I've tried to gradually appreciate whatever it is that people are responding to in it. Yeah, it's a nice little dodo. It's bouncy. Everyone seems to be in a pretty good mood when we play it. I don't know. My mood seems to pick up a little bit when we play it.

There you go. That's the most important thing.

That's a good sign.

That's good, Charles. Listen, guys, we've dominated your time. I'm It's such a thrill, both Charles and Joe, to have you guys here today.

Very nice of you guys to join us.

Give us an hour. Thank you. You guys, your ninth or 10th studio album, The Night the zombies Came, is just an absolute testament to your staying power. You guys are on tour this year. Charles, I won't say your 40th reunion tour or anniversary tour at all. I've taken that out. We're just calling it a victory tour. A victory tour. You're 26th. Reburst. Reburst.

But by the way, Charles, I think next year, if you don't mind being paid by rubies instead of currency. Yeah, there you go. 40th anniversary is the ruby.

It's the ruby.

Is that bothering?

No money.. Anniversary.

It's like diamond ruby. It's ruby.

It's like stones.

Yeah, it was stones.

Next year, we're going to be paid by rubies.

We got a guy in Antwerp who's going to be meuling some rubies to you, Charles. So it's all good. What a thrill. You guys. Unbelievable. Continued success. You brought so much joy and so much just amazing music to people over the years. I'm such a fan, and I just thank you for your time. Honestly, thank you so much.

Thank you for all the kind words. Thank you for all the kind words, and thank you for having us on. We appreciate it.

Thanks for being here.

You guys are awesome. All right, Pixie. Take care. Everybody. Thank you, guys. Thank you, bye.

Bye, gentlemen. Thank you.

Bye. Guys.

That was pretty amazing.

What a thrill for me to have a thing. I love that. To have Pixie on.

I love that. Yeah, I remember in college, I think they started in mid '80s and in college-You were here when we were talking to them, right? But I mean, specifically, it was like '85 or '86 or something like that.

Something like that, yeah.

Yeah, and I went to college in '88. They were big on campus. I heard some of their songs, and I know a couple of other songs, but I didn't know anything about them until today, so it's really cool.

I think I wore a T-shirt of theirs in something.

A lot of people had their T-shirts for some reason. I remember seeing T-shirts.

I think on the back, it said Adios. Or was that a Sonic Youth shirt? When it just said Adios there at the end.

Cool. I always like, you'd see somebody wearing a Pixie's T-shirt. You'd be like, All right, this person knows what's up.

Yeah, this one is cool.

Unless it was JB, of course. Yeah, right.

I'm just playing a character that's cool.

Yeah.

All right.

I would love you to play a cool character once.

That would be fun. Didn't you wear a Pixie's T-shirt and Black Rabbit?

Yes, that's what I'm talking about. I took it. I was like, Hey, can I have this? When we finished. Because I want to be cool at home. I want to be cool dad.

You have a Pixie's shirt at home?

Oh, yeah. A couple of them.

Let me come over and bring you some soup.

Would you please?

Yeah. I'm sick, man. It's not to steal your Pixie's shirt. Okay? It's not to.

Come on up. We can just try on a bunch of stuff.

No, we're not doing a trial.

I just take some stuff off you and put some stuff on you. Just dress you up a little bit. What are you talking?

Take some photos, do a working for.

Smear some lipstick on me?

I'd love to put you in a bunch of my clothes. Wouldn't that be fun? You just come over and I just put you in a bunch of my clothes? We're finding what?

Oh, my God. That sounds so creepy. Silence of the Lambs.

I'd love to see you in this. That reminds me of Sandra Bernhardt in King of Comedy. She starts knitting him a sweater when she's got them all tied up. I'd love to see in this. You think these sleeves are too short? Anyway.

I haven't seen that in a long time. Do you remember that song?

Here we go.

Do you remember that song?

He's got He's got his hands on one. I can see it's the twinkle in his eye.

They mentioned Modern Love by David Bowie, and I was thinking about those lyrics of Modern Love.

Never wave.

Yeah, I'm standing in the wind, but I never wave.

Bye, bye. Smart.

Yes. Smart. Yes.

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