He looks pretty fit, the charismatic and so often sarcastic leader, once Frank Black, now Black Francis, whom we meet just before a gig at 106, Rouen: “I have a slightly different pace today, I’m happy to stay home, do boring stuff“. So homebody, but not stingy when it comes to music.
The flame of Pixies has not died out in more than three decades of existence. However, for this disc the four members had to do with the pandemic, from a distance. “We found ourselves in the studio, to record the disc, after two years without having seen each other once, explains Black Francis. That’s really the effect of the pandemic. We had the songs, the music, but we were playing them together for the first time“.
The cohesion is there, despite everything. Since their reformation in the early 2000s, they seem strangely regenerated, with the desire here to go elsewhere, which pushed them, incredible, to write several titles of more than three minutes. Guitarist Joey Santiago laughs: “Our difference is the norm of others in reality. A three-minute title is very commonplace, but we’re not known for that, are we?
It’s fun to do something that doesn’t look like us… We’re quite open!
Black Francis, leader of the Pixies, at franceinfo
Anyway, no matter the format, the audience stays there, the story is written. “We were never really part of any particular scene, we always stayed in our bubbleassures Black Francis. I’m 57, and most of the time I don’t feel like a 57-year-old. Of course today people see our history as something compact, linked… It’s just a bunch of records“. The Pixies, still standing and twirling 34 years after their first record.
The Pixies release a new album | Yann Bertrand’s chronicle
to listen
pixies, Doggerel (Pixies Rec./BMG). Album available September 30. In concert on March 15 in Paris (Olympia).