Credit: Rosario Lopez

Pixies on their relationship with David Bowie

Sat 20 August 2022 11:30, UK

In a new interview, Pixies singer Black Francis has reminisced about his relationship with David Bowie and the time they went out for a curry in Manchester.

The singer took a trip down memory lane with NME and were quizzed about his memories of Bowie. On the late English artist’s 2002 album, Heathen, he decided to cover the Pixies track ‘Cactus’. However, Francis was incredibly blasé about the chain of events.

“It’s cool when people like your music and do versions of it but I don’t like to make a big deal out of it,” Francis told the publication. “Bowie was just a music geek – like me. It’s too star-fucky if you say [adopts an air-headed voice] ‘Oh my God, he likes me! He looked at me!’. Everybody’s shit stinks. I’m not pushing an egalitarian agenda here, but let’s get real!”

Although he did recall one in-person encounter with ‘The Starman’, Francis remembered: “David Bowie once took us to an Indian restaurant in Manchester, and I sat next to him shooting the shit. At the end, he offered to pay and pulled out a credit card and said [his birth name]: ‘David Jones!’”

For Bowie’s 50th birthday, Pixies covered his track ‘Fashion’ and changed the title to “fascist”, which he’d read was supposedly the original lyric. He explained: “I read somewhere that was the original lyric, and at the very last minute, it was changed to ‘Fashion’, which was deemed better. To be amusing, I did a cover as my gift and my thank-you for letting us participate in his 50th birthday show. John Flansburgh from They Might Be Giants arranged the session, and I brought along my father to watch me record for the first time.”

The new Pixies album, Doggerel, arrives on September 30th through BMG, and the band are set to tour the United States later this year.