Why did Pixies first split up?
Few bands from the late 1980s had as much influence over alternative music as Pixies. After forming in 1986, the band released their debut album, Surfer Rosa, two years later, a project which featured the hit singles, ‘Where Is My Mind?’ and ‘Gigantic’. The album was succeeded by Doolittle the following year, which, upon its release, landed a place in the UK Album Chart’s top ten.
Given their style, Pixies bore a massive influence over Nirvana’s Kurt Cobain, who was particularly enamoured with their debut album. He stated: “I was completely nihilistic up until about four or five years ago when I first heard [Surfer Rosa]. It changed my attitude. It made me finally admit, after being into punk rock for so many years, that I liked other styles of music as well.”
Furthermore, Cobain even admitted to attempting to rip off Pixies when writing ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’. He said: “We used their sense of dynamics, being soft and quiet and then loud and hard.” Cobain wasn’t alone in his obsession with the alt-rockers. David Bowie once labelled Pixies “just about the most-compelling music outside of Sonic Youth in the entire 1980s.” The band’s influence cannot be understated, with artists ranging from Bono to Radiohead’s Thom Yorke citing Pixies as monumentally impactful.
Despite the band’s influence over the 1990s alternative rock scene, by 1993, lead vocalist Black Francis announced their disbandment on BBC Radio 5 with no further explanation. The split came as a shock, not just to fans but to the rest of the band, who had not been told Pixies was no more. Eventually, guitarist Joey Santiago was informed of the split via phone, but bassist Kim Deal and drummer David Lovering received a simple fax. So, why did the band come to such a sudden end?
Bubbling underneath the band’s distorted dichotomous rhythms was a legion of tension between members, most prominently, Francis and Deal. The band initially went on hiatus in 1989 following a combination of exhaustion and a series of incidents, such as Francis throwing a guitar at Deal on stage in Stuttgart and Deal refusing to play in Frankfurt, which led the two to stop talking. Deal formed a new band, The Breeders, which gave her greater creative control, something she lacked in Pixies. Even Cobain noticed that Deal’s talents were underestimated in Pixies, stating: “I wish Kim was allowed to write more songs for the Pixies because ‘Gigantic’ is the best Pixies song, and Kim wrote it.”
By 1990, the band ended their hiatus by releasing Bossanova that same year and Trompe Le Monde in 1991. Yet during this period, Francis and Deal’s relationship worsened, with the former telling NME in 2016: “Kim and I just didn’t get along well after a time.” Detailing further, Francis continued: “She always had her own ambitions and became comfortable in a leadership role in her other band. It must have been hard for her to be in a band where some other guy was always pulling at the reins.”
Not only were Francis and Deal struggling to get along, but the band felt overworked. Francis explained: “We would have survived if we could have just stopped the train and taken a fucking vacation. The people around us who were older should have seen that.”
Pixies reformed in 2003 and performed a series of shows over subsequent years, much to fans’ excitement. However, before they could release their comeback album, Indy Cindy, in 2014, Pixies announced that Deal had left the band for good. Since her departure, Deal has released more material with The Breeders, most recently, 2018’s All Nerve.
