If you were to ask what Joey Santiago and the Pixies were like a generation ago, you’d be met with an array of different answers. According to a 1991 account from The Times, the band descended upon the Hollywood Palladium one December evening, hot on the heels of its latest album “Trompe Le Monde,” in dramatic fashion.
“The Pixies — anchored by David Lovering’s hard-driving drumming and Kim Deal’s booming bass, and marked by Joey Santiago’s distorted guitar crunches — have become a terrific live band, almost able to match the sonic rewards of their albums,” Steve Hochman wrote of the occasion.
“What counts is that the combinations of music and words and yelps strike nerves,” he added. “And, in truth, there’s more to many Pixies songs than that.”
Indeed, there was and is. But unfortunately for fans of the Boston foursome, “Trompe Le Monde” would be the last album they heard from the group before its untimely demise just two years later, or so they thought.
Shockingly, the band would get back together more than a decade later, swapping bassist Kim Deal for Emma Richardson. Fans were greeted with a reunion tour that saw them featured in both Coachella and Lollapalooza, leaving them excited for what was to come. But, it would be another exhausting wait of 10 years until they got their hands on “Indie City,” the group’s fifth studio album released in 2014.
It’s now an additional 10 years later, and the band has come full circle. They will once again play the Palladium on June 20 and 21 — the former will see them perform “Trompe Le Monde” in its entirety, just as they did 34 years ago.
“It’s great because there are songs in it that we hardly play,” Santiago says of the album. “So those are going to go back in rotation, and it gives us more songs to choose from.”
“The only problem is switching guitars. There’s a lot of switching guitars around,” he says with a laugh.
He’s sat comfortably in what appears to be an office space. Atop his head is a green and white hat, with “LA” embroidered on its front. He’s got a white beard , which makes sense for the 60-year-old father of two.
It’s a story all too familiar to the ‘90s greats — his bandmate, Frank Black, also has two kids, and so does drummer Dave Lovering.
“After our third year, pre-breakup, it became where it [touring] was just exhausting,” Santiago says, via Zoom. “No matter what age you are, it’s exhausting. … I took my kids [to shows] just for three days in the same damn time zone, they were exhausted.”
The key to keeping up between all the touring and album releases, according to him, is to listen to new music.
“You gotta feed the kitty or whatever,” he jokes.
He considers discovering music to be “part of the work,” and a crucial step to generating new ideas for the group. He says he’s been frequenting Wet Leg radio recently: “It’s new, it’s fresh and it doesn’t suck.”
It’s been an important factor when it comes to their latest releases, such as their newest project, “The Night the Zombies Came,” which was released in October 2024. Unlike other post-breakup albums, this one allowed Santiago much more freedom when it came to laying down tracks. It shows between his “long solos” and extra guitar work, which he says felt like he had returned to playing as he did when he was a kid.
“It’s what I would have done if I were still in middle school or high school,” he says. “That kind of thing.”
And yet, fans have still been critical of the band’s style since their reunion, fearful that they may never return to the sound that once shot them to fame on albums like “Surfer Rosa” and “Doolittle.” It seems to put the group in a tricky spot, constantly trying to evolve while also drawing upon their roots.
“It does sound different, and hey, we’re different people,” Santiago says.
He seemingly takes it all in stride, noting that while he is trying to “get back in that frame of mind” seen on those aforementioned albums. “Everyone’s got to be on the same page,” he said.
“In the grand scheme of things, it’s damned if you do, damned if you don’t,” he continues. “If we’re too different, we’re gonna get flack for it. If we make ‘Doolittle’ part two, we’re gonna get flack for it.”
As for the future, the band simply plans on continuing to do what it has always done best: making rock music. The members don’t look likely to make any dramatic transitions into any other genres, and don’t pay much mind to ongoing trends within the music industry. They’re your classic “Buddy Holly setup” with an “occasional splash of keyboards.”
“If you want guitar music, you can go to a few bands that will provide it, and we’re one of them,” he notes.
And perhaps it is this very approach that has helped them to maintain their early fans while still appealing to younger audiences. That, or social media, where songs like “Where Is My Mind?” and “Monkey Gone to Heaven” are reposted hundreds of thousands of times across various platforms. Though it also may be worth giving a nod to that final scene in “Fight Club.”
“It feels good,” Santiago says. “We’re lucky.”
It’s even been so infectious that at home, he can no longer shy away from his alter ego comfortably.
“They’re starting to get what I’m doing,” he says of his kids, with a smile. “They started getting at me two years ago.”
“They’re of that age, where they’ll go places and hear the Pixies. Their friends will say, ‘hey, have you ever heard of the Pixies? They’re really good.’ Professors are mentioning the Pixies. Parents are mentioning the Pixies. So they know, and they like it.”
The post Could a new Pixies classic be on the way? Joey Santiago wants to get into that ‘frame of mind’ appeared first on Los Angeles Times.
