Chords for Pixies - Interview Toronto 1989

quite a bit of creative freedom.
If you listen to their records you'll see why they needed it.
_ It's quite an inventory of styles that they go through on any given recording.
They released an
EP back in 86 called Come On Pilgrim that was followed up in 1988 by their first LP called
Surfer Rosa.
This year's release is called Doolittle.
It's their second full-length LP.
The band consists of a gentleman named Black Francis, whose name is really Charles Thompson,
go figure it.
He and Joey Santiago were college buddies in Boston.
They formed the band together
and then put out advertisements to find the rest of the members.
Well, bassist Kim Deal
answered an ad that asked for somebody to play in a Husker-Do, Peter, Paul and Mary type group.
She was amused.
Arrived with no bass, was the only applicant and got the job.
Her friend David
Lovering was brought in to be the drummer.
The Pixies, our feature on this week's [Bbm] Interlude. _
_ _ _ _ _ [Bb] _
_ The songs are like experiments that you perform. _ _ _
Is that _ an accurate way? _
_ _ _ _ How would you describe
the process of putting together a Pixies song?
It's kind of like an [E] experiment we do one at a
time.
It's like that.
I don't [Gm] know.
To make a cool rock tune _ with _ _ that song.
_ [E] _
_ _ [Bb] That's what it sounds
like.
It doesn't sound like you're intentionally trying to create a bunch of songs that have this
particular style.
No, no.
I appreciate bands that have a very, very stylistic and remain in their
particular _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ [Abm] _
_ [N] _ _ _ _ _
style.
_ If _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ [Bb] a song becomes an experiment, what does it become an experiment in?
How loud you
can do it or how short it can be or what [B] extreme feelings you can [N] express?
We _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _
_ [Abm] _ _ _ _
make the song.
We just
that's not the [Bb] experiment.
The experiment is just, wow, this is going to be another [E] song.
We try to reduce it to what it was like when we were 13 or 14.
You start first start playing guitar
in your [C] friend's garage and [A] you just make a [Eb] bunch of noise.
It's fun.
And that's [N] sort of
what we do.
We try to keep that same mentality.
You know, we're not that age anymore.
And we're certainly not as _ _
[Ab] mature as that.
[Dbm] We're very mature now.
[N] But I mean,
you try to keep it primitive. _
Yeah, it's not my primitive, but I mean,
yeah, I guess just like simple and stupid and and for no particular reason at all, except to. _
_ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ [Gb] _ [Bb] _
I've read about your family background as being a quota.
[N] _ _ How does that find its way into the music?
I'm mostly just in the _ memories of [Ab] Bible stories of the old _ _ _ [N] _ _
lyric references.
Yeah,
[A] lyric references.
You know [Bb] what I mean?
What about delivery of the songs? _ _
Yeah, I mean, you know, people can say that, like, you know, he's got that preaching kind
of vocal style, [N] but I don't know if it comes from watching a lot of that.
I certainly have seen a lot
of that. _ _
I don't know.
I listen to like my pop [Db] albums about a zillion times, [Abm] too.
So I might
have something [N] to do with it, too.
You know, I really don't know which it is.
Is there that kind
of anger in your songs that you hear in English?
No, there's no [Bb] anger.
It's just _
[N] it's just
entertainment.
I mean, I'm really just trying to entertain.
_ [Gb] [A] It seemed to me that there's something
a little more [Abm] confrontational than mere entertainment in the songs that I've heard. _
[N] Well, I mean, you know, _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ these are like staples in literature or any sort of other sort of art,
probably more so than upbeat, happy, humorous type things.
And so when I say it's just _ _ _ darker _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _
kind of things, but but it's still those are entertaining things to sing about, I guess,
[A] or write about or talk about.
_ _ _ [E] What are your obsessions [A] that you [Bb] bring to music?
I don't _ know.
It's more vague when it comes to rock [A] music.
It's more vague.
I [E] think we just have
a bunch of chords and we got to fill up spaces and put some words [N] in there.
And in _ a naive kind
of way, I'm trying to like be like surreal or Dada. _
_ You know, _ _ _ I know that you're [E] responsible
for writing most of the songs, but do you pull the fellow band members in at a certain point,
saying, OK, I've gone this far with it.
Can you help me take it to?
Yeah, sometimes it's really
crude and it's [Bb] hardly anything there.
Sometimes it's more.
[B] _ _ _
[A] _ [G] Whenever [Eb] we all get over to [A] Dave's
garage and [Bb] _ _
[N] good _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ because we actually make them and we hire our friends to put them together and
_ [Ab] so it is a lot of [Bb] fun. _ _
We have small budgets. _ _
You treat it as I'm just running into so many
bands these days who tell me that they hate making videos, that it's a complete burden.
And I'm wondering, do you treat it as a challenge that goes along with the challenge of making
music?
Yeah, it is a challenge because, you know, the promotional thing like this _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _
_ is a song and
that's the source documents for [B] this, just like a book or something else.
It's not like showing a
snippet of a song.
[E] You're playing the whole song and you're [A] experiencing the whole audio thing [Bb] of
this is their whole song that you're hearing.
[Dbm] And _ they forget about that.
And then also,
as far as _ [N] filmmaking or TV _ hobbyists, I mean, I don't have a lot of respect for that.
It's not cool enough.
All them. _ _
_ [Gm] _ _ [Bb] _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ No, you go.
Well, you got David [N] had _ _ _ _
_ _ [C] _ a little set [E] where they
_ video _ [C] _
_ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ [Gb] _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ [N] _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _
_ we're doing the editing, putting it all together and we're just _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ [Gm] _ [G] _ _
_ _ _ [Gb] _ _ _
_ pulling around the video effects, the head stretch.
And it just seems so funny. _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ Many great things come out of boredom, I think.
[Eb] _ _ _ [N] _