Kim Deal was perusing social media last week when she saw a post from Olivia Rodrigo — who was enthusing over the fact that Deal’s band, the Breeders, would be opening her show at Madison Square Garden. And Deal says she was surprised as anyone else to see that.
“It was a cute post, wasn’t it?,” she told us later that morning. “I am hoping that her fans will be super excited, even if they don’t know us. I think audiences are different now. If a band comes out in front of the headliner, they know he headliner has backed them and they won’t be mean. We’ve been in front of Foo Fighters audiences and they’re a really sweet crowd, with husbands and wives sharing their love for that band. And this will be my first time at Madison Square Garden — unless the Pixies ever played there, but I really have no idea.” (In fact they did, but only after Deal’s departure).
Before that happens, the Breeders will be in Boston Sunday night to play the entirety of their “Last Splash” album at the House of Blues. When the Breeders made that album 30 years ago, they were still fresh from playing Sunday nights at the Middle East in Cambridge. But “Last Splash” became one of alternative rock’s cornerstone albums and gave the Breeders more recognition than they expected.
“I was used to our albums being stuck in the import bins at Newbury Comics — when they still wrapped the CD’s in plastic, remember? So there was no expectation that anything we did would ever get on the radio, even though I knew ‘Cannonball’ was a good song. But we never looked at the Top Ten, because who was on that? The worst bands in the world. And suddenly they were all talking about this crazy alternative rock thing. To us that meant there was a college circuit, where we could actually tour from city to city and play with all kinds of cool bands, like Husker Du and R.E.M.”
As an Ohio transplant, Deal recalls being impressed by the Boston circuit. “Everybody seemed really smart and successful, and I felt like a failure to launch. I remember Charles (aka Frank Black of the Pixies) throwing a party and it wasn’t cocaine or smack — He had tables full of hummus. People were really funny too — I remember touring with Throwing Muses, and that was the funniest tour I’ve ever been on.”
The classic lineup of the Breeders — Deal and her sister Kelley on vocals and guitar with bassist Josephine Wiggs and drummer Jim McPherson — as now been reunited far longer than they were originally together. They made a reunion album “All Nerve” in 2018 and are slowly working on another. “It’s better because we’re sober — That’s a big, huge difference. It changes communication when people are conscious. Maybe somebody’s having a bad day, but they’re not hurting from a hangover. And it certainly does help when people are able to wake up.”
The Breeders’ reunion coincided with Deal’s final exit from the Pixies — and though she wishes that band well, she won’t be back. “I think they’re loving what they do, they’re doing a fantastic job, and they’re probably going to be in existence longer than I was with them. They deserve a pat on the back. But I also get people coming up to me and saying ‘You know, I like the Breeders even though I never liked the Pixies’.”
