"Pixies"

Oh, Jay, did you comb your hair this morning? No, it's still uncombed. I haven't combed my hair since working on Little House on the Prairie, to be honest. 82, 81? 1981, I think it was. Wow. And 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 yet. I didn't say it was bad. I said it was under product. Oh, very good. Well, you know what's not bad? What? Next episode of Smart Listener. Smart. Less. Smart. Less. Smart. Less. How are you feeling? Are you feeling better today, Jason? Look at him. Not really. Oh. Doctor figured, you know, since I had COVID. Sure. And then, so the immunity system, whatever it's called. You're still seeing Dr. Figured? Yeah. She figured that my system's all run down, and so that's why I got the head cold from Maple right afterwards and 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 calmed down for a sec. Like, you were so busy, and now it's like... Yeah, that could be it. And I do like to do nothing. Yeah. It suits you. Yeah. You'll feel better tomorrow. You'll feel a little better today, yeah? You sound like shit. Yeah. How do I? I shouldn't be doing this record. But you look great. You always look great. No, you look great. Thank God you had all that surgery, right? All that surgery covers up. You did all that face work. Yeah, this is a great time for me to be healing. Your face is really settled, dude. I wanted to say that the other day. Do I still look surprised? Yeah. I think I had them, 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, everybody's like, 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 behind the thing, right? They got to fucking unlock it. Are you sure you want? I'm like, look, I'm not making meth in my bathtub, man. I'm just trying to get through today. Right. But does it knock you out and make you all sleep? I guess that's not going to be sleepy. No, it gets you all jazzed up and then you crash and you feel like shit. I don't know, man. But you kind of get through the day. But it's like, yeah, it's like a shot of prednisone 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 and... Hey, have you ever, you know what I said to Maple the other day? She said, you know, 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. And she's like, where do they do Christmas caroling in the world? And 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 and the people inside kind of hear it. They come to the door of the window and they look and they're charmed and they're warmed and that's spirit. And she's like, oh, I'm going to do that. So 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 songs? You can read them off the book. She knows we wish you a Merry Christmas. Remember, Sean, you used to do that at your house. You used to sit behind the piano. Fucking JB, 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 out my BB gun. I'm trying to watch Jen Psaki right now. You're interrupting Rachel Maddow. I paused MSNBC for this bullshit What's going on? I tell you who can sing Oh, look at the segment I tell you who 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 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 and 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 like, I'm buzzing a little bit. Yeah, yeah. I'm just, together, these guys, they created a band whose influence could be heard across decades of music, shaping and influencing artists from Nirvana to Radiohead. Jason just fucked up. Every sort of, 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. Wow. Jesus Christ, Will. What have you done? You guys. Good morning, Ben. Wow. This is me. Everybody else. Dude. Oh, Willie. Guys. Willie. Guys. Will, are your pants even on? This is... I hope that's okay. They weren't supposed to know, man. Heck, Will's sitting on plastic. This Will... Oh, this is... Gentlemen, Joey, I heard you sipping your coffee or tea or whatever you've got. Oh, both of you. Charles, you got one going, too. It's fresh. Where are we... 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. Hmm? Did you get home okay? Uh-oh. Yeah. Oh, wow. Tell us what happened. I mean, because I'm not in Los Angeles. I'm in Northampton, Massachusetts. But we just, I don't know. I feel like I just got home, like, last night. But really, I guess we ended a couple weeks ago, but it took me a couple weeks to get home. You walked. Now, Joey, I just haven't talked to him since the last time we were in Honolulu. Wait, you guys haven't talked since you were, like, what, doing a show or something? Exactly. Like, we were in Honolulu. We were like, all right, see you later. Honolulu. Well done. And so 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 self-centered here, having an 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 would have stopped, it would have been in 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 sort of, I did binge watch. I'm getting very cranky with the media available. I like it when I have, I have to load, I have to download a bunch of YouTube videos to get me through those, like, 12-hour flights and stuff. And 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. So then I change it. I don't want to watch this. So then I. What did you binge watch? What did you get through? I have so many options. You know, like I remember, do you remember People's Express Airlines? Sure. Yeah. You could, I think it was like $149. And you paid, didn't you pay like when you got on the plane? Yeah. Like you paid some guy who came down the aisle. And I remember paying in cash. Yeah, for snacks. To fly to LA. For movies. 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, and it was like $100 to fly to New York from Buffalo. There's an airline out there that's proposing and you could stand up. And 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 like a year ago, like, you know, when you look at the stats when you're flying, that it's like 70 below zero up there. Wow. Oh, Sean. I didn't know it was that cold outside. Sure, it's really cold when you get up there. 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 noticed 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've got pixies on. We're wasting time. And we're talking about... Guys, listen. This is really cool. Gentlemen, this is really, really cool. So 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, well, what's the name of that dormitory, Joe? Sylvan. Sylvan. Sylvan at UMass Amherst. There's like three buildings called Sylvan or whatever. So, yeah, I guess they're all Sylvan. Anyway, what do they call those, Joe? Suites, right? You have like seven roommates. You know, it's like a suite, you know, and you share. It's kind of like a little, they're like, 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 kind of like a prison, you know, like without bars. But it's like, you know, really, you know, rudimentary kind of, there's like a living room. And then there's like three or four bedrooms. And then there's a bathroom shower area. And there's about seven of us in a suite, you know. And so we were in the same suite at our freshman year. You just freaked Jason out because he's thinking about the communal shower already. I saw his arms go up. Jason, I mean, 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. And this is what year? Is this like 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. Charles, you made it sound so beautiful. And so you guys are in there. And 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, like, kind of play around the dormitory on a regular basis. And Joey was kind enough to kind of sit in and kind of plunk along. He got his guitar out. And, you know, neither one of us were, like, what you call, you know, guitar weenies or whatever. You know, we were, like, hanging out, playing the guitar all the time. 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. Win tickets tonight. you know to I remember it was James Taylor I think it was and nothing against James Taylor but you know at that time that wasn't necessarily at the top of my list but call now I called from the from the from the back room and I they gave me a pair of tickets Joe do you want to go see James Taylor tonight okay you know it was all kind of like nothing to do it was like okay let's do that and like even when we started being a band dealing with like record company types, they would make a suggestion and we would say like, okay, you know, because we were just, we didn't really know how anything worked. And so it was all good. It was like, it was action. It was something that was going to happen, you know? So anyway, I kind of lost my point there. No, no, no, you're right on point. And I was going to say, so you guys, you're there, you're kind of, you're playing, for lack of a better term, jamming as dumb as that sounds. But you are. Thank you, Jason. So you guys, you're making stuff, and then you guys, I'm going to kind of jump a little bit. You make what's known as the purple tapes, right? It was sort of like, it was kind of like a demo, but not really, if I'm kind of 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 kind of making the, let's write a song, or did you kind of 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 kind of aligned. Well, we got separated a little bit because he was back in Amherst 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. And I wrote him a letter. Do you remember we used to write letters? Like, I forgot that he used to write letters, but I wrote, I think I wrote Joe a letter saying, let's meet in Boston and we'll start the band finally. And 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, you really found the letter? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, my wife wanted to go, or my girlfriend, she's nearly married, but she wanted to go over my trunk at the house that I grew up in. I mean, there's nothing in there. And then we went in and it's like, fuck, the letter's in here. That's fucking rad. That's cool. So, Joe, you get this letter from Charles, and you're like, what? It kind of gets, 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 kind of derail to pursue the band dream? I was undeclared until the last moment. Yeah. There was this spoof on April 1st that people undeclared were going to go to some war in Granada or something. And I go, oh, shit. 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 a spoof, you know. What about you, Charles? I was trying to remember what happened when they did that spoof. It's the same thing that caused us to think about the bigger questions because it was the college newspaper there, right? And UMass called the Collegiate, whatever the fuck it was called. The Collegiate. But it was, 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 know, you believed it for like a good five- I love that the paper knew how dumb and pliable the student body was. Yeah, yeah. Man but yeah I was like thinking about Canada and stuff Oh we would have welcomed you Like just run 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 kind of ring the bell quite. But clearly you guys weren't novices at playing music, right? At this point, you guys kind of knew what you were doing. No, no, no. A little bit. You knew some chords. How about that? Yeah, yeah. I mean that 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 like 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 once in a while. Then let's drop by to school, start a band, see if that happens. That's amazing. I meet you in Boston, and we met there. and he had an apartment on one side of the park. Where was it? 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? You know? We'll come back to the brown epiphany. Charles, why am I so depressed? And you go in my fucking place, it's all brown. It's like, this could be the reason right here. Everything's brown. So you guys come back to, and then first of all. And I feel guilty because Joey, like today, sometimes he'll don the brown. And he'll look nice. You know what I mean? And I'll say, shit. You know, Joey looks nice and he's wearing brown. And I gave him shit about everything being brown. And there was no, 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. But anyway, he lived in this brown apartment. And I lived in some other apartment, like across the park. And we used to go to the, it was kind of naive, you know. We used to go to the club called the Ratskeller 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. And 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? You know, how do we get from just having a couple of rinky-dink tunes on our guitars or to having a full-fledged band where we're doing what those kids are doing? Yeah. And so, yeah, we used to hang out in clubs in time. Oh, we need 25 minutes or whatever. And we need to, who do we got to talk to? You know, it takes a while to figure out. Oh, you got to send a letter to that person. You got to send the pitch to the sound man's girlfriend, Maria. She's the one you have to get the tape to. and oh, 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, you know. 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? You started to have a fouling. Yeah, a following was kind of developing. Yeah. I'll tell you when I knew we had something going. Yeah, yeah. Remember we were practicing at your apartment there in Fenway and we heard a door knocking. The door knocked. Yeah. And go, shit, we're too loud. You know, it was the maintenance guy. Yeah. And we answered the door and he goes, I just wanted to tell you guys, you guys are sounding good. That's fucking rad. That's great. And this is a place right near Fenway? Yeah, yeah. You live in the Fenway. In the Fenway, yeah. And that's where we had our first real, well, our first real rehearsal space was somewhere else, but we eventually ended up with a, like a place with a sewer cap in it. And it was down in the basement and there was a bunch of bands down there, but, and it was very expensive, even then. You know, it was like fucking $500 a month for like a little windowless room with a sewer cap in it and then when it rained, there were all these like bugs suddenly like flying in the space and it smelled like shit and it was just a god-awful place but that's like the best that we could get. Those are two opportunities where Jason would have quit the band with the shower and then the sewage space. And the rehearsal 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 kind of the moment you guys became? 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. And so officially we were the Puxies in our first engagement. And then the second engagement, they got the spelling right. Typo. The Pixies. But I suppose Joey picked the name of the band. He was saddled with that responsibility or took it upon himself. And you had a dictionary, right, Joe? Yeah. 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. You know, it had an X in the middle. That's funny. That's really funny. Also, what's the definition? Mischievous little elf. I love that. So that's a good one. That's when I start calling you, Willie. Thanks, man. Yeah, you're my little pixie. Get over here. And we will be right back. And now, back to the show. So you guys are playing, you're practicing, and you were open. When you guys, sorry to go back to Purple Tapes, but that was kind of your first recording. You guys were, 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. Great band. Because they were a little further along than we were with all of the showbiz, you know. So I think they had a record out and they had a manager and stuff. But that's how we got hooked up with them and some of their people, you know, 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? in Boston for us, I think. I think, I don't mean in a negative way even. I just mean that we didn't bother with that. It just, it seemed very clear and apparent to us that we had to get out of Dodge in order for it to mean anything significant. And, you know, we had to, because, you know, those bands that come through that are from other places, you know, 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 draw 50 people or whatever every time they played at the Rats Killer. 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. And 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, you know, 20 years old. It's like you want to travel or meet people or whatever, you know. I think that there's also that thing of like maybe you're from, where you're from the place and you want to kind of be, there's something mysterious about a band that's coming from somewhere else. Like you want to be from somewhere else. I don't know if that figures into it either, like to just sort of like add to the mystique. Is that part of it or am I reading that wrong? Well, I suppose Joey and I both probably had this, we're 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 had the same kind of level of Beatle knowledge and sort of Beatle sort of brainwashing or whatever. You know what I mean? And other stuff from the 60s and 70s, but putting just for the sake of conversation, putting Beatles at the front of that pack, you know? 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. You know, it's kind of like we have that, that if you love the Beatles, then you have some affection for that lore, right? For the Liverpool thing and the little club and when they went and played the strip clubs at Hamburg and blah, blah, blah, blah, the Star Club and all of the history and all of that. You know, even if you've never been there, you have a lot of romantic feelings about those histories, you know? 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 kind of like going, ah, 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 that matches right up with the with your heroes it'll be the same building you know what i mean the same stage or whatever and so that's satisfying you know 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 yeah you know that the fab four did you know it's as corny as that you know but that's that's the way it is was there a band that was um that was uh really doing it when you guys got started that you kind of had your eye on and said boy if If we could kind of go in that direction, we'd have something. That's where we want to go. Well, they were doing it in sort of tonally that you liked, that you were like, oh, this is kind of, was there any of that sort of influence-wise? At that time? I don't know, Joe. What did you think? I'm trying to think, did we talk about that kind of stuff? I like the Zulus. I remember the Zulus. I don't know that. They had something, you know, just wild guitar, our wild vocalist. Yeah. I kind of want to jump to, so you guys are doing this stuff, and you put this stuff together, and you do, the Purple Tapes becomes basically, Come On Pilgrim, is that sort of right? Yeah. But then your first real full-length record is Surfer Rosa, that's 1988, and that's kind of your introduction on a bigger scale to you guys, to the world, and it's meant with a ton of critical acclaim, acclaim like this this puts you guys front and center and what's going on i'll tell you something man knowing that you guys were coming on uh i have a 15 year 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 days like in the car and stuff and i keep going oh man we're gonna have these guys on the podcast and i 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 pressing. Everything about it just seems so, for lack of a better word, modern or current or whatever. And you realize kind of how ahead of the curve you guys were in terms of just sonically, I think. And I know that, and I'm sort of 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 and it and it was almost like after you guys the first time you broke up people went like oh we 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 fuck you like or we told you so man we were making and when other bands started coming because i know everybody i mentioned the intro like kurt cobain the guys in radiohead they've all talked about how much you guys influenced them and when you kind of 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 you know it's uh i mean we take it seriously in the sense that we thoroughly enjoy it you know what Yeah, yeah, good. I really enjoy the whole routine, the whole, whatever it is you got to do. You know what I mean? You know, play a show or, you know, I don't really like doing TV shows, but, you know, like you got to do that sometimes. You know, go record a record and kind of, you know, you're in a friendly way competing with some other people maybe that are, I guess, contemporaries or whatever, you know. plus competing with your heroes and everything, you know. So it's all really fun, but, you know, 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 I went to, we went to music school for 20 years and slaved away for, you know, 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. so if other people like it, it's like, oh, good. You know, I like you too. But Charles, you talk about like 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 kind of vomiting my obsession with you guys. I was thinking about how much, you know, the influence you guys have had. Well, first of all, I was thinking like in media, like 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. You know, it plays over the very end of Fight Club and then kind of the world is falling apart. And that was, I think, for a lot of like a new generation, like an introduction to you guys, everybody was like, holy shit. And when you see a song that you wrote, I don't know, 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 sort of represented in a different way, sort of the end of the world and stuff. What is that sort of that gap between where it was when it started and when you wrote it and what it ended up sort of 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, you know, because it was the one private space in a little apartment, right? So, but she was in there doing makeup and said, and so I was in the bedroom with my guitar playing those chords and kind of 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. That's cool. I guess when I go back and I analyze it, it just sounds like a silly little folk song or something, you know, 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 kind of folk music types in Newton, Massachusetts. And they schooled us in a lot of sing-along-y things that were kind of cool, actually, in retrospect, including Woody Guthrie and all that stuff. So to me, whereas my mind kind of just fits in with that, you know here we go third verse Same as the first verse Here we go everybody you know it not even a sensical song or anything it just like some delightful words to trip over you know while you're while you're kind of skipping through a melody and you know it's i know well that's that that's nice but i which is this is that's interesting because we all have i mean i've i have had so many experiences listening that song myself in sort of deep moments and that sort of haunting that Joey, that guitar, you know, that whole, like, it just, and it's had another life, as you probably know, like on social media and TikTok, like my kids see it all the time that it's used in all these different ways. And it's, again, Charles, I mean, I know it's so funny to hear you that like, yeah, you're just kind of coming up with it in a moment. And then it goes on to have this other application. It must be kind of trippy. Like, Joey, when you hear that guitar riffs, it must come up sometimes, you hear it. And 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. And then that was the 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. the did it did it did it so i just want to fit that in and go ah yeah it's good well is it what does it does it matter um more or less for a song to have um a long uh life um of like would you rather a song be super duper memorable because of its because of its tune because of its melody or because of the words that it says like you know charles you were saying it's like you know it's Just like a couple of chords here and some words that you might, you know, like 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, you know, does it matter? I mean, both work, right? I mean, you know, because you have people that feel very warm or poignant or whatever about a particular lyric or whatever or the meaning of a song. But then a lot of times it's just sounds and combinations of sounds and chords and, you know, things that give you the chills or the goosebumps. And, you know, I don't know. I mean, 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? So I suppose they can connect to it a little bit. Yeah, that's a good point. But, you know, there's a lot of other stuff mixed in with it, I suppose. So 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, you know. 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 kind of elements that are kind of 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 surprised you? You show up in Lisbon and all of a sudden you're like, wow, we got a lot of fans in Lisbon. We found that in Iran, we have a big audience. No joke. Yeah, for a podcast. It really blew our minds. We were like, what? We're like, what? We're lucky enough to have a pretty far-flung audience, But I don't know that, like, I don't know if we've discovered that enclave of, like, you know, whatever. Someplace in somewhere way off of the beaten path, like, I don't know, like, inner India or somewhere like that, you know, where they've somehow discovered our music or whatever. But we do play a lot of places. So I'm trying to think of some place we've played. I mean, talking about, like, Portugal, like, we do really well down in 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, like, because I hate when people get categorized, but when they tried to, like, call it, like, 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. And when you heard that, were you like, oh, okay, well, that's just us, like, whatever. We certainly didn't invent it, you know? I mean, Chkalski's 1812 Wolverine sure had fucking cannons, you know? Sean? That's true. That's very true, yeah. Yeah. I mean, you got... Go ahead, Sean. I was just going to say something about touring. So you guys still tour, it sounds like a lot. and 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. Oh, that's good. And then we sit down in the dressing room and then we have some acoustic guitars there. There's one acoustic guitar. And then I think, Dave, you should just find something to tap on. And then we sing for about a half an hour or 45 minutes and kind of go, oh, yeah, that's how we play. And then we go on tour. But, yeah, we don't really – we don't live in the same city anymore. So I think we have – 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 – Yeah. It's okay. We're lazy. Go over it over and over and over. Do you guys, so you guys, so I mentioned before, I kind of want to jump back. So you do five records in a short amount of time, ending with Trompe Le Mans, 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. And you take a long break. You guys were basically broken up for, I don't know, 10 years or something? 12 years. And in that time, you all go off and do different things. Frank, you do, 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 sort of 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's 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 game for the... It's like for the good kid that didn't do that much, but he stayed out of trouble and he seemed nice. So 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 one year on the yearbook. I refused to have my picture taken and anything. So I wasn't even, I didn't even exist. Joe, what a perfect pairing. You're the class ghost and the teenager of the year together. Like it's almost like meant to be, man. It's like written in the fucking stars. And so then you guys have this 12-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? And you guys were like, no, fuck this. Let's not do it. Oh, 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 mean, I'm not saying that it was all super easy, but, you know, whatever. It was like every band's got five years, as they say. And you do it all in five years and it all kind of implodes. And then we imploded. And then so we were just, whatever, treading 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. And, you know, I mean, I wasn't, you know, I shouldn't, it sounds like a complaining, but I'm not. But, you know, it's not like I was, or we were doing all these amazing projects that were, you know, so successful. whatever you just kind of hovering around and kind of staying in it as best as you can for a whole and you know and plenty of humbling experiences i suppose to go along with it well you you inspired in that time little do you know i i will tell you one more sidebar uh charles which is um years ago what is it 2025 so like like 14 years ago i was trying to come up with i was i had this idea for this show that became a very little watch show on netflix called flake that i wrote and uh and i was flying over to the uk and i was just outlining this like dumb idea and i was like what is this thing what is this thing i was gonna and i was gonna meet my my partner chappy who's a great friend of jason's and uh you have the greatest name in the world and uh mark chaplin great writer who who wrote uh we've written a bunch of stuff together he wrote is this thing on with me with bradley our new movie so anyway so i'm going over there and i was listening to teenager of the year and um i was listening to freedom rock uh that track freedom rock and uh and it goes uh for the for you guys who don't know i it goes uh my name is chip and i'm different and i just wrote that down that lyric down in the thing while i was writing this synopsis with no idea and later later a couple days later mark and i were writing and i looked back at my notes and i said this guy's name and and it and it really helped me kind of get into this guy into this character that ended up becoming this character chip in my show and it was based on listening to freedom rock so just so you know when you thought you were doing nothing uh you ended up years later really inspiring me so thank you that's cool oh i'm glad that worked out you know i think it's just uh you know if you have any kind of love of language and on it doesn't even have to be uh i don't know academic or whatever it's just the way that you know the way you play around with words, words that you like, you know, you know, sometimes you find a word or a name or something, and somehow you incorporate it into your thing. Yeah. We'll be right back. And back to the show. Anyway, so you, so you guys go do that. And 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. Yeah, was it just a text that said, you up? No, because it was still kind of, believe it or not, I suppose people send texts, But I think that we, even in 2003 or whenever this was, you know, people weren't quite glued to their phones. It was a fact. 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. You know, a lot of joking around and kind of, and, you know, they're like a bunch of Brits, and they're talking circles around me, you know, and they're kind of being all nuanced and everything. I'm only getting half of what's going on. But anyway, I start kind of 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. And I'm just kind of being sarcastic, you know, and kidding around a little bit. And then they knew I was being sarcastic, but they decide to pretend sort of that I wasn't. They're like, oh, 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, like I don't remember barely, but there was a world, remember there was a, where we'd suddenly CNN was 24 hours? And so everyone was kind of aware of like the ticker. Yes. You know, the kind of the idea of a ticker, of a news ticker, you know. And for most, I suppose, Joe Blow people, common people that weren't like 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 like people started. So I don't know if Joey might have called me, I think, and said, like, what the fuck is going on? Because I'm watching CNN here, and we're like back together. Joe, you're reading the ticker, and you're like, what the fuck, man? Are we getting back together? Like, what's going on? I was pissed I didn't buy Apple. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. No, no. Get in line. Get in line, man. Yeah, I suppose, yeah. I kind of remember a little differently, but yeah. Yeah, yeah. I love this. I do remember Charles calling me. I guess I didn't have CNN, you know. At the time. I mean, I try not to watch. I still try not to watch the news, you know. That's smart. I guess it's always been bad, but especially now, I just can't fucking watch it. But anyway, yeah, he called, and then that was it. Wait, wait, that's it. I think I asked you. 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? And I didn't know, you know, until I got the call from Charles. And then it's like, oh, it is true. You know? 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, like you guys had to have known because you guys were so beloved and so missed that like what happened? Like the touring company or manager, whoever calls and goes like, hey guys, this is great. Like we're stoked. Yeah, but I'm sure that there's still that other element which is much more sort of 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 sort of reunion with any band, with any group. Pulling the pants down is certainly a delicate. You know, is there a belt? Is it zippers? Is it a button fly? You know, it's complicated. Button fly. Well, Charles, you were busy. So, you know, Kim, Dave, and I got together to practice the songs. Wow. Together, because you 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. See, I didn't know about this deal. Yeah, yeah. Whoa, whoa. Well, it's true, though. No, it seems reasonable enough. Very reasonable. But the first three songs that we went over, we just smiled and go, oh my God it still fucking sounds the same Because my Marshall has Sharpie marks on it so all I had to do was dial it in And that was that sound But more importantly, the quantizing of the groove. I mean, we had it, you know? That had to be such a rush to hear that the first time. Yeah, no shit. It was almost comical. Yeah, yeah. Wow. Yeah. What did you say? The quantizing of the groove? What does that mean? You know, the way the bass and the rhythm, the way 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, yeah, yeah. We had it, you know. Oh, that's great. It's, you know, it's just a feel. And you had settings on your amplifier that were specific to that Pixie sound that you had to get back to? Yeah, yeah. It was just, 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. So by the way, so Charles, you go and you get with these guys, you don't realize that they've, 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, you know, I didn't, you know, I suppose I had other concerns or whatever. okay so let me just ask you this i because i want we got a lot to get in and i gotta let you guys go in a minute what you know i outlined again and not at risk of embarrassing you which i um talk about influence on other musicians and artists throughout the years did you ever is there a moment for each of you that kind of 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 really 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, like, hey, you 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. And he goes, oh, like who the fuck is this? He goes, oh, it's David Bowie. It's like, what? Oh, wow. Yeah, David Bowie came by at the club and said, they like us. Wow. That's really cool. He likes us. That'll give you some fuel for a few years. That was it. Right? Yeah. Yeah. Charles doesn't remember. Charles doesn't remember. No, no, no, no. Definitely he looms the largest, I suppose, in those kinds of terms, you know, in terms of like musical royalty or whatever. Yeah, for sure, yeah. Charles, were there other ones for you, like other sort of like bands who you liked who were like more, I mean, Bowie is like an iconic. It doesn't get bigger. Well, I remember the first TV show we did was in New York with, do you remember, there was a late night program hosted by David Sanborn? Oh, yeah. Yeah. I forget what the name of it was, but he would have on like 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 Sun Ra Orchestra, you know. And so they were these like, you know, old jazz musicians, you know what I mean? who had really kind of been around for a long time and kind of seen it all. So anyway, we did this ridiculous number called Tame, which is the epitome of the loud, quiet, loud dynamic. And it had the ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, and the quiet part, and then rah, and the loud part, right? Anyway, it does get quite loud. And, you know, I guess I have a loud voice or whatever, and 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 Sunra Orchestra, you know, 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. And I was just like, yeah. I was like, all right. One of those guys thought I was cool, you know. He was basically saying, you know, good holler, you know, like good utilization of your loud chops or whatever, you know. and he didn't quite get it necessarily musically, but he got what we were trying to do. And so I liked that validation a lot, you know, from a cat, so to speak, from a jazz cat, felt really great, you know. Yeah, yeah. From somebody who doesn't play the kind of music that you guys do to sort of acknowledge it in that way. Someone who's truly paid their dues, shall we say, you know. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, to get validation from them or whatever, I felt like, okay, all right, so maybe we're on to like something. It's real or something. It's got some sort of, you know, mojo or whatever. We have some sort of magical thing going on. It is, we are special, you know? We have something. Yeah, we are. We're good. Wait, so now, 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 kind of almost like an anniversary tour if you will this year with it with your is it your ninth studio album the uh is that right ninth or tenth uh something like that right the the night the zombies came i'm not sure about this 40th anniversary angle i feel like that's me that's telling joe that if it was like 50th maybe we like all right we we gotta own it we're like 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, like, talk about, like, how long it's been going on. No. Just, like, talk about, you know. So, I don't mind you bringing it up. I'm just, I'm realizing, because we don't necessarily choose the hook, you know, 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 it, man. 40th anniversary. Yeah. It's unimportant. This is a good note for your publicist right now. Your publicity team will let them know to drop that from all materials going forward. But you guys are going to tour it. Yeah, I mean, it makes sense. I get it. It's a good hook. I mean, you know, but whatever. I guess I'm a little, you know, what's the word? I guess I'm vain is what it is. Is that what it is? Yeah, we are too, man. I mean, it's hard to imagine that Jason's vain by looking at him, but he is very vain. And so do you guys, when you go out on this tour this year, I mean, you just finished, it sounds like a couple weeks ago, a show, but when you go out on tour, how much, because you guys are so prolific, like as I mentioned, your ninth or tenth 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, which is just like, you know, or whatever. Like, you must have, do you play some of the songs from across your catalog? Sure, yeah. Yeah. We usually rehearse up, like, 50 songs, and then we just call them out, you know, when we play a show. And then, you know, we kind of know which are the top ten, and we know which are the ones that we like to play that sound good, I think. I mean, I don't know if everyone gets to scratch their itch with the set list that's chosen. But, you know, there's a lot of songs that, you know, kind of like they fall flat or whatever. You know, 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. You know, so I think it always kind of 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 tour. By the way, Charles, that's a lot. 50 is a lot. Joe, do you have a song that you have always loved to play, like 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 kind of get into that, 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 chords the whole time, Charles. Yeah. And I do one. So 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's still got this, talk about a song again that's just got this kind of staying power that still feels just as relevant today as the moment you dreamed it up. Does that, it must be kind of 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 kind of maybe a bit poppy that we didn't know if it was too poppy or too kind of nice sounding. But the producer, Gil, 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. and I believe that the record company that was distributing our record in the USA was, what were they called, Joe? Electra. Electra Records. And they had like all kinds of connections to showbiz. And I remember that was the only time we did some sort of real artsy-fartsy, screw you all, we don't care move, was they wanted us to play that song on what show, Joe, was it? Arsenio Hall. Arsenio Hall. and that felt like too weird to us to like oh that's silly like we don't we that's a that's our silly song or that's our song that's too sweet and and maybe it's all we don't understand like it's all going too fast like they want us to play in our city hall and we have to do that song there's no other song we can do and that's the thing that's going to represent us and we just I think now we'd be like, oh, awesome, TV, yeah, you know, but at the time, I think there was a little bit of a concern of being, there was a little bit of a, I didn't have a big, we didn't have a big too cool for school attitude, but, you know, a little bit once in a while, you know, we don't do that, you know. Yeah, we've all been there. So we had that, I feel badly because it wasn't anything against any particular program or whatever. It's just the idea that that feels too mainstream too late our sinew is mad at you too late listen man i i want to say what i love about that particular song i will say that feels like it could have been written any year from sort of 1950 on there's something about it to me that just kind of cuts across everything there's something i don't know timeless i will so i love that song in particular that's just my 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. And yeah, it's a nice little doo-doo. It's bouncy. Everyone seems to be in a pretty good mood when we play it. And 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. 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. Your 9th 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. Your 26th victory tour. By the way, Charles, I think next year, if you don't mind being paid by rubies instead of currency. 40th anniversary is the ruby It's the ruby Is that bothering? 40th anniversary is the ruby Diamond ruby So it's ruby Oh, it's like stones Next year we're going to be paid by rubies We got a guy in Antwerp who's going to be mewling some rubies to you, Charles What a thrill, you guys Unbelievable, continued success You brought so much joy and so much just amazing music to people over the years, and 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, and thank you for having us on. We appreciate it. Thanks for being here, guys. You guys are awesome. All right, Pixies, everybody. Thank you, guys. Bye, gentlemen. Adios. Thank you. Adios. Bye. Bye. Guys. That was pretty amazing. Yeah. What a thrill for me to have Pixies on. Yeah, I remember in college, I think they started in mid-'80s, and in college, everybody. 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. Yeah, and I went to college in 88, and they, yeah, they were big on campus. I mean, I heard some of their songs, and I know a couple of their 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. And I think on the back it said Adios. Or was that a Sonic Youth shirt? And when it just said Adios there at the end. Cool. I was like, you know, you'd see somebody wearing like a Pixies T-shirt. You'd be like, all right, this person knows what's up. Yeah, this person knows what's up. That's cool. Unless it was JB, of course. Yeah. I'm just playing a character that's cool. Yeah. All right, right, right. All right. I would love you to play a cool character once. That would be fun. Didn't you wear a Pixies T-shirt and Black Rabbit? Yeah, that's what I'm talking about. Yeah. And I took it. 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 Pixies 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 Pixies shirt, okay? It's not to. Come on up. We can just try on a bunch of stuff, you know? No, we're not doing like a try on. Put some stuff on you. Just dress you up a little bit. What are you talking about? Take some photos. Do a work of things. Smear some lipstick on me. I'd love to put you in a bunch of my clothes. Wouldn't that be fun? If I just come over and I just put you in a bunch of my clothes? We're fun in one day. 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 you in this. You think the sleeves are too short? Anyway. I haven't seen that in a long time. Do you remember that? Oh, here we go. Do you remember that song? Oh, he's got his hands on one. And I can see it's the twinkle in his eye. Well, they mentioned Modern Love by David Bowie, and I was thinking about those lyrics of Modern Love. Yeah, I'm standing in the wind, but I never wave. Bye-bye. Smart. Less. Smart. Less. 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