November 19, 2024 • 49 mins
Kim Deal is an indie-rock icon. In the mid-80s, she joined The Pixies as the band’s original bassist and co-vocalist. After the release of their debut album Come On Pilgrim in 1987, followed by the alt-rock classics Surfer Rosa and Doolittle, Kim took a break from The Pixies to form her own band, The Breeders. With the help of Kim’s twin sister Kelley on lead guitar, The Breeders released a couple EPs and four studio albums, including the platinum-selling ‘90s hit, Last Splash.
This year after a run with The Breeders opening up for Olivia Rodrigo's worldwide Guts tour, Kim Deal is once again heading out on her own with the release of her first solo album, Nobody Loves You More. The album was recorded by the late Steve Albini, a close friend and longtime collaborator of Kim’s, and it features a slew of her other old friends and collaborators, including Slint’s Britt Walford on drums, and The Breeders Josephine Wiggs, Jim Macphearson, and of course Kelley Deal.
On today’s episode Leah Rose talks to Kim Deal about working with Steve Albini on The Pixies Surfer Rosa, and why he always regretted a specific contribution to that album. Kim also recalls recording The Breeders’ first two albums, and she remembers how a group of surfers on a druggy trip to Nantucket helped inspire her new lead single, Coast.
You can hear a playlist of some of our favorite Kim Deal songs HERE.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:15):
Pushkin. Kim Deal is an indie rock icon. In the
mid eighties, she joined The Pixies as the band's original
bassist and co vocalist. After the release of their debut album,
Come On Pilgrim in eighty seven, followed by the classics
Surfarosa and Doolittle, Kim took a break from the Pixies
to form her own band, The Breeders. With the help
(00:38):
of Kim's twin sister Kelly on lead guitar, The Breeders
released a couple of EPs and four studio albums, including
the platinum selling nineties hit Last Splash. After a run
with The Breeders opening up for Olivia Rodrigo's worldwide Guts
Tour this year, Kim Deal is once again heading out
on her own with the release of her first solo album,
Nobody Loves You More. The album was recorded by the
(00:59):
late Steve Albini, a close friend and longtime collaborator of Kim's,
and it features a slew of her other friends and collaborators,
including Slint's Britt Walford on drums and The Breeders, Josephine Wiggs,
Jim McPherson, and of course, Kelly Deal. On today's episode,
Lea Rose talks to Kim Deal about working with Steve
Albini on The Pixie Surfer Rosa and why he always
(01:20):
regretted a specific contribution to that album. Kim also recalls
recording The Breeders' first two albums, and she remembers how
a group of surfers on a druggy trip to Nantucket
helped inspire her new lead single, Coast. This is broken
record liner notes for the digital Age. I'm justin Mitchman.
(01:40):
Here's Lea Rose in conversation with Kim Deal.
Speaker 2 (01:48):
Let's talk about the first song from that upcoming solo album, Coast.
So tell me about that. How did that song come about?
Speaker 3 (01:56):
Was the inspiration the song was written sort of in
twenty nineteen something like that maybe, but sitting down riding
the guitar chords and wanting to come up with what
I thought it sounded like. And what I wanted to
talk about was this period of time back when I
(02:19):
was staying in Nantucket in the off season in like
two thousand. I was living a very druggy sort of
life in New York City and I thought I needed
to clean up, so I went to Nantucket. What I
did was I got a lot of drugs. I go
and put them on the island and did them. Eventually
(02:39):
I just got I just decided I can't do this anymore.
And one of the things I always will remember are
these young island off season workers, you know, looking they were,
you know, there was a daytime for them. They went
out and enjoyed the outdoors and they were so nice
and weird and I was like so depleted, but I
(03:00):
was hanging out with them, and then they would be
yelling about the wham. Checked the wham, We checked the wham,
and then they would take up the wham. Is a way,
it's a mob a government model for wave action because
they're on an attacket. There's no huge Portuguese sir, so
they you know, need to know if there's some even
a possibility of some waves. Then they would whatever they're doing,
(03:22):
they're you know, painting job and they're getting the bar
ready for the evening jobs, and they would run to
the ocean, you know, get with their stuff and their
boards out and their wetsuits. They had the waters cold, yeah,
and it was just like it was so the idea
that people were doing an outdoor activity. It was really
(03:44):
nice to see that. Yeah, And I always have a
fond memory of that thinking about that, and I just
like wham. I thought it was cool anyway, and I
had always stuck with me, and so that's what the
songs basically. I recorded it as Steve Albini's. Lindsey Glover
is the drummer. Mondo Lopez is the bass player. He's
(04:06):
the base player for the Breeders Too Long Time.
Speaker 2 (04:10):
Yeah, was he the one who was in the I
watched an old documentary. It was like a Dutch documentary
from I think like he was Yeah, yeah, yeah, from Yeah, Yeah.
I liked Los Readers. I was wondering what happened to
that lineup.
Speaker 3 (04:27):
I was in New York City and I was thinking
I would get I was recording trying to kind of
Rivington and Christie down like a two about two thousand
or something, and I was in a bar, surprisingly and
(04:50):
there were some dudes in there. It was really close
to the studio and I liked them a lot, and
they told me they were playing with leaving the singer
for Fear. They were in Fear. Now obviously this is
the og guy's in Fear. But there was a show
and they were playing, and now they were hanging out
in the bar and I their studio nearby. You guys
(05:11):
want to go hang out? And we played all night long.
They were such good players. And I told them, I'm
going to follow you guys out. Where do you guys live?
And they said East La. Wow. I said, I'm going
to follow you out to East La. They were so
surprised when I got there. I didn't even know what
East La was, but I soon found out. When I
(05:32):
got out there. In East La, everybody was so cool.
I think they told everybody to be cool to us,
and everybody was. They were probably been cool anyway. And
we would go to Vernon that was where a rehearsal
space was and we rode up Title TK and all
those guys were on Title TK and then got It
also they were on Mountain Battles too.
Speaker 2 (05:53):
Got It.
Speaker 3 (05:54):
Yeah, But during I wasn't living there during Mountain Battles.
I was living there during Title TK. I went to
rehab after the tour for Title TK. I went to rehab,
so then I moved back to my parents' house.
Speaker 2 (06:06):
And you moved back to your parents.
Speaker 3 (06:08):
House after rehab.
Speaker 2 (06:10):
After rehab to take care of your mom.
Speaker 1 (06:12):
Is that right?
Speaker 3 (06:13):
No, I couldn't taken care of anybody. They picked me
up from rehab and they drove me back home and
they told me on the way home long was diagnosed.
But she was fine. I guess once you've diagnosed, there
are some obvious signs within the family that there's some trouble.
But it wasn't huge. You know how thing have you
(06:35):
ever dealt with anybody with Alzheimer's or dementia?
Speaker 2 (06:38):
I have it.
Speaker 3 (06:39):
It starts a little bit at a time and then
it gets worse. So it was it was pretty new.
So yeah, no, that she was. I wasn't taking care
of her. Okay, Yeah, I landed there, got it? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (06:51):
What was rehab like? Do you feel like it was effective?
Did the rehab work? What was your experience like there?
Speaker 3 (06:57):
Oh? I loved it. I loved being loved, I loved
being sober. I loved not drinking. I had a great time.
Haven't had a drink since so too.
Speaker 2 (07:05):
That's incredible.
Speaker 3 (07:06):
Yeah, I really liked it. I really like it still. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (07:10):
Do you miss smoking pot?
Speaker 3 (07:12):
I do I miss smoking cigarettes? Oh, got no serruts anymore. No,
Sometimes I go past a big cigarette cloud and I'm
just like, oh my god, that's soap god.
Speaker 2 (07:22):
Yeah, so you miss it, you miss the weed, you
miss the cigarette, the smoking stuff.
Speaker 3 (07:27):
I've heard that the weed isn't the same and it's
kind of a bummer, like you get too stoned or something.
But I would smoke. I had to quit because I
was awake and baked person, so like everything, Like, I
didn't just smoke when I drank. I smoked, you know,
two packs a day. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (07:43):
Yeah, So I saw on Reddit people are saying that,
I guess you have a collection of hundreds and hundreds
of solo songs that you've written over the past, like
twenty years. But is this collection the new Kim Deal
album that's coming out. Is that all new songs or
is that some of old stuff mixed in.
Speaker 3 (08:04):
I don't have hundreds and hundreds of songs, so I
wish I did, but I don't. Thanks for rubbing it
in and now I feel like I'm just haven't been
doing anything.
Speaker 2 (08:19):
No, that was not the intention.
Speaker 3 (08:24):
They are new songs, you know what, though, there are
two that are not. But if you just follow me,
you'll see why these two had to be on there. Okay,
one of them is, are you mind that was a
solo song that I've released on a seven inch okay,
but I did it on a three eighty eight task
Camp that's consumer grade. That is a quarter inch tape.
(08:48):
The task Am three eighty eight looks like a huge
four track machine and it's but it's got one driver
and so it's consumer grade. It's not really no good.
That's what I recorded a seven inch on for Are
You Mine? Lindsey Glover Mondo. This guy named Jeffrey played
guitar on it. I played guitar on it, saying eight
(09:10):
tracks we played at the same time, miked us all up.
But it's an old dumb machine and it lost track eight.
So the guitar player, Jeffrey, his beautiful guitar playing was gone.
You can hear it when you play our in mind.
You could hear it in the distance. It's like a
ghost track. So of course I'm going to try to
(09:32):
fix it. So I take the quarters tape and put
it on a different three eighty eight. That consumer grade.
You can't go from one machine to the next. Basically,
it's a cassette tape, a big, bigger cassette tape. It
won't go and play it sounds warble and out of pitch.
So to me, not recording always sounded a little broken.
(09:53):
I like it, but to me it was like, oh man,
too bad, yeah lah lah. So we re recorded it professionally.
We recorded in Dayton, Ohio. I'm sorry, in Dayton, Kentucky. Oh.
We drove from Dayton, Ohio to Dayton, Kentucky. It's one
and one minute, one minute away from one shitty place
(10:13):
to an even shittier place, let's say that. And then
we Londo was going through town. He was he was
on stage with Morrissey. He was playing bass in the band,
so he said he would do it. So we got
some time. Lindsay flew out from LA and we recorded
the basic tracks over again, and then I finished it
up at Albini's and then there's a pedal steel on it,
(10:35):
and then there's strings added on to it. So I
really like the way it turned out. So but that's
why I recorded that song. And then which I was
is the other song on the new album that has
been released as a as a seven inch. Already got it,
but it has vocals. It always had lyrics, but I
never could make the lyrics sound cool. I'm sang on
(10:58):
the seven inch version of Wish I Was. And Kelly
told me it didn't sound good. Just release it as
an instrumental. Look, that's my sister telling me. It's like, yeah,
it says not great, but still ash. That's harsh, Kel.
But I did it and it sounded cool. I released
it as an instrumental, but I always liked how you know.
I even took wish I Was and I went to Australia.
(11:20):
I was doing a Pixie's tour. I stayed over late.
I went to the studio. I thought, I can get
some Australian players. We can pull up wish I Was.
This time I can sing on it. I have it,
I've got it unlocked. It's gonna sound cool like this
three four short of a country song. There was even
petal steel on it down there nice And I didn't
like it. It is okay?
Speaker 2 (11:41):
Is Kelly usually the last person you play stuff for.
Is she like the ultimate judge?
Speaker 3 (11:46):
Oh? Because you know if somebody, you know, how many
of you wear something, you said you like this, and
somebody goes, yeah, you look good. You don't like it,
you go okay, great, and you change totally because it doesn't.
But it's nice to ask somebody, because when you show somebody,
you look at the outfit differently, you know, in a
different way. But it's not what they said. It's how
you're looking at the whole thing yourself what I'm talking about.
Speaker 2 (12:10):
Yeah, it's like your mind is already made up anyway,
but you're just asking to ask, but you're already gonna
do what you're gonna do.
Speaker 3 (12:16):
I'm not sure it could be. This could be okay,
but seeing it the process of standing there and with
another person in the room, like whenever somebody's listening to it,
I hear it in a different way. Yeah, in ir
respect of what their experience was. They could like it.
(12:36):
They could turn around and go, I really like that,
and I could be cringing the whole time. It's odd, No,
I understand that. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (12:44):
Is Kelly on the on your solo stuff.
Speaker 3 (12:46):
Yeah, she's on the lot, She's on Coast, She's doing
the guitar on Coast and then Disobedience. There's a song
she's doing guitar all over Disobedience, and she's doing bass
pedals on a song called Crystal Math. She's got a
cool set up, a cool bass pedal setup, and she's
hitting those bass Pedals and Jim McPherson is too oh awesome.
Speaker 2 (13:09):
Tell me about working with Albini. First time you met him.
Speaker 3 (13:13):
I was giving him a nash from Urge over Kill.
His room name's Nate. I was giving Steve and Nate
a ride in Boston to the studio Q Division, and
Steve was producing the Pixies at Q Division, and Steve
(13:34):
was They were playing this cassette tape in the car
because they had done some stuff in reverse or something,
and they thought it was really cool. But then that's
the first time I met him, giving him a ride
to Q Division to be the engineer recordist. He would
never want to use the word producer.
Speaker 2 (13:56):
Yeah, I was curious about that. So he Moore was
just an engineer and he liked to kind of stay
out of things and not give his opinion.
Speaker 3 (14:04):
Oh he has lots of opinions, he might say that,
But you know, I think what happened, like okay, during
that period of time, he had a lot of ideas
and we did, and he had this thing that he
was taping us that we didn't we knew he was taping,
we didn't know which parts he was taping, and then
(14:25):
he spliced it into the album, and it was hilarious.
It was really fun. I loved it. But then I
think towards you know, later on, while he was working,
I know that it bothers him to think that he
would suggest anything to alter any decision that a band
(14:47):
would make, or have any influence at all. He told
Iggy Pop he was a plumber. He's not, you know
what I mean. I don't know why he had to
go all that way. I like his ideas. He had good,
cool ideas.
Speaker 2 (15:01):
You know, well, I think it came because of that
Pixies album. He's I heard him talking to Mark Marin.
He said, because he inserted himself so much made that suggestion.
He didn't like the fact that for history, the rest
of history, the band would have to answer to his
decision and talk about why that was on the record
when it wasn't their idea anyway. And I think that
(15:23):
bothered him.
Speaker 3 (15:25):
I have a feeling he doesn't know that we were choking.
I think he thinks maybe I don't know, because I
don't get it. He feels so much remorse about that.
You know, there was this movie called Stripes where there
was a guy named Francis and he was a real
paranoid guys. Don't touch me, don't touch me, don't touch
(15:45):
any of my stuff, don't even look at that sort
of thing. And Bill Moorey looks at him and says,
lighten up, Francis. So me and Charles were doing a skit,
and what's on there is him saying to me, don't
touch my stuff something like that. I think Steve might
have clips that moment and thought maybe it was a
(16:07):
moment of real I could see him loving to put
that moment on the album. He might have thought he
was putting a real, vulnerable moment of us, right. I mean,
I've told him it was I don't know, but I
don't I'm not I've never heard him say that he
thought it was real. But why else would it bothered
him so much? Nobody really talks about it. Maybe I
(16:30):
make me think that there might have been something else
he might have done that he hated that he maybe
made a really bad choice, and he sees it. Maybe
it came to realize that some of the I don't
know some of Maybe there's some of the arguments he
might have had in the studio that went his way.
Maybe he realized, as I do it's probably everybody does that.
(16:55):
Listening to it at you know, five years later, it's like,
oh my god, they were right.
Speaker 2 (17:01):
Hmmm yeah, could be.
Speaker 3 (17:05):
Yeah, but you said Mark barn that that specifically was
bothering him.
Speaker 2 (17:10):
Yeah, he talked about that exact thing, but.
Speaker 3 (17:12):
That wasn't a problem for us personally. Maybe he didn't
like to be asked about it, maybe he was being
asked about.
Speaker 2 (17:18):
It, or maybe somebody else in the band came to
him and had an issue with it after and that's
why no.
Speaker 3 (17:25):
Knew.
Speaker 2 (17:27):
Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 3 (17:28):
Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (17:30):
He also said that you were one of the best
people he's ever worked with, and you're the real deal.
Speaker 3 (17:34):
And yeah, he really likes me. We're like family. We
were like family. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (17:39):
What was it like working with him? Like, how was
it different than other engineers or I know, he doesn't
like the word producer, but other people you had collaborated with.
Speaker 3 (17:46):
Well here's why. Okay, people might think he's a big
dick about not liking it. He was a big asshole
from not liking the word producer. But back in the
day as a producer, if I was to produce Natalie Cole,
I would hire out the studios and the musicians. I
would also have worked closely with Natalie to pick out
all of the songs that people have submitted that we
(18:09):
would be covering and trying out with the new musicians
as we rehearse this record together. I would probably also
have hired the musical director to work over the arrangements
with her. Maybe we'd start with the piano, just me
as a producer of the record in Natalie and a
pianist and a musical arranger or something a musical director.
(18:30):
So the producer is very involved. I think in the
old days that's what a producer did. So there are
bands that just love Albini and he is available to anybody.
You call up the studio, he might answer and book
your session, or somebody there who's at the desk will
just book it two days. You know, you want to
(18:53):
go in without being this is what it costs. Okay,
see you there. And so they come in and he's
never heard of them, He's never you know, he'll do
it professionally. I'll make sure he has the tape. Then
he'll know how many, what the setup, the mic setup
will be, so it will all go quickly as possible.
But you know, if they put produced by Steve Albini
(19:15):
on the record. Then it kind of sometimes can look
like they went there to get produced by Steve Albini
on the record sort of sometimes because it's not really true.
And so you know, he recorded it and he did
he was the engineer, but he wasn't the producer. Who right,
(19:36):
I mean he had never heard the songs. How could
he produce it without ever hearing the songs? He didn't
produce the recording at all. He recorded the recording, right,
So I think that's what he was saying that It's
not like he doesn't like producer. It's like he doesn't produce.
So it's just would bother him because it's not true, right.
Speaker 2 (19:56):
It's not technically what he's doing, It's not at all
that makes sense.
Speaker 1 (19:59):
Yeah, after a quick break, we're back with more from
Lea Rose and Ken Deal. We're back with more from
Ken Deal.
Speaker 2 (20:11):
When you first started working on the first Breeders album,
how is that different than you had when you had
worked with the Pixies.
Speaker 3 (20:17):
We were up in Edinburgh and Scotland and we were
there for I think eleven days, and I had Tanya
and Josephine and Carrie and Britt Walford. You know, Steve
is the one who introduced me to Britt Walford to
be the drummer of the band. You know, he loved
you know, Slint and Britt. He's an eighteen year old
(20:41):
kid out of Kentucky. Jorl Lane is so jiller. He's
not a good drummer, bread awesome drummer. It's insane. He's
so cool. He's on some of the solo stuff, you know,
that's one thing I really and he's on this record.
That's one thing I really think. It's cool about this record.
Like I've played with I've known Britt in the eighties.
(21:03):
It was eighty nine. He passed out at the pub
down the road and they do this thing with blacked
out your face if you pass out. He came back
to the Edinburgh studio and he had black ash all
over from the chimney sort all over his face. It
was done with love. I mean they loved it, of course,
but they totally shooded them up. So it was really
(21:27):
we had a good time. It was really fun. I
loved it.
Speaker 2 (21:31):
How did it feel for you just creatively, like leaving
or not leaving it because you weren't leaving the Pixies
yet right, you were still in the Pixies like on
a break, that's right. How did it feel for you
creatively to have this different band?
Speaker 3 (21:46):
That's a weird question, Like how did it feel to
get your hair cut? It felt like the wind and blowing.
It's just like, I don't it didn't feel I don't
know what. I don't have an answer to that question.
How did it feel to do music?
Speaker 2 (22:03):
Was it exciting? Because now I was exciting.
Speaker 3 (22:05):
I mean, it's always exciting. It's exciting to do records
with the Pixies too, super exciting. Yeah, I was excited.
I was excited to be in Edinburgh in a new
place and.
Speaker 2 (22:14):
Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, I'm just guessing from the
outside what it was like for you to have a
totally new lane where it's all coming from you.
Speaker 3 (22:25):
I didn't feel like it was all coming from me though,
because we went to where Josephine lives in biggles Way,
the family manor. It's run down. It was a rundown.
I had thirty two rooms or something of rundown. But
it was so it was they were her mom and
dad were so sweet and we cleared out one of
the rooms and she left. We played there, we rehearse there.
(22:49):
Britt had drums which we had our stuff there, so
we rehearsed at Josephine Spot and then we left biggles
Wade and Steve came for a minute and then we
left biggles Wade and went to Edinburgh. So it just
felt like we just were recording what we were doing.
So but it was cool to be in Edinburgh.
Speaker 2 (23:06):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, And then at what point, how soon
after that did you start playing shows? Like when did
you start playing the songs live?
Speaker 3 (23:15):
You know, we didn't do it. We did two shows
for POD or maybe one, I don't know, and I
thought it was weird. I remember those two shows and
I remember thinking, this feels weird. I don't know why
shows we were over there. I was nervous. We didn't
(23:39):
have the album, wasn't out or anything. We just were there,
had recorded and then also like we don't have a
whole set, we have a twenty eight minute album or whatever.
I don't think we did every song. It was weird
and I don't remember it really clearly, but I remember
not enjoying it and I thought it was weird.
Speaker 2 (24:01):
Yeah, how soon after did you start working on Last Splash?
Speaker 3 (24:05):
Well, we recorded POD and the December of nineteen eighty nine.
Then it came out in ninety and then we did
let me guess, I'm going to guess, I'm gonna say.
Then I began rehearsals for Bosonova and La and then
(24:32):
and then recording Safari in New York City and recording
Bosonova and Los Angeles and then recording Trump Lamont in
ninety one. So we did. I did touring with YouTube,
thirty two shows with YouTube. That's in ninety two. We
opened for them, and then I was in the studio
(24:56):
in ninety three. Like we drove out in January nineteen
ninety three. So that's what happened between POD and Last
Splash to record it.
Speaker 2 (25:06):
And you recorded Last Splash in San Francisco, Yeah, and
you drove from Dayton.
Speaker 3 (25:11):
Yeah. We had to take a box truck pull a
gear careening through the mountains in the snow. It was
really really scary, and Jim was driving and we were
yelling and the wyoming passed it was blocked and we
had to spend the night since it was really harrowing.
I mean, there was a lot of snow there. I
think we went the weird way, like we didn't go like,
(25:33):
I don't know what way you go. Then we went
into San France.
Speaker 2 (25:37):
How long did it take to record Last Splash?
Speaker 3 (25:40):
A couple of months. It was really fun. It was
a lot of work. I remember, We're just going to
the back room just so I couldn sist it for
a minute. There were so many decisions to be made
and so much to do, you know, I just like again,
then it's coming. It was a lot of work. Yeah,
we had two studios going because you know, Coast Recorders
(26:01):
was a strip. It was in a strip mall, Like
this little strip wasn't a strip a huge but the
little strip mall buildings. So it was like a jazz room.
It had a really low ceiling. I had got, you know,
I had got by looking at the specs. I didn't
think about the ceiling height or anything. So I was
looking for something that had a little bit more air
in it for drums, you know, because I don't really
(26:23):
use outboard gear that will gate and also give you
a reverb on your share. You don't, you know, it's
not it's not an outboard gear. It's like it's in
my positioning, you know, and having a nice drum sound
in a room, because a drum is an is an
acoustic instrument in a room. So if you have an
(26:44):
acoustic instrument in a room, you need to mike it
and you need to make it properly for to sound good.
So usually that's how I, you know, get the verb,
unless it's to be funny or you know, to have
some sort of crazy thing going on. But anyway, I
wanted out another studio call Brilliant, with a big room.
(27:05):
We had to heavy curtain and we did some drumming.
Speaker 2 (27:08):
There is the drum sound the most important sound for
you on a project.
Speaker 3 (27:15):
Usually, I think for me, if the drums, if drum
can sound shitty, actually they can, if they sound shitty,
cool and if they're played cool and the song is
cool and it's cool. B yeah, it can sound shitty,
but it's not cool to have shitty drums on every
single song. I mean, it would be bad if the
(27:37):
whole record had like shitty drum sound, I think. And
I'm not used to the shitty drum sound. I'm used
to the acoustic drum sound. So if it sounds like
not like that, then it's like that sounds. You know,
things are built to go on top of this acoustic
drum sound, so it's not going to sound right if
it's got a weird it's sensitive, it's touchy. Put reverb
(28:00):
on the snare in an outboard gear, it's just like,
excuse me, what, Wait a minute, what's what's that sound?
It's like what? Maybe? No, I don't think so, but
it could be cool.
Speaker 2 (28:13):
Before you started recording Last Splash, were you thinking about
the project and what you wanted it to sound like
or was it all sort of happening organically? How does
that work? How does an album come together?
Speaker 3 (28:24):
Usually? Well, I don't really think about albums. I just
think about songs. I think for me that makes sense
more sense. Although I guess people think of albums, don't they,
But they've probably got their shit together way more than
I do. Well, I don't think about albums because it's
just it's like, you get enough decent songs together, you're lucky,
(28:47):
and you put it out and you always are looking.
I'm always looking at the run time. How much is it?
Is it near forty at all? Forty minutes? Oh my god?
How many minutes to twenty eight minutes? And then you
hear the inevitable.
Speaker 4 (29:03):
Well, Sun's albums twenty eight minutes long. We don't need
to do it any longer than that.
Speaker 3 (29:12):
Oh my god, I think they're not even twenty eight
minutes the Black Sabbath albums. I think they might be
fucking twenty minutes long the albums, or like twenty two,
because then you get somebody thing. Remember more than eleven
minutes one side of an album.
Speaker 4 (29:29):
It's really sobers. The audio soffers along later the track
is on the album, the audio really suffers.
Speaker 3 (29:36):
We shouldn't make it long at all. That's me.
Speaker 1 (29:40):
After this last break, we're back with the rest of
our conversation with Kim Deal. We're back with the rest
of Leo Rose's conversation with Kim Deal.
Speaker 2 (29:53):
I want to ask you a little bit about growing up.
If you're okay to talk about that, sure, tell me
a little bit about your parents. Are they both from
West Virginia?
Speaker 3 (30:04):
Yes, my whole where we're from. They're from West Virginia. Yeah,
they're from Tator Holler. And my brother's the only deal
that never worked the coal mine, the first male deal
that never worked at the coal mines. He was born
down there too, everybody's down there. We go Thanksgiving, Christmases,
everything goes, we go there. Okay, they came up to
(30:27):
Ohio because after the Korean thing, my dad met my
mom and then you get the gi Bill. You know,
isn't that a great thing? Yes, So they put him
to school. So he was a math professor at Marshall University.
And then friend of his from West Virginia was hiring White.
(30:52):
Patterson Air Force Base is a huge air force base
in Dayton, Ohio, were the right piece accords resigned and
for you know, and the Serbian stuff. So he had
a job there. And so Kevin and my mom and
dad moved up to Ohio and then me and Kelly
were born like a year later.
Speaker 2 (31:11):
So okay, so your parents originally met in West Virginia. Yeah,
have you heard stories about their childhood? What did they
tell you about growing up?
Speaker 3 (31:21):
Oh? For sure, they out for each other, do you know,
poor people, they out for each other. They try to
outdore each other. So I listened to my mom and
dad try to outdoor each other. You know. My dad
would always give it to my mother. Now, you know,
he did a good thing. They would go back and
forth and back and forth, but I remember he always
ended up saying you win. She's sure. What really was
(31:43):
way poor. But Dad had like he was like talked
about putting up a newspaper on the inside of the
walls because the wind, the cold wind blowing to it.
So I don't remember him having a good time either.
And they were up in the mountains, because even if
(32:03):
it's a holler, you're still up the low part, you're
still high, I mean the mountains of West virgin or crazy,
I mean, because you just you look out and it's
like there's no horizon line anywhere in Westernchinia. You never
see where the sun is setting. Not where they took me.
Speaker 2 (32:24):
Do you know, like their romance story, like how they
got together.
Speaker 3 (32:27):
Yeah, she was a great dancer. And his first words
supposedly were, do you want to go to Helen Back?
Which is a movie to Helen Back. That was the
first thing he said. You know, he was asking her
for a date. You want to go to Helen Back? Yeah,
to the drive ins or whatever they do.
Speaker 2 (32:44):
I was gonna say, that's pretty racy, it is.
Speaker 3 (32:47):
And she danced till her ankles were black, which you
do because it's coal mining, so there's a lot of
coal dust around, so everybody got dirty. So she played
in the sand piles when she was young near the tracks.
She grew up in the American coal mining camp that
(33:08):
has a company store and stuff like that. And her
granddaddy was a cool miner. He died a black lung. Wow.
And dad lost us an out of the key on
the side of the mountain because he just hit something
that or cicheted off while he was dangling. Just the
front take from hair to hear like one like two,
(33:29):
pass the incisors and then of all the front teeth. Yeah,
with the c ciche of the hammer when he was
hitting something or other vein or something of coal. I
don't know.
Speaker 2 (33:41):
So he worked in coal mine, but then he went
to college.
Speaker 3 (33:43):
That's right. He was signed on as a physicist. I
believe that right, Patterson Air Force Base.
Speaker 2 (33:49):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (33:50):
Yeah, then he ended up being I think I was
the director of the avionics lab up there, and he
was responsible for the down pilot system and some radar.
My brothers all about it because he really likes that stuff.
Speaker 2 (34:02):
And yeah, did you feel pressure as a kid to
like follow in his past.
Speaker 3 (34:08):
No, because he would never discuss any of that with me.
I don't know if he discussed it with Kevin that
much either until he got older. Yeah, it's a depression Eric,
you know. So he didn't really talk that much. He
didn't talk about work. He didn't talk about you know,
down pilot projects as he was working on. To me,
he did try to take he took guitar lessons, and
(34:31):
that's where he would have the guitar on the floor.
I was certain, and I picked it up and started
playing it, and there was a folder there and there
was a tableature for King of the Road. And that's
when I started picking it up. And he did say,
you're that guitar quicker than I am, so, and I did.
I don't even know if he ever learned how to
(34:51):
play guitar.
Speaker 2 (34:52):
Actually, So, do you feel like you had sort of
just like a natural knack for guitar.
Speaker 3 (34:58):
I didn't feel like it, but maybe I did because
he didn't learn it and I did, so it would
sound easy to me. There's a little picture with the
little dots, a little tablature, and you put your little
dot on the dots. It's fun. Oh yeah, yeah. So
then you just keep doing and it's just sitting there.
It's a quiet thing to do. It was nice and
(35:19):
I enjoyed the strings resonating and the guitar body resonating.
I think it's a really relaxing, peaceful sound. I like
it very much.
Speaker 2 (35:29):
Yeah, what were you like when you were in high school?
Speaker 3 (35:32):
Like?
Speaker 2 (35:32):
What was your style? Like, what were you into?
Speaker 3 (35:36):
Well, we lived in Juber Heights. It was a sebs
and it was a smaller town, you know, I think
I said thirty thousand smiling people. It was a community
of brick homes and little streets, and the kids played
(35:57):
out outside on the street with each other, and there
was a lot of other children to play with, so
there was you know, teams of kids running around the streets.
So that was nice. And we got called in you
know at the when the street lights came on. Yeah,
and catching lightning bugs. And there was a stand up
(36:17):
swimming pool in the backyard. Kids came over and we.
Speaker 2 (36:20):
Did you do whirlpools where everyone runs out?
Speaker 3 (36:23):
Yeah, yeah, and the water splashes out and the dad
would getting mad because they have to with hose back in. Yes, definitely.
Speaker 2 (36:31):
Were you a musician already in high school? Were you
known as sort of like, you know, someone who plays.
Speaker 3 (36:37):
Yeah, I was playing Yeah. I wasn't a known musician
in high school though, but I had a guitar and
I was writing stuff. I would have died if if
somebody had heard me, you know, died.
Speaker 2 (36:51):
What were you writing about?
Speaker 3 (36:54):
Stupid shit? Just horrible stuff.
Speaker 2 (36:58):
Do you remember any of your songs from back then?
Speaker 3 (37:00):
Yeah? I do so long. Yeah, And there was a
place called hair Or Arena, and that's where all the
hard rock. There's a big culture of hard rock in
the Midwest and the sevs. I mean we saw black
og Ark and saw Brownsville Station, Sammy Agar, Marshall Tucker Band, Rush, Nugent,
(37:28):
the Outlaws, Rainbow. I mean it was just part of
the touring circuit.
Speaker 2 (37:35):
Were you into it, UFO?
Speaker 3 (37:38):
Yeah. I liked the hard rock bands. Yeah, some I
liked more than the others. You know. I loved Zeppelin
and Sabbath and Journey. I loved back then when host
did I like, I liked Floydster Cult Don't Feel a Reaper.
The Queen News of the World album was huge for me.
Speaker 4 (37:58):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (37:59):
Would you always hang out with Kelly, Like, who was
your crew? To like go to two shows?
Speaker 3 (38:04):
Sometimes I went with Kelly. Sometimes I didn't, you know,
I remember being seeing Kelly like on stage during Marshall
Tucker Bant like she was somehow sitting on the PA
or something. It was crazy, that's cool.
Speaker 2 (38:22):
Did you think like back then, like, oh I want
to be on stage one day, I want to be
a professional musician.
Speaker 3 (38:28):
Oh no, absolutely not, I don't. Yeah. No.
Speaker 2 (38:33):
Then how did you and Kelly start playing around town?
How did that come about?
Speaker 3 (38:38):
Probably the first thing we did probably is I think
maybe my mom, who was an early early childhood education teacher.
She was very involved. She was in parents co op
and she was a teacher. She organized it all. And
(38:58):
I think they had a booth at the community park
for a summer fourth or something like that, and I
think there were two stools, and also weddings. We were
asked to play weddings for adults. Any song was big.
(39:22):
Kelly could sing alvam Maria, Wow. Kelly sang the rose
Bet Midler and we would play like the ground round.
It's like people at tables and you would drink eat
peanuts and you would the shells would just fall on
the floor and do four sets a night.
Speaker 2 (39:41):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (39:41):
And there wasn't a PA, I don't think there.
Speaker 2 (39:45):
So you're ambiance while people are saying there eating peanuts, drinking.
Speaker 3 (39:48):
Absolutely and we would sing original songs that you know,
as well as other songs that were playing.
Speaker 2 (39:56):
I wanted to ask you about the Big Sur the
Big Surch show that you just recorded.
Speaker 3 (40:01):
Didn't that turn out great? Those animations it's beautiful, Yeah,
it really is.
Speaker 2 (40:06):
It's really really nice and you look like you're having
so much much fun.
Speaker 3 (40:09):
I was really nice. You know. The show was canceled
because there was so much rain. It was just raining
and raining, and everything was sort of flooded, like the
stage itself. Some of the cabling was just sitting in
water because it was outdoors and it just be there
was a deluge for so long. If you imagine people
walking in there was just huge puddles of mud just
(40:32):
even standing where they would be standing. Oh yeah, so
it's like, let's call it. And I guess it happens
quite often, you know that there's so much train.
Speaker 4 (40:40):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (40:41):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (40:42):
So our tour manager, a guy named Rory, I knew
symb Ellas and they were interested in recording us, and
there was an ideal about it and they said, you know,
we can come up to Big Sur and record the show,
and then the show wasn't happening, so we just went
into the woods and they did that and it turned
out so good.
Speaker 2 (41:01):
Yeah, everybody seems so happy and it sounds so beautiful.
Speaker 1 (41:04):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (41:05):
How did you pick what songs to play out there?
Speaker 3 (41:08):
We wanted to do them. You know, the violin is
a good one, you know, stuff to do with violin
because we have the violin there, and it kind of
picked the ones that work with the instrumentation that's available,
so it was pretty easy to pick them.
Speaker 2 (41:23):
I love do You Love Me?
Speaker 3 (41:24):
Now? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (41:26):
That song is so beautiful when you write like a
song like that, is that come from a personal experience
or is it just a fictional thing?
Speaker 3 (41:35):
That is one of the songs me and Kelly would
sing during being sort of you know, Joe's is a
fish house days really Yeah, And I remember like we
were doing many sets in one day, you know, in
one evening, did you got to do three sets or something?
(41:58):
And I remember I think if they were traveling for work,
because one of the guys came up and just who
you know, we did a lot and they were sitting
there in the hotel or when nearby or something, and
they I remember somebody specifically saying they really liked that song.
It was good, but then that's not the song that's
(42:19):
on the record, though it's been changed a little bit
because I went back at it, you know, in my twenties.
I look back at that thing that I used to
sing at Jose as a fish house, and I just went,
this is almost good. But it's so dumb. But the
sentiment that what it used to be. The sentiment makes
(42:43):
me feel so it's like, I don't know. It was
so easy to like relate to the song in a
different way, like in a more of a snarling way.
Speaker 2 (42:55):
I think the way that you first sang it it
was more snarling, or the second way.
Speaker 3 (43:00):
The second way, I think was more snarling. There was
something innocent and sort of benign about the first way
I did it, although I liked, I like to song,
and I wanted to do it. But it was easy
to just change the arrangement a little bit, make it
more menacing and to me that the meaning of the
song has changed for me, and it doesn't sound like,
(43:20):
you know, instead of like when two hearts have torn away,
now sothing like a bloody horns just thar. It's just
so stupid.
Speaker 1 (43:27):
It's also jump.
Speaker 3 (43:30):
And that I enjoyed. That was not the song we
sang at Jose's offishals. It was a little different. But
this is if that makes sense.
Speaker 2 (43:39):
Do you remember who you wrote it about?
Speaker 3 (43:42):
Not really? I mean I didn't really write it about anybody.
They're kind of somebody, but not enough to Actually it was,
you know, not really, And I think that's why it
kind of it was easy to bend into something different
because it wasn't sobdenly about really anything other than you know, oh,
(44:06):
this is a song goes like this, but now the
transformation of it being menacing and stuff. Oh, it's definitely
about some stuff now. Oh, definitely. It means way more
now than it did, which is weird to have. That's
a nice successful song, something that meant nothing before that,
(44:28):
I don't makes itself now. Good job.
Speaker 2 (44:37):
Success.
Speaker 3 (44:37):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (44:39):
What was the melody like at first?
Speaker 3 (44:41):
It's pretty similar. The melody was pretty similar. Yeah, yeah,
it's the same melody. The arrangements were different, and it's
just a versus were a little different. Stuff like that.
Speaker 2 (44:53):
Is there anything else you want to talk about with
the new album? Any songs you want to talk about.
Speaker 3 (44:57):
Or you know, one of things about the record that
I like is that I'm proud of the good relationships
I've had with people that I've been playing with in
my life, like Mondo and Lindsay just working with Tee
I've known in the eighties, and Kelly and Jim McPherson's
been on it, and Josephine actually played bass on Disobedience,
(45:18):
but her bass guitar was weirding out and so I
had replayed it. And then some new people the Jack Lawrence,
you know he plays bass for Racontourskay, and it's Kentucky.
He's from the Green you know, Green Horns, since it's
sort of a Cincinnati band. I used, you know, the
(45:38):
Teenage Fan Club. Yeah, there's a guy named Raymond who's
the guitar player, and I used him on the guitar.
It was the first time i'd used had played with Raymond.
And then like when coming up with the songs, like
I I had sang at Albini's wedding with Heather, Me
and Kelly went to Hawaii. We were like family, sang
(46:01):
at the wedding and we played a song that she
wanted for her wedding song at Dolly Parton song and
we did the bridal march. I played the Bridal March
on guitar, and I went to the island and got
a bunch of ukuleles and handed them out as so
all of us, you know, because there's a lot of
musicians can play along, you know.
Speaker 2 (46:23):
With the ut you know, and that's such a good idea.
Speaker 3 (46:26):
Yeah, it was really fun. It was good there. It
was such a great such a great time. And for
a wedding gift, Steve and Heather got us quite like
nice ukuleles, you know. And I was packing my stuff up,
my gear to go someplace, and I threw with the ukulelean.
It wasn't even mine, it was my one my sister got.
(46:49):
There was a sheet that came in the package, that
laminated chord sheet, and I just started picking it up,
found how to shoot my dog has fleas, and then
had the laminated chord sheet and started playing around with it,
and I wrote this song on it, the ukulelean in
my head. It had these melodies and these incredibly complicated
(47:13):
orchestral movement happening all the way through it. And I
just and I was like Joseph being she was up,
you know. We were going to rehearse for some stuff.
I think it was doing all nerve stuff or something,
and I grabbed the ukulele. I have written a song
on ukulele and she looked at me. She went, absolutely not,
(47:38):
it's just funny. So then I knew, like that song
would be a solo one. It wouldn't be a Breederish one.
You know, It's like and that's yeah, on the way
to thinking about an album.
Speaker 2 (47:47):
You know, is there new Breeders music coming out or
working on?
Speaker 3 (47:51):
Or we play Disobedience in the Breeders shows. Well they're
all on it. Yeah, it gets confusing, It gets confusing.
It is confusing.
Speaker 2 (48:01):
So yeah, yes, and yeah, thank you Kim. It's so
nice to talk you and.
Speaker 3 (48:07):
I love talking to you. Thank you.
Speaker 2 (48:09):
Yeah, thank you for doing this and best of luck
with all.
Speaker 3 (48:12):
Thank you for doing this. I really appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (48:17):
Thanks Token Deal for chatting through her career and the
making of her new solo album, Nobody Loves You More.
You can hear all of our favorite tracks from the Pixies,
the Breeders, and Kim solo work on a playlist at
Broken record podcast dot com, and be sure to follow
us on Instagram at the Broken Record Pod. You can
follow us on Twitter at Broken Record. Broken Record is
(48:37):
produced and edited by Leah Rose, with marketing help from
Erek Sandler and Jordan McMillan. Our engineer is Ben Tollinday.
Broken Record is a production of Pushkin Industries. If you
love this show and others from Pushkin, consider subscribing to
Pushkin Plus. Pushkin Plus is a podcast subscription that offers
bonus content and ad free listening for four ninety nine
(48:59):
a month. Look for Pushkin Plus on Apple Podcasts subscriptions,
and if you like this show, please remember to share, rate,
and review us on your podcast app. Theme musics by
Anny beats On Justin Richmond
Speaker 3 (49:17):
M HM
Pushkin. Kim Deal is an indie rock icon. In the
mid eighties, she joined The Pixies as the band's original
bassist and co vocalist. After the release of their debut album,
Come On Pilgrim in eighty seven, followed by the classics
Surfarosa and Doolittle, Kim took a break from the Pixies
to form her own band, The Breeders. With the help
(00:38):
of Kim's twin sister Kelly on lead guitar, The Breeders
released a couple of EPs and four studio albums, including
the platinum selling nineties hit Last Splash. After a run
with The Breeders opening up for Olivia Rodrigo's worldwide Guts
Tour this year, Kim Deal is once again heading out
on her own with the release of her first solo album,
Nobody Loves You More. The album was recorded by the
(00:59):
late Steve Albini, a close friend and longtime collaborator of Kim's,
and it features a slew of her other friends and collaborators,
including Slint's Britt Walford on drums and The Breeders, Josephine Wiggs,
Jim McPherson, and of course, Kelly Deal. On today's episode,
Lea Rose talks to Kim Deal about working with Steve
Albini on The Pixie Surfer Rosa and why he always
(01:20):
regretted a specific contribution to that album. Kim also recalls
recording The Breeders' first two albums, and she remembers how
a group of surfers on a druggy trip to Nantucket
helped inspire her new lead single, Coast. This is broken
record liner notes for the digital Age. I'm justin Mitchman.
(01:40):
Here's Lea Rose in conversation with Kim Deal.
Speaker 2 (01:48):
Let's talk about the first song from that upcoming solo album, Coast.
So tell me about that. How did that song come about?
Speaker 3 (01:56):
Was the inspiration the song was written sort of in
twenty nineteen something like that maybe, but sitting down riding
the guitar chords and wanting to come up with what
I thought it sounded like. And what I wanted to
talk about was this period of time back when I
(02:19):
was staying in Nantucket in the off season in like
two thousand. I was living a very druggy sort of
life in New York City and I thought I needed
to clean up, so I went to Nantucket. What I
did was I got a lot of drugs. I go
and put them on the island and did them. Eventually
(02:39):
I just got I just decided I can't do this anymore.
And one of the things I always will remember are
these young island off season workers, you know, looking they were,
you know, there was a daytime for them. They went
out and enjoyed the outdoors and they were so nice
and weird and I was like so depleted, but I
(03:00):
was hanging out with them, and then they would be
yelling about the wham. Checked the wham, We checked the wham,
and then they would take up the wham. Is a way,
it's a mob a government model for wave action because
they're on an attacket. There's no huge Portuguese sir, so
they you know, need to know if there's some even
a possibility of some waves. Then they would whatever they're doing,
(03:22):
they're you know, painting job and they're getting the bar
ready for the evening jobs, and they would run to
the ocean, you know, get with their stuff and their
boards out and their wetsuits. They had the waters cold, yeah,
and it was just like it was so the idea
that people were doing an outdoor activity. It was really
(03:44):
nice to see that. Yeah, And I always have a
fond memory of that thinking about that, and I just
like wham. I thought it was cool anyway, and I
had always stuck with me, and so that's what the
songs basically. I recorded it as Steve Albini's. Lindsey Glover
is the drummer. Mondo Lopez is the bass player. He's
(04:06):
the base player for the Breeders Too Long Time.
Speaker 2 (04:10):
Yeah, was he the one who was in the I
watched an old documentary. It was like a Dutch documentary
from I think like he was Yeah, yeah, yeah, from Yeah, Yeah.
I liked Los Readers. I was wondering what happened to
that lineup.
Speaker 3 (04:27):
I was in New York City and I was thinking
I would get I was recording trying to kind of
Rivington and Christie down like a two about two thousand
or something, and I was in a bar, surprisingly and
(04:50):
there were some dudes in there. It was really close
to the studio and I liked them a lot, and
they told me they were playing with leaving the singer
for Fear. They were in Fear. Now obviously this is
the og guy's in Fear. But there was a show
and they were playing, and now they were hanging out
in the bar and I their studio nearby. You guys
(05:11):
want to go hang out? And we played all night long.
They were such good players. And I told them, I'm
going to follow you guys out. Where do you guys live?
And they said East La. Wow. I said, I'm going
to follow you out to East La. They were so
surprised when I got there. I didn't even know what
East La was, but I soon found out. When I
(05:32):
got out there. In East La, everybody was so cool.
I think they told everybody to be cool to us,
and everybody was. They were probably been cool anyway. And
we would go to Vernon that was where a rehearsal
space was and we rode up Title TK and all
those guys were on Title TK and then got It
also they were on Mountain Battles too.
Speaker 2 (05:53):
Got It.
Speaker 3 (05:54):
Yeah, But during I wasn't living there during Mountain Battles.
I was living there during Title TK. I went to
rehab after the tour for Title TK. I went to rehab,
so then I moved back to my parents' house.
Speaker 2 (06:06):
And you moved back to your parents.
Speaker 3 (06:08):
House after rehab.
Speaker 2 (06:10):
After rehab to take care of your mom.
Speaker 1 (06:12):
Is that right?
Speaker 3 (06:13):
No, I couldn't taken care of anybody. They picked me
up from rehab and they drove me back home and
they told me on the way home long was diagnosed.
But she was fine. I guess once you've diagnosed, there
are some obvious signs within the family that there's some trouble.
But it wasn't huge. You know how thing have you
(06:35):
ever dealt with anybody with Alzheimer's or dementia?
Speaker 2 (06:38):
I have it.
Speaker 3 (06:39):
It starts a little bit at a time and then
it gets worse. So it was it was pretty new.
So yeah, no, that she was. I wasn't taking care
of her. Okay, Yeah, I landed there, got it? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (06:51):
What was rehab like? Do you feel like it was effective?
Did the rehab work? What was your experience like there?
Speaker 3 (06:57):
Oh? I loved it. I loved being loved, I loved
being sober. I loved not drinking. I had a great time.
Haven't had a drink since so too.
Speaker 2 (07:05):
That's incredible.
Speaker 3 (07:06):
Yeah, I really liked it. I really like it still. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (07:10):
Do you miss smoking pot?
Speaker 3 (07:12):
I do I miss smoking cigarettes? Oh, got no serruts anymore. No,
Sometimes I go past a big cigarette cloud and I'm
just like, oh my god, that's soap god.
Speaker 2 (07:22):
Yeah, so you miss it, you miss the weed, you
miss the cigarette, the smoking stuff.
Speaker 3 (07:27):
I've heard that the weed isn't the same and it's
kind of a bummer, like you get too stoned or something.
But I would smoke. I had to quit because I
was awake and baked person, so like everything, Like, I
didn't just smoke when I drank. I smoked, you know,
two packs a day. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (07:43):
Yeah, So I saw on Reddit people are saying that,
I guess you have a collection of hundreds and hundreds
of solo songs that you've written over the past, like
twenty years. But is this collection the new Kim Deal
album that's coming out. Is that all new songs or
is that some of old stuff mixed in.
Speaker 3 (08:04):
I don't have hundreds and hundreds of songs, so I
wish I did, but I don't. Thanks for rubbing it
in and now I feel like I'm just haven't been
doing anything.
Speaker 2 (08:19):
No, that was not the intention.
Speaker 3 (08:24):
They are new songs, you know what, though, there are
two that are not. But if you just follow me,
you'll see why these two had to be on there. Okay,
one of them is, are you mind that was a
solo song that I've released on a seven inch okay,
but I did it on a three eighty eight task
Camp that's consumer grade. That is a quarter inch tape.
(08:48):
The task Am three eighty eight looks like a huge
four track machine and it's but it's got one driver
and so it's consumer grade. It's not really no good.
That's what I recorded a seven inch on for Are
You Mine? Lindsey Glover Mondo. This guy named Jeffrey played
guitar on it. I played guitar on it, saying eight
(09:10):
tracks we played at the same time, miked us all up.
But it's an old dumb machine and it lost track eight.
So the guitar player, Jeffrey, his beautiful guitar playing was gone.
You can hear it when you play our in mind.
You could hear it in the distance. It's like a
ghost track. So of course I'm going to try to
(09:32):
fix it. So I take the quarters tape and put
it on a different three eighty eight. That consumer grade.
You can't go from one machine to the next. Basically,
it's a cassette tape, a big, bigger cassette tape. It
won't go and play it sounds warble and out of pitch.
So to me, not recording always sounded a little broken.
(09:53):
I like it, but to me it was like, oh man,
too bad, yeah lah lah. So we re recorded it professionally.
We recorded in Dayton, Ohio. I'm sorry, in Dayton, Kentucky. Oh.
We drove from Dayton, Ohio to Dayton, Kentucky. It's one
and one minute, one minute away from one shitty place
(10:13):
to an even shittier place, let's say that. And then
we Londo was going through town. He was he was
on stage with Morrissey. He was playing bass in the band,
so he said he would do it. So we got
some time. Lindsay flew out from LA and we recorded
the basic tracks over again, and then I finished it
up at Albini's and then there's a pedal steel on it,
(10:35):
and then there's strings added on to it. So I
really like the way it turned out. So but that's
why I recorded that song. And then which I was
is the other song on the new album that has
been released as a as a seven inch. Already got it,
but it has vocals. It always had lyrics, but I
never could make the lyrics sound cool. I'm sang on
(10:58):
the seven inch version of Wish I Was. And Kelly
told me it didn't sound good. Just release it as
an instrumental. Look, that's my sister telling me. It's like, yeah,
it says not great, but still ash. That's harsh, Kel.
But I did it and it sounded cool. I released
it as an instrumental, but I always liked how you know.
I even took wish I Was and I went to Australia.
(11:20):
I was doing a Pixie's tour. I stayed over late.
I went to the studio. I thought, I can get
some Australian players. We can pull up wish I Was.
This time I can sing on it. I have it,
I've got it unlocked. It's gonna sound cool like this
three four short of a country song. There was even
petal steel on it down there nice And I didn't
like it. It is okay?
Speaker 2 (11:41):
Is Kelly usually the last person you play stuff for.
Is she like the ultimate judge?
Speaker 3 (11:46):
Oh? Because you know if somebody, you know, how many
of you wear something, you said you like this, and
somebody goes, yeah, you look good. You don't like it,
you go okay, great, and you change totally because it doesn't.
But it's nice to ask somebody, because when you show somebody,
you look at the outfit differently, you know, in a
different way. But it's not what they said. It's how
you're looking at the whole thing yourself what I'm talking about.
Speaker 2 (12:10):
Yeah, it's like your mind is already made up anyway,
but you're just asking to ask, but you're already gonna
do what you're gonna do.
Speaker 3 (12:16):
I'm not sure it could be. This could be okay,
but seeing it the process of standing there and with
another person in the room, like whenever somebody's listening to it,
I hear it in a different way. Yeah, in ir
respect of what their experience was. They could like it.
(12:36):
They could turn around and go, I really like that,
and I could be cringing the whole time. It's odd, No,
I understand that. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (12:44):
Is Kelly on the on your solo stuff.
Speaker 3 (12:46):
Yeah, she's on the lot, She's on Coast, She's doing
the guitar on Coast and then Disobedience. There's a song
she's doing guitar all over Disobedience, and she's doing bass
pedals on a song called Crystal Math. She's got a
cool set up, a cool bass pedal setup, and she's
hitting those bass Pedals and Jim McPherson is too oh awesome.
Speaker 2 (13:09):
Tell me about working with Albini. First time you met him.
Speaker 3 (13:13):
I was giving him a nash from Urge over Kill.
His room name's Nate. I was giving Steve and Nate
a ride in Boston to the studio Q Division, and
Steve was producing the Pixies at Q Division, and Steve
(13:34):
was They were playing this cassette tape in the car
because they had done some stuff in reverse or something,
and they thought it was really cool. But then that's
the first time I met him, giving him a ride
to Q Division to be the engineer recordist. He would
never want to use the word producer.
Speaker 2 (13:56):
Yeah, I was curious about that. So he Moore was
just an engineer and he liked to kind of stay
out of things and not give his opinion.
Speaker 3 (14:04):
Oh he has lots of opinions, he might say that,
But you know, I think what happened, like okay, during
that period of time, he had a lot of ideas
and we did, and he had this thing that he
was taping us that we didn't we knew he was taping,
we didn't know which parts he was taping, and then
(14:25):
he spliced it into the album, and it was hilarious.
It was really fun. I loved it. But then I
think towards you know, later on, while he was working,
I know that it bothers him to think that he
would suggest anything to alter any decision that a band
(14:47):
would make, or have any influence at all. He told
Iggy Pop he was a plumber. He's not, you know
what I mean. I don't know why he had to
go all that way. I like his ideas. He had good,
cool ideas.
Speaker 2 (15:01):
You know, well, I think it came because of that
Pixies album. He's I heard him talking to Mark Marin.
He said, because he inserted himself so much made that suggestion.
He didn't like the fact that for history, the rest
of history, the band would have to answer to his
decision and talk about why that was on the record
when it wasn't their idea anyway. And I think that
(15:23):
bothered him.
Speaker 3 (15:25):
I have a feeling he doesn't know that we were choking.
I think he thinks maybe I don't know, because I
don't get it. He feels so much remorse about that.
You know, there was this movie called Stripes where there
was a guy named Francis and he was a real
paranoid guys. Don't touch me, don't touch me, don't touch
(15:45):
any of my stuff, don't even look at that sort
of thing. And Bill Moorey looks at him and says,
lighten up, Francis. So me and Charles were doing a skit,
and what's on there is him saying to me, don't
touch my stuff something like that. I think Steve might
have clips that moment and thought maybe it was a
(16:07):
moment of real I could see him loving to put
that moment on the album. He might have thought he
was putting a real, vulnerable moment of us, right. I mean,
I've told him it was I don't know, but I
don't I'm not I've never heard him say that he
thought it was real. But why else would it bothered
him so much? Nobody really talks about it. Maybe I
(16:30):
make me think that there might have been something else
he might have done that he hated that he maybe
made a really bad choice, and he sees it. Maybe
it came to realize that some of the I don't
know some of Maybe there's some of the arguments he
might have had in the studio that went his way.
Maybe he realized, as I do it's probably everybody does that.
(16:55):
Listening to it at you know, five years later, it's like,
oh my god, they were right.
Speaker 2 (17:01):
Hmmm yeah, could be.
Speaker 3 (17:05):
Yeah, but you said Mark barn that that specifically was
bothering him.
Speaker 2 (17:10):
Yeah, he talked about that exact thing, but.
Speaker 3 (17:12):
That wasn't a problem for us personally. Maybe he didn't
like to be asked about it, maybe he was being
asked about.
Speaker 2 (17:18):
It, or maybe somebody else in the band came to
him and had an issue with it after and that's
why no.
Speaker 3 (17:25):
Knew.
Speaker 2 (17:27):
Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 3 (17:28):
Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (17:30):
He also said that you were one of the best
people he's ever worked with, and you're the real deal.
Speaker 3 (17:34):
And yeah, he really likes me. We're like family. We
were like family. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (17:39):
What was it like working with him? Like, how was
it different than other engineers or I know, he doesn't
like the word producer, but other people you had collaborated with.
Speaker 3 (17:46):
Well here's why. Okay, people might think he's a big
dick about not liking it. He was a big asshole
from not liking the word producer. But back in the
day as a producer, if I was to produce Natalie Cole,
I would hire out the studios and the musicians. I
would also have worked closely with Natalie to pick out
all of the songs that people have submitted that we
(18:09):
would be covering and trying out with the new musicians
as we rehearse this record together. I would probably also
have hired the musical director to work over the arrangements
with her. Maybe we'd start with the piano, just me
as a producer of the record in Natalie and a
pianist and a musical arranger or something a musical director.
(18:30):
So the producer is very involved. I think in the
old days that's what a producer did. So there are
bands that just love Albini and he is available to anybody.
You call up the studio, he might answer and book
your session, or somebody there who's at the desk will
just book it two days. You know, you want to
(18:53):
go in without being this is what it costs. Okay,
see you there. And so they come in and he's
never heard of them, He's never you know, he'll do
it professionally. I'll make sure he has the tape. Then
he'll know how many, what the setup, the mic setup
will be, so it will all go quickly as possible.
But you know, if they put produced by Steve Albini
(19:15):
on the record. Then it kind of sometimes can look
like they went there to get produced by Steve Albini
on the record sort of sometimes because it's not really true.
And so you know, he recorded it and he did
he was the engineer, but he wasn't the producer. Who right,
(19:36):
I mean he had never heard the songs. How could
he produce it without ever hearing the songs? He didn't
produce the recording at all. He recorded the recording, right,
So I think that's what he was saying that It's
not like he doesn't like producer. It's like he doesn't produce.
So it's just would bother him because it's not true, right.
Speaker 2 (19:56):
It's not technically what he's doing, It's not at all
that makes sense.
Speaker 1 (19:59):
Yeah, after a quick break, we're back with more from
Lea Rose and Ken Deal. We're back with more from
Ken Deal.
Speaker 2 (20:11):
When you first started working on the first Breeders album,
how is that different than you had when you had
worked with the Pixies.
Speaker 3 (20:17):
We were up in Edinburgh and Scotland and we were
there for I think eleven days, and I had Tanya
and Josephine and Carrie and Britt Walford. You know, Steve
is the one who introduced me to Britt Walford to
be the drummer of the band. You know, he loved
you know, Slint and Britt. He's an eighteen year old
(20:41):
kid out of Kentucky. Jorl Lane is so jiller. He's
not a good drummer, bread awesome drummer. It's insane. He's
so cool. He's on some of the solo stuff, you know,
that's one thing I really and he's on this record.
That's one thing I really think. It's cool about this record.
Like I've played with I've known Britt in the eighties.
(21:03):
It was eighty nine. He passed out at the pub
down the road and they do this thing with blacked
out your face if you pass out. He came back
to the Edinburgh studio and he had black ash all
over from the chimney sort all over his face. It
was done with love. I mean they loved it, of course,
but they totally shooded them up. So it was really
(21:27):
we had a good time. It was really fun. I
loved it.
Speaker 2 (21:31):
How did it feel for you just creatively, like leaving
or not leaving it because you weren't leaving the Pixies
yet right, you were still in the Pixies like on
a break, that's right. How did it feel for you
creatively to have this different band?
Speaker 3 (21:46):
That's a weird question, Like how did it feel to
get your hair cut? It felt like the wind and blowing.
It's just like, I don't it didn't feel I don't
know what. I don't have an answer to that question.
How did it feel to do music?
Speaker 2 (22:03):
Was it exciting? Because now I was exciting.
Speaker 3 (22:05):
I mean, it's always exciting. It's exciting to do records
with the Pixies too, super exciting. Yeah, I was excited.
I was excited to be in Edinburgh in a new
place and.
Speaker 2 (22:14):
Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, I'm just guessing from the
outside what it was like for you to have a
totally new lane where it's all coming from you.
Speaker 3 (22:25):
I didn't feel like it was all coming from me though,
because we went to where Josephine lives in biggles Way,
the family manor. It's run down. It was a rundown.
I had thirty two rooms or something of rundown. But
it was so it was they were her mom and
dad were so sweet and we cleared out one of
the rooms and she left. We played there, we rehearse there.
(22:49):
Britt had drums which we had our stuff there, so
we rehearsed at Josephine Spot and then we left biggles
Wade and Steve came for a minute and then we
left biggles Wade and went to Edinburgh. So it just
felt like we just were recording what we were doing.
So but it was cool to be in Edinburgh.
Speaker 2 (23:06):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, And then at what point, how soon
after that did you start playing shows? Like when did
you start playing the songs live?
Speaker 3 (23:15):
You know, we didn't do it. We did two shows
for POD or maybe one, I don't know, and I
thought it was weird. I remember those two shows and
I remember thinking, this feels weird. I don't know why
shows we were over there. I was nervous. We didn't
(23:39):
have the album, wasn't out or anything. We just were there,
had recorded and then also like we don't have a
whole set, we have a twenty eight minute album or whatever.
I don't think we did every song. It was weird
and I don't remember it really clearly, but I remember
not enjoying it and I thought it was weird.
Speaker 2 (24:01):
Yeah, how soon after did you start working on Last Splash?
Speaker 3 (24:05):
Well, we recorded POD and the December of nineteen eighty nine.
Then it came out in ninety and then we did
let me guess, I'm going to guess, I'm gonna say.
Then I began rehearsals for Bosonova and La and then
(24:32):
and then recording Safari in New York City and recording
Bosonova and Los Angeles and then recording Trump Lamont in
ninety one. So we did. I did touring with YouTube,
thirty two shows with YouTube. That's in ninety two. We
opened for them, and then I was in the studio
(24:56):
in ninety three. Like we drove out in January nineteen
ninety three. So that's what happened between POD and Last
Splash to record it.
Speaker 2 (25:06):
And you recorded Last Splash in San Francisco, Yeah, and
you drove from Dayton.
Speaker 3 (25:11):
Yeah. We had to take a box truck pull a
gear careening through the mountains in the snow. It was
really really scary, and Jim was driving and we were
yelling and the wyoming passed it was blocked and we
had to spend the night since it was really harrowing.
I mean, there was a lot of snow there. I
think we went the weird way, like we didn't go like,
(25:33):
I don't know what way you go. Then we went
into San France.
Speaker 2 (25:37):
How long did it take to record Last Splash?
Speaker 3 (25:40):
A couple of months. It was really fun. It was
a lot of work. I remember, We're just going to
the back room just so I couldn sist it for
a minute. There were so many decisions to be made
and so much to do, you know, I just like again,
then it's coming. It was a lot of work. Yeah,
we had two studios going because you know, Coast Recorders
(26:01):
was a strip. It was in a strip mall, Like
this little strip wasn't a strip a huge but the
little strip mall buildings. So it was like a jazz room.
It had a really low ceiling. I had got, you know,
I had got by looking at the specs. I didn't
think about the ceiling height or anything. So I was
looking for something that had a little bit more air
in it for drums, you know, because I don't really
(26:23):
use outboard gear that will gate and also give you
a reverb on your share. You don't, you know, it's
not it's not an outboard gear. It's like it's in
my positioning, you know, and having a nice drum sound
in a room, because a drum is an is an
acoustic instrument in a room. So if you have an
(26:44):
acoustic instrument in a room, you need to mike it
and you need to make it properly for to sound good.
So usually that's how I, you know, get the verb,
unless it's to be funny or you know, to have
some sort of crazy thing going on. But anyway, I
wanted out another studio call Brilliant, with a big room.
(27:05):
We had to heavy curtain and we did some drumming.
Speaker 2 (27:08):
There is the drum sound the most important sound for
you on a project.
Speaker 3 (27:15):
Usually, I think for me, if the drums, if drum
can sound shitty, actually they can, if they sound shitty,
cool and if they're played cool and the song is
cool and it's cool. B yeah, it can sound shitty,
but it's not cool to have shitty drums on every
single song. I mean, it would be bad if the
(27:37):
whole record had like shitty drum sound, I think. And
I'm not used to the shitty drum sound. I'm used
to the acoustic drum sound. So if it sounds like
not like that, then it's like that sounds. You know,
things are built to go on top of this acoustic
drum sound, so it's not going to sound right if
it's got a weird it's sensitive, it's touchy. Put reverb
(28:00):
on the snare in an outboard gear, it's just like,
excuse me, what, Wait a minute, what's what's that sound?
It's like what? Maybe? No, I don't think so, but
it could be cool.
Speaker 2 (28:13):
Before you started recording Last Splash, were you thinking about
the project and what you wanted it to sound like
or was it all sort of happening organically? How does
that work? How does an album come together?
Speaker 3 (28:24):
Usually? Well, I don't really think about albums. I just
think about songs. I think for me that makes sense
more sense. Although I guess people think of albums, don't they,
But they've probably got their shit together way more than
I do. Well, I don't think about albums because it's
just it's like, you get enough decent songs together, you're lucky,
(28:47):
and you put it out and you always are looking.
I'm always looking at the run time. How much is it?
Is it near forty at all? Forty minutes? Oh my god?
How many minutes to twenty eight minutes? And then you
hear the inevitable.
Speaker 4 (29:03):
Well, Sun's albums twenty eight minutes long. We don't need
to do it any longer than that.
Speaker 3 (29:12):
Oh my god, I think they're not even twenty eight
minutes the Black Sabbath albums. I think they might be
fucking twenty minutes long the albums, or like twenty two,
because then you get somebody thing. Remember more than eleven
minutes one side of an album.
Speaker 4 (29:29):
It's really sobers. The audio soffers along later the track
is on the album, the audio really suffers.
Speaker 3 (29:36):
We shouldn't make it long at all. That's me.
Speaker 1 (29:40):
After this last break, we're back with the rest of
our conversation with Kim Deal. We're back with the rest
of Leo Rose's conversation with Kim Deal.
Speaker 2 (29:53):
I want to ask you a little bit about growing up.
If you're okay to talk about that, sure, tell me
a little bit about your parents. Are they both from
West Virginia?
Speaker 3 (30:04):
Yes, my whole where we're from. They're from West Virginia. Yeah,
they're from Tator Holler. And my brother's the only deal
that never worked the coal mine, the first male deal
that never worked at the coal mines. He was born
down there too, everybody's down there. We go Thanksgiving, Christmases,
everything goes, we go there. Okay, they came up to
(30:27):
Ohio because after the Korean thing, my dad met my
mom and then you get the gi Bill. You know,
isn't that a great thing? Yes, So they put him
to school. So he was a math professor at Marshall University.
And then friend of his from West Virginia was hiring White.
(30:52):
Patterson Air Force Base is a huge air force base
in Dayton, Ohio, were the right piece accords resigned and
for you know, and the Serbian stuff. So he had
a job there. And so Kevin and my mom and
dad moved up to Ohio and then me and Kelly
were born like a year later.
Speaker 2 (31:11):
So okay, so your parents originally met in West Virginia. Yeah,
have you heard stories about their childhood? What did they
tell you about growing up?
Speaker 3 (31:21):
Oh? For sure, they out for each other, do you know,
poor people, they out for each other. They try to
outdore each other. So I listened to my mom and
dad try to outdoor each other. You know. My dad
would always give it to my mother. Now, you know,
he did a good thing. They would go back and
forth and back and forth, but I remember he always
ended up saying you win. She's sure. What really was
(31:43):
way poor. But Dad had like he was like talked
about putting up a newspaper on the inside of the
walls because the wind, the cold wind blowing to it.
So I don't remember him having a good time either.
And they were up in the mountains, because even if
(32:03):
it's a holler, you're still up the low part, you're
still high, I mean the mountains of West virgin or crazy,
I mean, because you just you look out and it's
like there's no horizon line anywhere in Westernchinia. You never
see where the sun is setting. Not where they took me.
Speaker 2 (32:24):
Do you know, like their romance story, like how they
got together.
Speaker 3 (32:27):
Yeah, she was a great dancer. And his first words
supposedly were, do you want to go to Helen Back?
Which is a movie to Helen Back. That was the
first thing he said. You know, he was asking her
for a date. You want to go to Helen Back? Yeah,
to the drive ins or whatever they do.
Speaker 2 (32:44):
I was gonna say, that's pretty racy, it is.
Speaker 3 (32:47):
And she danced till her ankles were black, which you
do because it's coal mining, so there's a lot of
coal dust around, so everybody got dirty. So she played
in the sand piles when she was young near the tracks.
She grew up in the American coal mining camp that
(33:08):
has a company store and stuff like that. And her
granddaddy was a cool miner. He died a black lung. Wow.
And dad lost us an out of the key on
the side of the mountain because he just hit something
that or cicheted off while he was dangling. Just the
front take from hair to hear like one like two,
(33:29):
pass the incisors and then of all the front teeth. Yeah,
with the c ciche of the hammer when he was
hitting something or other vein or something of coal. I
don't know.
Speaker 2 (33:41):
So he worked in coal mine, but then he went
to college.
Speaker 3 (33:43):
That's right. He was signed on as a physicist. I
believe that right, Patterson Air Force Base.
Speaker 2 (33:49):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (33:50):
Yeah, then he ended up being I think I was
the director of the avionics lab up there, and he
was responsible for the down pilot system and some radar.
My brothers all about it because he really likes that stuff.
Speaker 2 (34:02):
And yeah, did you feel pressure as a kid to
like follow in his past.
Speaker 3 (34:08):
No, because he would never discuss any of that with me.
I don't know if he discussed it with Kevin that
much either until he got older. Yeah, it's a depression Eric,
you know. So he didn't really talk that much. He
didn't talk about work. He didn't talk about you know,
down pilot projects as he was working on. To me,
he did try to take he took guitar lessons, and
(34:31):
that's where he would have the guitar on the floor.
I was certain, and I picked it up and started
playing it, and there was a folder there and there
was a tableature for King of the Road. And that's
when I started picking it up. And he did say,
you're that guitar quicker than I am, so, and I did.
I don't even know if he ever learned how to
(34:51):
play guitar.
Speaker 2 (34:52):
Actually, So, do you feel like you had sort of
just like a natural knack for guitar.
Speaker 3 (34:58):
I didn't feel like it, but maybe I did because
he didn't learn it and I did, so it would
sound easy to me. There's a little picture with the
little dots, a little tablature, and you put your little
dot on the dots. It's fun. Oh yeah, yeah. So
then you just keep doing and it's just sitting there.
It's a quiet thing to do. It was nice and
(35:19):
I enjoyed the strings resonating and the guitar body resonating.
I think it's a really relaxing, peaceful sound. I like
it very much.
Speaker 2 (35:29):
Yeah, what were you like when you were in high school?
Speaker 3 (35:32):
Like?
Speaker 2 (35:32):
What was your style? Like, what were you into?
Speaker 3 (35:36):
Well, we lived in Juber Heights. It was a sebs
and it was a smaller town, you know, I think
I said thirty thousand smiling people. It was a community
of brick homes and little streets, and the kids played
(35:57):
out outside on the street with each other, and there
was a lot of other children to play with, so
there was you know, teams of kids running around the streets.
So that was nice. And we got called in you
know at the when the street lights came on. Yeah,
and catching lightning bugs. And there was a stand up
(36:17):
swimming pool in the backyard. Kids came over and we.
Speaker 2 (36:20):
Did you do whirlpools where everyone runs out?
Speaker 3 (36:23):
Yeah, yeah, and the water splashes out and the dad
would getting mad because they have to with hose back in. Yes, definitely.
Speaker 2 (36:31):
Were you a musician already in high school? Were you
known as sort of like, you know, someone who plays.
Speaker 3 (36:37):
Yeah, I was playing Yeah. I wasn't a known musician
in high school though, but I had a guitar and
I was writing stuff. I would have died if if
somebody had heard me, you know, died.
Speaker 2 (36:51):
What were you writing about?
Speaker 3 (36:54):
Stupid shit? Just horrible stuff.
Speaker 2 (36:58):
Do you remember any of your songs from back then?
Speaker 3 (37:00):
Yeah? I do so long. Yeah, And there was a
place called hair Or Arena, and that's where all the
hard rock. There's a big culture of hard rock in
the Midwest and the sevs. I mean we saw black
og Ark and saw Brownsville Station, Sammy Agar, Marshall Tucker Band, Rush, Nugent,
(37:28):
the Outlaws, Rainbow. I mean it was just part of
the touring circuit.
Speaker 2 (37:35):
Were you into it, UFO?
Speaker 3 (37:38):
Yeah. I liked the hard rock bands. Yeah, some I
liked more than the others. You know. I loved Zeppelin
and Sabbath and Journey. I loved back then when host
did I like, I liked Floydster Cult Don't Feel a Reaper.
The Queen News of the World album was huge for me.
Speaker 4 (37:58):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (37:59):
Would you always hang out with Kelly, Like, who was
your crew? To like go to two shows?
Speaker 3 (38:04):
Sometimes I went with Kelly. Sometimes I didn't, you know,
I remember being seeing Kelly like on stage during Marshall
Tucker Bant like she was somehow sitting on the PA
or something. It was crazy, that's cool.
Speaker 2 (38:22):
Did you think like back then, like, oh I want
to be on stage one day, I want to be
a professional musician.
Speaker 3 (38:28):
Oh no, absolutely not, I don't. Yeah. No.
Speaker 2 (38:33):
Then how did you and Kelly start playing around town?
How did that come about?
Speaker 3 (38:38):
Probably the first thing we did probably is I think
maybe my mom, who was an early early childhood education teacher.
She was very involved. She was in parents co op
and she was a teacher. She organized it all. And
(38:58):
I think they had a booth at the community park
for a summer fourth or something like that, and I
think there were two stools, and also weddings. We were
asked to play weddings for adults. Any song was big.
(39:22):
Kelly could sing alvam Maria, Wow. Kelly sang the rose
Bet Midler and we would play like the ground round.
It's like people at tables and you would drink eat
peanuts and you would the shells would just fall on
the floor and do four sets a night.
Speaker 2 (39:41):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (39:41):
And there wasn't a PA, I don't think there.
Speaker 2 (39:45):
So you're ambiance while people are saying there eating peanuts, drinking.
Speaker 3 (39:48):
Absolutely and we would sing original songs that you know,
as well as other songs that were playing.
Speaker 2 (39:56):
I wanted to ask you about the Big Sur the
Big Surch show that you just recorded.
Speaker 3 (40:01):
Didn't that turn out great? Those animations it's beautiful, Yeah,
it really is.
Speaker 2 (40:06):
It's really really nice and you look like you're having
so much much fun.
Speaker 3 (40:09):
I was really nice. You know. The show was canceled
because there was so much rain. It was just raining
and raining, and everything was sort of flooded, like the
stage itself. Some of the cabling was just sitting in
water because it was outdoors and it just be there
was a deluge for so long. If you imagine people
walking in there was just huge puddles of mud just
(40:32):
even standing where they would be standing. Oh yeah, so
it's like, let's call it. And I guess it happens
quite often, you know that there's so much train.
Speaker 4 (40:40):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (40:41):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (40:42):
So our tour manager, a guy named Rory, I knew
symb Ellas and they were interested in recording us, and
there was an ideal about it and they said, you know,
we can come up to Big Sur and record the show,
and then the show wasn't happening, so we just went
into the woods and they did that and it turned
out so good.
Speaker 2 (41:01):
Yeah, everybody seems so happy and it sounds so beautiful.
Speaker 1 (41:04):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (41:05):
How did you pick what songs to play out there?
Speaker 3 (41:08):
We wanted to do them. You know, the violin is
a good one, you know, stuff to do with violin
because we have the violin there, and it kind of
picked the ones that work with the instrumentation that's available,
so it was pretty easy to pick them.
Speaker 2 (41:23):
I love do You Love Me?
Speaker 3 (41:24):
Now? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (41:26):
That song is so beautiful when you write like a
song like that, is that come from a personal experience
or is it just a fictional thing?
Speaker 3 (41:35):
That is one of the songs me and Kelly would
sing during being sort of you know, Joe's is a
fish house days really Yeah, And I remember like we
were doing many sets in one day, you know, in
one evening, did you got to do three sets or something?
(41:58):
And I remember I think if they were traveling for work,
because one of the guys came up and just who
you know, we did a lot and they were sitting
there in the hotel or when nearby or something, and
they I remember somebody specifically saying they really liked that song.
It was good, but then that's not the song that's
(42:19):
on the record, though it's been changed a little bit
because I went back at it, you know, in my twenties.
I look back at that thing that I used to
sing at Jose as a fish house, and I just went,
this is almost good. But it's so dumb. But the
sentiment that what it used to be. The sentiment makes
(42:43):
me feel so it's like, I don't know. It was
so easy to like relate to the song in a
different way, like in a more of a snarling way.
Speaker 2 (42:55):
I think the way that you first sang it it
was more snarling, or the second way.
Speaker 3 (43:00):
The second way, I think was more snarling. There was
something innocent and sort of benign about the first way
I did it, although I liked, I like to song,
and I wanted to do it. But it was easy
to just change the arrangement a little bit, make it
more menacing and to me that the meaning of the
song has changed for me, and it doesn't sound like,
(43:20):
you know, instead of like when two hearts have torn away,
now sothing like a bloody horns just thar. It's just
so stupid.
Speaker 1 (43:27):
It's also jump.
Speaker 3 (43:30):
And that I enjoyed. That was not the song we
sang at Jose's offishals. It was a little different. But
this is if that makes sense.
Speaker 2 (43:39):
Do you remember who you wrote it about?
Speaker 3 (43:42):
Not really? I mean I didn't really write it about anybody.
They're kind of somebody, but not enough to Actually it was,
you know, not really, And I think that's why it
kind of it was easy to bend into something different
because it wasn't sobdenly about really anything other than you know, oh,
(44:06):
this is a song goes like this, but now the
transformation of it being menacing and stuff. Oh, it's definitely
about some stuff now. Oh, definitely. It means way more
now than it did, which is weird to have. That's
a nice successful song, something that meant nothing before that,
(44:28):
I don't makes itself now. Good job.
Speaker 2 (44:37):
Success.
Speaker 3 (44:37):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (44:39):
What was the melody like at first?
Speaker 3 (44:41):
It's pretty similar. The melody was pretty similar. Yeah, yeah,
it's the same melody. The arrangements were different, and it's
just a versus were a little different. Stuff like that.
Speaker 2 (44:53):
Is there anything else you want to talk about with
the new album? Any songs you want to talk about.
Speaker 3 (44:57):
Or you know, one of things about the record that
I like is that I'm proud of the good relationships
I've had with people that I've been playing with in
my life, like Mondo and Lindsay just working with Tee
I've known in the eighties, and Kelly and Jim McPherson's
been on it, and Josephine actually played bass on Disobedience,
(45:18):
but her bass guitar was weirding out and so I
had replayed it. And then some new people the Jack Lawrence,
you know he plays bass for Racontourskay, and it's Kentucky.
He's from the Green you know, Green Horns, since it's
sort of a Cincinnati band. I used, you know, the
(45:38):
Teenage Fan Club. Yeah, there's a guy named Raymond who's
the guitar player, and I used him on the guitar.
It was the first time i'd used had played with Raymond.
And then like when coming up with the songs, like
I I had sang at Albini's wedding with Heather, Me
and Kelly went to Hawaii. We were like family, sang
(46:01):
at the wedding and we played a song that she
wanted for her wedding song at Dolly Parton song and
we did the bridal march. I played the Bridal March
on guitar, and I went to the island and got
a bunch of ukuleles and handed them out as so
all of us, you know, because there's a lot of
musicians can play along, you know.
Speaker 2 (46:23):
With the ut you know, and that's such a good idea.
Speaker 3 (46:26):
Yeah, it was really fun. It was good there. It
was such a great such a great time. And for
a wedding gift, Steve and Heather got us quite like
nice ukuleles, you know. And I was packing my stuff up,
my gear to go someplace, and I threw with the ukulelean.
It wasn't even mine, it was my one my sister got.
(46:49):
There was a sheet that came in the package, that
laminated chord sheet, and I just started picking it up,
found how to shoot my dog has fleas, and then
had the laminated chord sheet and started playing around with it,
and I wrote this song on it, the ukulelean in
my head. It had these melodies and these incredibly complicated
(47:13):
orchestral movement happening all the way through it. And I
just and I was like Joseph being she was up,
you know. We were going to rehearse for some stuff.
I think it was doing all nerve stuff or something,
and I grabbed the ukulele. I have written a song
on ukulele and she looked at me. She went, absolutely not,
(47:38):
it's just funny. So then I knew, like that song
would be a solo one. It wouldn't be a Breederish one.
You know, It's like and that's yeah, on the way
to thinking about an album.
Speaker 2 (47:47):
You know, is there new Breeders music coming out or
working on?
Speaker 3 (47:51):
Or we play Disobedience in the Breeders shows. Well they're
all on it. Yeah, it gets confusing, It gets confusing.
It is confusing.
Speaker 2 (48:01):
So yeah, yes, and yeah, thank you Kim. It's so
nice to talk you and.
Speaker 3 (48:07):
I love talking to you. Thank you.
Speaker 2 (48:09):
Yeah, thank you for doing this and best of luck
with all.
Speaker 3 (48:12):
Thank you for doing this. I really appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (48:17):
Thanks Token Deal for chatting through her career and the
making of her new solo album, Nobody Loves You More.
You can hear all of our favorite tracks from the Pixies,
the Breeders, and Kim solo work on a playlist at
Broken record podcast dot com, and be sure to follow
us on Instagram at the Broken Record Pod. You can
follow us on Twitter at Broken Record. Broken Record is
(48:37):
produced and edited by Leah Rose, with marketing help from
Erek Sandler and Jordan McMillan. Our engineer is Ben Tollinday.
Broken Record is a production of Pushkin Industries. If you
love this show and others from Pushkin, consider subscribing to
Pushkin Plus. Pushkin Plus is a podcast subscription that offers
bonus content and ad free listening for four ninety nine
(48:59):
a month. Look for Pushkin Plus on Apple Podcasts subscriptions,
and if you like this show, please remember to share, rate,
and review us on your podcast app. Theme musics by
Anny beats On Justin Richmond
Speaker 3 (49:17):
M HM
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