Formation (1984–1986) Guitarist
Joey Santiago and songwriter
Black Francis (born Charles Michael Kittridge Thompson IV) met in 1984 when they lived next to each other while attending the
University of Massachusetts Amherst. Although Santiago was worried about distractions, he noticed Francis played music and the pair began to jam together. Francis spent six months in Puerto Rico studying Spanish, then returned to Amherst and dropped out of the university. The pair formed a band in January 1986. Two weeks later, Francis placed an advertisement seeking a bass player who liked both the folk act
Peter, Paul and Mary and the alternative rock band
Hüsker Dü.
Kim Deal was the only person to respond, and arrived at the audition without a bass, as she had never played one before. She was invited to join as she liked the songs Francis showed her. She obtained a bass, and the trio started rehearsing in Deal's apartment. After recruiting Deal, Kim paid for her sister,
Kelley Deal, to fly to Boston and audition as a drummer. Though Francis approved, Kelley was not confident in her drumming, and was more interested in playing songs written by Kim; she later joined Kim's band the
Breeders. Kim's husband suggested they hire
David Lovering, whom Kim had met at her wedding reception. The group arrived at a name after Santiago selected the word "
pixies" randomly from a dictionary, liking how it looked and its definition as "mischievous little
elves". Funded by Francis' father, the Pixies spent three days recording a 17-track demo at Fort Apache, which would become known as the
Purple Tape for its purple cover. Promoter Ken Goes became the Pixies' manager, and he passed the demo to
Ivo Watts-Russell of the British independent record label
4AD. Upon signing with 4AD, eight tracks from the Purple Tape were selected for the
Come On Pilgrim mini-LP, the Pixies' first release.
Surfer Rosa and Doolittle (1988–1989) Come On Pilgrim was followed by the Pixies' first full-length album,
Surfer Rosa. It was recorded by
Steve Albini, completed in two weeks, and released in early 1988.
Surfer Rosa was eventually
certified gold in the US in 2005. The Pixies arrived in England to support Throwing Muses on the European "Sex and Death" tour, beginning at the
Mean Fiddler in London. The tour also took them to the Netherlands, where the Pixies had already received a significant amount of media attention. which was recorded in the last six weeks of 1988.
Doolittle had a much cleaner sound compared to the raw sound of their first two releases, largely due to Norton and the production budget of
US$40,000, which was quadruple that of
Surfer Rosa.
Doolittle featured the single "
Here Comes Your Man", which biographers Josh Frank and Caryn Ganz describe as an unusually jaunty and pop-like song for the band. "
Monkey Gone to Heaven" was popular on alternative rock radio in the US, reached the top 10 on the
Billboard Modern Rock Tracks, and the single entered the Top 100 in the U.K. Like
Surfer Rosa,
Doolittle was acclaimed by fans and music critics alike. In the UK, the album was a commercial success, reaching number 8 in the
Albums Chart.
Break (1989–1990) After
Doolittle, the tensions that had been growing between Deal and Francis came to a head (for example, Francis threw a guitar at Deal during a concert in
Stuttgart), and Deal was almost fired from the band when she refused to play at a concert in
Frankfurt. Santiago, in an interview with
Mojo, described Deal as being "headstrong and want[ing] to include her own songs, to explore her own world" on the band's albums; eventually she accepted that Francis was the singer and had musical control of the band, but after the Frankfurt incident, "they kinda stopped talking". Their debut album,
Pod, was released in 1990.
Bossanova and Trompe le Monde (1990–1992) In 1990, all members of the group except Deal moved to Los Angeles. Lovering stated that he, Santiago, and Francis moved there "because the recording studio was there". Unlike previous recordings, the band had little time to practice beforehand, and Black Francis wrote much of the album in the studio. Featuring the singles "
Velouria" and "
Dig for Fire",
Bossanova reached number 70 in the United States. In contrast, the album peaked at number three in the United Kingdom. Also in 1990, the Pixies released a cover of the
Paul Butterfield Blues Band's "Born in Chicago" on the compilation album ''
Rubáiyát: Elektra's 40th Anniversary''. The band continued to tour and released
Trompe le Monde in 1991, their final album before their break-up. The album included "U-Mass", which has been described as being about college apathy, and featured a guitar riff written years earlier at the University of Massachusetts before Francis and Santiago dropped out. Also that year, the band contributed a cover of "I Can't Forget" to the
Leonard Cohen tribute album ''
I'm Your Fan'', and began an international tour on which they played stadiums in Europe and smaller venues in the United States. In 1992, they supported
U2 on the lucrative US leg of their
Zoo TV Tour. Tensions rose among band members, and they went on sabbatical and focused on separate projects.
Breakup and solo projects (1993–2003) In early 1993, Francis announced in an interview with
BBC Radio 5 that the Pixies were finished, without telling the other members of the band. He offered no explanation at the time. After the breakup, the members embarked on separate projects. Black Francis renamed himself Frank Black, and released several solo albums, including a string of releases with
Frank Black and the Catholics. Deal returned to the Breeders and released several albums, including a hit single, "
Cannonball", from the platinum-selling
Last Splash in 1993. Santiago played lead guitar on a number of Frank Black albums and other artists' albums. He wrote music for the television show
Undeclared and theme music for the film
Crime and Punishment in Suburbia. He formed
the Martinis with his wife, Linda Mallari, and released the album
Smitten in 2004. Lovering became a magician and performed a style of magic he called "scientific phenomenalism". He was temporarily a member of the Martinis, and later drummed with the band
Cracker. 4AD and Elektra Records continued to release Pixies material: the best-of album
Death to the Pixies (1997), the Peel-session compilation
Pixies at the BBC (1998), and the ''
Complete 'B' Sides'' compilation (2001). In 2002, material from the Pixies' original 17-track demo tape was released as an EP,
Pixies, on
Cooking Vinyl in the U.K. and
SpinART Records in the U.S.; Black has also used these labels to release solo work and albums with the Catholics. Their song "Where is My Mind" was played during the climax of the movie
Fight Club in 1999, introducing the song to a new generation of fans.
Reunion (2003–2012) , October 1, 2004. From left to right, Frank Black, David Lovering (back) and Kim Deal. In the years following the Pixies' breakup, Black dismissed rumors of a reunion, but incorporated an increasing number of Pixies songs in his sets with the Catholics, and occasionally included Santiago in his solo work and Lovering's magic show as an opening act to concerts. and tickets for nearly all the initial tour dates sold out within minutes. The Pixies played their first reunion concert on April 13, 2004, at the Fine Line Music Cafe in
Minneapolis, Minnesota. A warm-up tour through the U.S. and Canada (in which all dates were recorded and released as individual limited-edition CDs) was followed by an appearance at the
Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival. The band toured Europe in the spring and summer of 2004, beginning on 26 May in
Reykjavík and concluding on 22 August in
Chelmsford. The group won the Act-of-the-Year award in the 2004
Boston Music Awards. The 2004 reunion tour grossed over $14 million in ticket sales.
Pitchfork would later credit the band for ushering in "the indie-icon reunion-tour circuit ... a long overdue opportunity to play for the sort of massive crowds that their famous fans—
Nirvana,
Radiohead, and
Weezer among them—had built on their influence." In June 2004, the band released a new song, "
Bam Thwok" exclusively on the
iTunes Music Store; it reached number one in the
UK Official Download Chart. 4AD released
Wave of Mutilation: The Best of Pixies, along with a companion DVD,
Pixies. The band also contributed a rendition of "Ain't That Pretty at All" to the
Warren Zevon tribute album
Enjoy Every Sandwich. In 2005, the Pixies made appearances at festivals including
Lollapalooza, "T on the Fringe", and the
Newport Folk Festival. They continued to make appearances throughout 2006 and 2007, culminating in their first shows in Australia. Francis suggested that a new Pixies studio album was possible but unlikely, the main obstacle being Deal's reluctance. To celebrate the 20th anniversary of the release of
Doolittle, the Pixies launched a tour in October 2009 where they performed the album track-for-track, including the associated
B-sides. The tour began in Europe, with the South American and Australian tour following in March 2010, then New Zealand, and more European dates in spring 2010, and back to North America in 2010.
Deal's departure, Indie Cindy and the arrival of Lenchantin (2013–2015) In October 2012, shortly after the Pixies began recording new material, Deal left the band. Her departure was announced in June 2013. Two weeks later, the band released a new song, "Bagboy", as a free download via the Pixies' website. It features Jeremy Dubs of Bunnies and formerly of the Bennies on vocals in place of Deal. In 2023, Santiago said Deal was not in contact with her former bandmates and was "living her own life". On July 1, 2013, the Pixies announced the addition of the
Muffs and
Pandoras guitarist and vocalist
Kim Shattuck to replace Deal for their 2013 European tour. On September 3, 2013, the Pixies released an EP of new songs,
EP1. On November 29, 2013, Shattuck announced that she had been dismissed from the band. In December 2013, it was announced that the
Entrance Band and
A Perfect Circle bassist
Paz Lenchantin was joining the Pixies for the 2014 tour. Lenchantin said she had been a "die-hard" Pixies fan as a teenager and that Black was the greatest artist she had worked with. The Pixies released
EP2 on January 3, 2014, supported by the single "Blue Eyed Hexe".
EP3 was released on March 24. All the EPs were only available as downloads and limited-edition vinyl. The three EPs were collected as the first Pixies album in over two decades,
Indie Cindy, in April 2014. In 2015, the Pixies toured in support of
Robert Plant for a series of dates across North America.
Head Carrier, Beneath the Eyrie and Doggerel (2016–2023) In July 2016, the Pixies announced that Lenchantin had become a permanent member, and that their sixth album,
Head Carrier, would be released on September 30, 2016. Their seventh album,
Beneath the Eyrie, was released on September 13, 2019, with the lead single, "On Graveyard Hill". The Pixies released a podcast, ''It's a Pixies Podcast
, documenting the recording of the album. The Pixies released a non-album single, "Human Crime", in March 2022. They released their eighth studio album, Doggerel'', with the single "There's a Moon On" on September 30 via BMG.
Lenchantin's departure, arrival of Richardson and The Night the Zombies Came (2024–present) On 4 March 2024, the Pixies announced that Lenchantin had left "to concentrate on her own projects". In June, the Pixies released the single "You're So Impatient", Richardson's first studio credit with the band. On October 25, 2024, the Pixies released their ninth full-length studio album,
The Night the Zombies Came, produced by
Tom Dalgety, who also worked on their previous three studio albums. == Style ==