Two decades on from their re-formation, Pixies appetite for making new music is undimmed. Out October 25, Black Francis and co’s tenth album _The Night The Zombies Came is a_ppearing just 23 months after 2022’s previous album Doggerel.
“We’d finished touring, we had some free time, and the studio was open. So we thought, Why don’t we just go and record something?” drummer David Lovering tells MOJO.
The group recorded the album in three weeks last October with producer Tom Dalgety, who’s worked on the group’s last three records. “Sometimes we did three songs in a day, says Lovering. “We were comfortable with it enough to actually lay it down right.”
Sessions took place at Guilford Sound in Vermont, a facility billed as “New England’s premier eco-friendly recording studio and music retreat space.”
“The power is really, really clean over there, you can hear it,” says guitarist Joey Santiago,. “Tom’s brutally honest – we’re done with the honeymoon phase of tiptoeing around. The producer’s job is really just to suss people out, and he knows how to give advice in a tactful way.”
Lovering recalls singer, guitarist and writer Black Francis – AKA Charles Thompson – bringing some of the songs in demo form. “The way the recording goes is, drums first, then bass, then guitars, then vocals,” he says. “The residential area had a nice little living room, and we had a set of drums there with tons of tea towels all over it and these little practice amps. We’d run over a song and try to get it fresh, to learn it, really, on the spot, and then run over to the studio, which took about 15 minutes through the woods, and record it.”
Dawn of the undead... Black Francis at work in Guilford Sound, Vermont
Both are full of praise for Southampton-born new bassist/singer Emma Richardson who takes the place of original bassist Kim Deal and Paz Lenchantin, who played with the group from 2014. Emma is a fantastic player, says Loering. “It’s a happy camp, I’ll tell you. I think this album was the most comfortable that I’ve been.”
Santiago, meanwhile, wrote the lyrics for Hypnotised. “It’s about misophonia, this damn thing I have where I can’t stand the sound of chewing,” he says. “Charles likes to hear my thoughts. You know, I do have weird thoughts.”
They both recall a productive atmosphere, though Santiago admits, “I stressed out on solos, you know? I take every note seriously. I am a firm believer that for this band, there’s a certain way to play. My guitars aren’t allowed in the other band members’ headphones – only Tom’s allowed to hear it – because I get too self-conscious. Sometimes Tom would go, like, ‘Good one, Joe,’ and then Charles would go, ‘Hey, I want some of his stuff on my headphones.’ Well, it’s gonna mess up your singing! So they don’t get to hear it until it’s kind of finished.”
Songs, they say, range from country ballads to splenetic punk: “Some is more on the mellower side of things, and we’ve got some punky stuff in there,” says Santiago. “As per usual, a hodgepodge.” MOJO understands the record will include songs touching on “Druidism, apocalyptic shopping malls, mediaeval-themed restaurants, 12th-century poetic form, surf rock, gargoyles, bog people.” It’s out in time for Halloween on October 25, but they didn’t mean it to be a horror-themed record, they say.
Having released four albums before they initially split in the early ’90s, The Night The Zombies Came will be Pixies’ fifth album of new material since they reformed in 2003.
“Fans are happy to hear old stuff, but we’re creative people,” says Santiago. “We don’t want to be a Pixies cover band.”
“We re-formed in 2004 and we’re 20 years into it,” says Lovering, a keen metal detectorist who found several colonial-era belt buckles during the recording. “It’s longer now than we were together initially. We’re still doing it and we feel we’re still viable… it’s what we do: ‘Wash, Rinse, Repeat!’”
The Night The Zombies Came is out October 25 on BMG.
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Tracklist:
Primrose
You’re So Impatient
Jane (The Night The Zombies Came)
Chicken
Hypnotised
Johnny Good Man
Motoroller
I Hear You Mary
Oyster Beds
Mercy Me
Ernest Evans
Kings Of The Prairie
The Vegas Suite
Pictures: Travis Shinn/Tom Dalgety
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