Approaching one year on from the release of their tenth studio album The Night the Zombies Came, Alt Rock legends The Pixies are headed back to Australia this November for a run of special double-night performances across the country.
Celebrating the anniversaries of Bossanova (1990) and Trompe le Monde (1991), the band will play both albums in full on the first night, followed by a second night of cross-catalogue favourites including cuts from their latest record. It’s a unique format that promises something fresh for both long-time fans and newcomers.
We caught up with Pixies guitarist Joey Santiago to talk the upcoming tour, albums and the future of guitar rigs.
Hey Joey! It is a genuine pleasure. Thanks so much for giving us the opportunity to have a chat with myself on behalf of the AU Review.
Good! No problem. Yeah, thank you. Thank you for doing this.
I see it’s sunny where you are too. I’m not sure what time zone we’re working in simultaneously, but it looks like a convenient one.
(laughs) Yeah, yeah, it’s 4pm here. I’m in Los Angeles.
So you’re headed down to Australia this November. The way I understand it, there’s two shows in each of the four cities. The first night is like a combination of Bossanova and Tromp Le Monde. And there’s a bit of classic Pixies mixed in with The Night the Zombies Came on the other. So I just kind of want to know how was the split decided on that? What was the sort of discussions around wanting to sort of split the sets on each night?
I think the initial idea came because Bossanova or Tromp le Monde hit their 35th or whatever year anniversary. So it’s a good little story behind a tour that we’re going to do one of those albums. And we clumped them together because they were done a year apart. All our records were done within a year from each other. Yeah, I mean just do that and then a general set. That’s basically you know how we just did it. It was as simple as that. We’re going to give you the two albums and then we’re going to do a general set on the second night.
Do you find that kind of refreshing from a playing perspective? So many bands tour the whole world with the same set but you guys get to kind of flip it each night. Is that nice or is there a bit of safety in the repeated set.
Well you know that’s one of the reasons why, one of the good reasons that we’re doing this too is that we can do the general set after we’ve done the “rigid” set. So it gives us more… freshness at every city.
I think as fans we kind of assume there’s a really big band meeting with lots of discussion and I imagine when you’ve got a catalogue that starts spanning a little bit longer and longer each album, there must be a bit of a fight for what’s making the cut. I guess that might help it a little bit.
Oh you mean for the second night?
Yeah.
We do that. We would…you know we really don’t have a set list anyways. We don’t have a set list for the second night. There just isn’t one. So everything’s different all the time.
Is there a little bit of trepidation or does it become exciting once you know you can kind of pull that off and you can kind of just pull the tricks out of the bag as you kind of see fit?
No it’s exciting! It’s good. It’s a good thing.
Maybe this is just me being one of “those” music fans, but I do find that I’m a bigger fan of the deep cuts on albums. Do you have a preference for deep cuts both in your own music and amongst some of the bands that you fell in love with?
I do. You know, like I don’t know. I’ll just pick one. What’s one band? The Beatles. I like that song “Flying.” It’s an instrumental by them. You hardly hear that and I think that’s great, I just think that’s a great song. The Rolling Stones. God what is it, something about going to space. Something 2000. I forgot the name of the track. But anyways, I do like the feel. I like the deep cuts. (maybe “2000 Light Years from Home” – Ed.)
I guess from a performance perspective on that angle too, what’s the push and pull personally when you want to play the songs everyone’s gonna go off on. You know you’ve got the big ones in the bag, but then you’ve got the people on the barrier that want the deep tracks. Is there a push and pull between kind of knowing “these guys will get it” and “maybe these guys won’t”.
For the new songs, when we play the new song I like when I see some people because those will be the deep cuts — some people are already singing the lyrics and they know it. That’s pretty cool! And then looking at someone singing and a person next to them is going like what the hell? What song is this? (laugh). That kind of shocking look of that person. I saw it one night and I kind of looked out for it ever since. And then everyone’s there they wanted to hear that “Where’s My Mind” song!
Surely that never really gets old though when you do kick into that song and everyone goes crazy?
Oh yeah.
One of your first stops in Australia is the Fremantle prison. We seemingly cannot get away from our convict roots.
(laughs)
I was just wondering are there any kind of strange venues that you’ve ever played or anything that stands out to you? And maybe a follow up is if you have any favourite ones here or abroad.
We have, we played Red Rocks around Denver here in Colorado. That’s always great. And as far as over in Australia it’s got to be the Sydney Opera House. Of course. That’s a no brainer there. That’s always a special place to play.
Well outside of the venues how much has touring itself kind of changed for you guys over the years? Did the buses get a little bit bigger? Did the routines get a little bit longer? What’s the sort of changes that you find the most maybe jarring from then?
I look up after my health more. You know I I’ve been substituting a lot more healthy habits. Because you know we do tour a lot. And you know that stuff. The basic stuff.
Is traveling kind of like an inherently unhealthy way of being for several months? Because when you go on vacation for instance it’s always like the cheesecake and the room service and that kind of thing. Do you have to find that you change your mindset when you tour to kind of keep it healthy?
Yeah. There are. I do. The diet is very important. I just keep everything healthy but sometimes you’re in a place where you have to have the local food. And I do. I prefer the local mum and pop and the local cuisines. So I still watch everything in moderation, you know.
How similar or different is it now when you put out an album like say The Night of the Zombies compared to something like Bossanova or Doolittle? How much has creating an album changed compared to the early albums?
Oh it hasn’t really. It just hasn’t. It’s just the same thing. Let’s just do our best. That’s always been the mindset of every record once we started.
I don’t know if it feels “icky” to use the term legacy as you build into the album, but do you feel more or less pressure knowing that the Pixies are such an entity in of itself?
Nah, I don’t feel that. I don’t feel too precious about the past. (pause) You can’t do it. It seems like it will stifle you.
On that, do you enjoy the studio or playing live more? What sort of gets you guys going?
A bit of both. I’m enjoying the studio more and more as I get in there. I would lean towards right now maybe just taking a break from recording and live. And freshen up for the new album.
And here’s probably a more nerdy question that people like myself are going to be the only ones to ask, but how do you feel about modellers and amp sims and the sort of introduction of the digital modelling space within the guitars world?
Oh!
Your guitar playing is very particular and unique. I would say, experimental. So it’s interesting to know where you stand on that side of things.
I have nothing against modelling. In fact, I’m actually thinking out doing it!
Do you have a rig in mind?
You know I’m already fooling around with a Kemper and I’ve been playing around with that. You know our guitar tech, our sound guy Spenny has been recording, or uh capturing my amps. It has to be captured. I want it to be captured from that end. If everyone starts pulling from a library everything will sound the same. Although, each pre-set will…well it doesn’t matter it’s in the people fingers anyway. It always goes down to that.
You just take away someone’s need to carry the thing right?
(laughs) Yeah! And you know, god you’d be hard pressed to find the difference. A lot of bands do it. There are a lot of bands out there doing it.
There might be a lot of nerds trying to listen for it, but I think on the whole I would wager that the average audience couldn’t tell.
Nah you wouldn’t be able to tell. You know it’s not like we’re putting one over or tricking you. It’s just a way to retain what your equipment actually sounded like. Cause you know things break down on the road.
I suppose you’re also not beholden to the stage sound, is it closed back or open back? Where is the mic? Is it too close to a wall? Although you might not need to worry about that on the big stage.
No I mean that’s why I’m doing it. Every venue started to sound different and I like the way my guitar sounds in some venues, and not in others. This will take that out and erase that variable.
In regards to your guitar playing, you’ve been a big proponent of doing more with less there and as much as you can with that “lessness”. Funny way to say it but that’s the way I think of it.
(laughs) Mmhmm yeah. That’s a good way to put it.
Well I guess in knowing what’s been overdone, and trying to avoid that; if you were coming up now what do you think The Pixies would sound like?
I kinda talked about this the other day. If we were coming up now and the bands that exist already existed and all that. I wonder if we wouldn’t do the same thing. I mean what drew us to simplicity was because, for me anyway, was you know the heavy metal scene and everyone was playing a thousand miles an hour. I don’t know, I don’t even know what the defining genre is right now. I don’t even know what it is.
I think we have lost a bit of the monoculture in that sense. I don’t know if it’s Spotify or streaming, but we don’t go to record stores to find or buy music anymore. Everything is found digitally and algorithmically. I wonder if that means we never come to a unified agreement on what defines this era.
We’d probably still put out, like our DNA would still put out Come On Pilgrim – you know we’d still do that.
I noticed that us as Australians do get a bit of love from around the word, specifically when we’re over in America. But, they don’t often know a whole lot about us. I was just wondering if there is anything you look forward to when you come to Australia. and if there is anything you tell people about when you get home.
Hmm. Well. I know Melbourne has something about the Greek population, there in Melbourne
Yeah actually. Greek and Italians immigration after WWII was massive. It’s one of the reasons why we have such good coffee!
Yeah! Um, well let’s see. The flat white was starting in Melbourne I think?
A man of culture. Respect.
Yeah yeah. Great coffee there. And, I mean the the vegetables seem to be a lot fresher there. Fresher tasting.
I don’t know if that’s going to do numbers for our tourism, but we’ll take it!
Yeah! (laughs). Um but the people are friendly, and the nice weather!
Before we wrap up, are there any bands that you’ve been enjoying?
I liked Fazerdaze. They’re from New Zealand. We toured with them. Yeah I liked them a lot.
So there’s a big resurgence of the 90s amongst the younger crowd at the moment. Like the huge craze for Oasis, and The Pixies finding their place in Zoomer culture with TikTik. Do you think its a sign that rock music can be more than it is, at least right now?
Yeah. I mean, it certainly seems that way. People want guitar music rather than programmed little button sounds.
They want the real thing, the air being compressed…
Yeah exactly!
Well I just wanted to say thanks for stopping in and I really appreciate your time. Thanks, Joey.
Alright, thank you Pace. See you later.
Tickets for The Pixies Australian tour are on sale now. Grab your tickets HERE
The Pixies tour dates
Check out the list of cities and dates below:
Freemantle, WA – Saturday, November 8th | Fremantle Prison
Freemantle, WA – Sunday, November 9th | Fremantle Prison
Sydney, NSW – Thursday, November 13th | Hordern Pavilion
Sydney, NSW – Friday, November 14th | Hordern Pavilion
Brisbane, QLD – Sunday, November 16th | Fortitude Music Hall
Brisbane, QLD – Monday, November 17th | Fortitude Music Hall
Melbourne, VIC – Wednesday, November 19th | Festival Hall
Melbourne, VIC – Thursday, November 20th | Festival Hall
More info & tickets: HERE
Header image credit: Artist/PR supplied
