Pixies Reflect On Legacy, Zombies & Return To Australia: ‘We’re Keeping The Machine Going’

In an era of comebacks and post-hiatus records with diminishing returns, it’s refreshing to know that Pixies have still got it.

Since their 2003 reunion, the Boston-based alternative rockers have released five albums (sans Kim Deal), with each impressing and adding to the band’s already influential legacy. One could think that their post-breakup discography peaked with 2019’s Beneath The Eyrie, but last year, the Pixies released the definitive album for this stage in their career, The Night The Zombies Came.

What do you imagine when you see that title? What you anticipate is what you get: spooky themes, dramatic soundscapes, the band’s signature loud-quiet-loud dynamics led by guitarist Joey Santiago, jarring sound structures, David Lovering holding the beat, and new bassist/co-vocalist Emma Richardson (of Band Of Horses fame) contrasting with Black Francis’ beloved vocal stylings.

Following the album’s announcement last July (it was released on the week of Halloween, of course), Francis shared that The Night The Zombies Came isn’t a concept album, but simply contained a word he quite liked throughout the lyrics: zombies. Recognising just how fun the album title sounded, it was settled: “I was like, ‘You know what? That’s a pretty good title. I’d go see that movie,” he said.

It's an album featuring subjects such as druids and headless chickens. As for the zombies, you can hear Night Of The Living Dead-type monsters (Jane (The Night The Zombies Came)) and Dawn Of The Dead-kind of beasts (You’re So Impatient). Johnny Good Man and Kings Of The Prairie are about life on the road, while Santiago took the lyrical reins on album highlight Hypnotised. Then, there’s Mororoller, which feels like it’s been pulled from Doolittle. It’s Pixies at the peak of their powers.

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The Music catches up with Santiago while the band are in Australia, opening for Pearl Jam in stadiums. Ironically, he was more comfortable with the idea of playing in stadiums than the club gigs at Melbourne’s Croxton Bandroom and Sydney’s Liberty Hall they had booked while they were here.

“You know, we’ve done festivals, but the festival vibe is different than opening up for someone in a stadium,” Santiago muses. “It feels good; it oddly feels natural, even though we’re not a stadium band. It’s not foreign to us, if that makes sense. The smaller shows are actually more nerve-wracking [laughs]. Club shows, little shows, there’s more pressure on those shows than the big shows.”

On The Night The Zombies Came, Santiago’s guitar playing sounds effortless as he jumps from jagged punk tunes to songs that lean more country and acoustic. As for what inspires Santiago as a guitarist, and one who’s been with Pixies since the beginning, he says it’s “listening to music.” But it might not be the kind of music you’d expect from the man who’s inspired Modest Mouse, Nirvana, and the Smashing Pumpkins. In fact, it turns out that Santiago is heavily influenced by Krautrock.

A genre given to experimental bands from Germany in the early ‘70s, the groups would typically blend psychedelic rock, avant-garde arrangements, and electronic music. Artists including Simple Minds, Brian Eno, Ultravox, and David Bowie embraced the soundscapes in the late ‘70s, while more recently, King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard and Radiohead have experimented with Krautrock (just check out Radiohead’s Ful Stop from 2016’s A Moon Shaped Pool to hear the influence).

For Santiago, the Krautrock outfit he’s been enjoying the most is Cluster. Formed in 1971, the band disbanded ten years later before reuniting from 1989 to 1997 and from 2007 to 2010. Described as “the most important and consistently underrated space rock unit of the ‘70s,” Cluster pushed their sound further by adding drum machines and ambient music to their songs.

Santiago’s favourite thing about music, as a fan, is “listening to the intent.” He explains, “I tend not to listen to music in the background when I listen. I'll put on headphones or just be in my living room and really listen to music and be in awe of the magic of music.”

Adding that he needs to look up his list of music he’s been listening to (“There’s so many. I’m not just saying that. It’s just, I can’t name them on top of my head right now,” he says), Santiago tells, “There was a period of time a few months ago where I was delving into Krautrock. I like the band Cluster, so I got heavily into them, stuff like that.”

He’s a fan of newer bands, too. “I like the IDLES; I listen to them. So, you know, that’s new music for me!”

Along with his guitar playing, Santiago penned some lyrics for The Night The Zombies Came. Following up from Pagan Man – released on 2022’s Doggerel – he wrote the lyrics for Hypnotised. “It was fun writing that,” he shares. “It’s very economical, and it just works.”

The lyrics for Hypnotised feature “day” and “evening” passages, with Santiago embracing the Sestina form of poetry (six stanzas of six lines each followed by a three-line stanza). And he’s happy with it: “It came across good!”

Before their support slot for Pearl Jam, Pixies last toured Australia in December 2022. They were forced to cancel their March 2020 tour dates due to COVID-19 public health orders. The shows, when they did eventuate, celebrated Come On Pilgrim… It’s Surfer Rosa and 2022’s Doggerel, with the iconic rockers taking 28 to 30-song setlists nationwide.

This November, Pixies will return to Australia and perform for two consecutive nights in each city.

On the first night, the band will play their classic albums, 1990’s Bossanova and 1991’s Trompe Le Monde, in their entirety. The second night will showcase a cross-catalogue set and songs from The Night The Zombies Came.

Of course, songs from those albums never really leave a Pixies set, but Santiago is already excited about some of the “deeper cuts.”

“We do play some of those songs on our general set, but there are some deeper cuts in there that are just fun to play,” Santiago grins. “They’re like new songs to me because I don’t listen to those records for laughs. The guitar parts are wacky! Songs are wacky, and they’re fun to play. Some of the songs, we thought, ‘We’ll never be able to pull that off,’ but we end up pulling it off.”

Santiago originally had his doubts about two songs: Space (I Believe In) and The Navajo Know. “Space I thought was going to be a nightmare, but it isn’t. Wacky songs like The Navajo Know, you just never know how it’s going to come off live, and it comes off pretty good.”

Dubbing the tour “a good little novelty thing to do,” the nostalgia of flipping through the band’s discography doesn’t mean it’s been easy almost re-learning some of the songs.

“Other than learning the songs, you know, I know them now [laughs], but when I was going through them, I just realised how crazy some of the guitar parts are [some of them] are really schizophrenic and astounding,” Santiago reveals. “I’m looking forward to playing them. There are a lot of guitar changes, you know, changing the guitars around. That’s one of the drawbacks. We can’t go bang, bang, bang, bang, but it is what it is. I think sometimes it’s good for us to slow down anyway.”

Slowing down while in Australia is something Pixies have always enjoyed. After describing Aussie fans as “very enthusiastic,” Santiago adds that it feels “exotic” to play for fans in the southern hemisphere.

“For an American band, it’s very exotic to get way down here,” he notes. “It’s on the other side of the world, you know, few bands really get to do that. It feels special. I feel like it’s almost like a bragging right when I tell my friends, ‘Yeah, you know, no big deal, just going to Australia!’”

Just playing on the Gold Coast opening for Pearl Jam, right?

“Just on the Gold Coast, sightseeing in Sydney, playing the Opera House, you know, regular stuff [laughs].”

When it comes to reflecting on the band’s legacy, Santiago is open about not really giving it much thought—this upcoming tour offers more than nostalgia, and Pixies are far from phoning it in.

“I don’t think about it [Pixies’ legacy], but I do have a lot of gratitude for it,” he ponders. “I know that we’re a very special band that, you know, people still like us, and we’re still putting out decent new music and playing shows. Most importantly, we are very grateful for what’s happening around us. We’re keeping the machine going.”

The Night The Zombies Came is out now via BMG. Tickets to Pixies Australian tour are available via the Live Nation website.