“The thread is I must’ve suffered at their hands because I wasn’t allowed to write anything. I was still a guitar player, still writing the whole time through Pixies and Breeders”: Kim Deal on why she has always been both a guitarist and a bassist

Kim Deal is best known for shaping two of the most influential bands of the late ’80s and ’90s – the Pixies and The Breeders – who elevated the “loud-quiet-loud” sound into an art form. Now, Deal is stepping out on her own with a solo album that showcases the breadth of her songwriting capabilities, as well as her bass and guitar playing – even featuring a stray ukulele.

In alt-rock mythology, Deal's complicated relationship with Black Francis is a tale as old as time. The narrative that she was never “allowed” to write songs with the Pixies (aside from tracks like Gigantic, co-written by Deal) has hounded her throughout her career. Now, she’s setting the record straight.

“I get why people think that,” she tells The Independent. “But what we have got to remember is when I was in that band, I was a bass player and singer; [Francis] was the songwriter, singer, and guitar player. I play guitar at my house, and I write songs at my house, but in that band, I’m the bassist.”

“It’s sort of like couching my whole output, everything, on these five years in this one band in the ’80s. It’s like, how can we look back and decide how Pixies make that make sense when Pixies don’t have anything to do with anything!”

The rock ’n’ roll myth – fueled by figures like Kurt Cobain – suggests that Deal created her own band to escape creative stifling.

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“I get it but the thread is always like, I don’t have agency and I’m just a victim of the Pixies, that I must’ve suffered at their hands because I wasn’t allowed to write anything,” she continues. “I was still a guitar player, still writing stuff the whole time through Pixies and Breeders.”

Deal – alongside The Breeders – continues to inspire generations of artists, including pop-rock phenomenon Olivia Rodrigo, who recently handpicked the band to support her on her mammoth Guts tour.