The Real Deal
She's best known as the Pixies' sugar-voiced bassist, but now KIM DEAL is back with her latest Breeders record.
Paul Nolan, 17 Apr 2008
Mountain Battles also finds Kim’s sister, Kelley, singing in Spanish on the track ‘Regalama Esta Noche’. How did the group end up recording the song?
“Well, I’d moved out to East LA,” she says. “That’s the barrio where I was called ‘guera’. Fucking white girl. But with a hug! So I went to this particular bar in the neighbourhood where you could smoke. The reason why you could still smoke there was because it’s right across the street from the East Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department, and all the sheriffs used to leave their duty and go across to the bar for a cigarette. It didn’t matter about the California state ban on smoking.
“So we went to the bar that the cops went to and smoked, and on the jukebox was this song called ‘Regalama Esta Noche’. The lyrics go, ‘Give me the gift of this night/Or give me death’. It was like, ‘Oh my God, it’s so beautiful’. Of course we were going to try it in English, and in fact I wanted to sing it. But there was one particular line that didn’t translate, so Kelley tried it. Armando Lopez, the bass player, lives in East LA and speaks Spanish, and he went through every word with her.
“I feel like we did it justice, because when Armando hears it, or his girlfriend or his mother, they say it sounds like Mexican blues. It’s a traditional song, and it moves them.”
Did Kim enjoy the Pixies reunion?
“Oh yeah, I especially remember the gig in Ireland with Red Hot Chili Peppers, that was so much fun.”
Is the reunion now officially over?
“I think the main reason that we’re not doing anything is that things cycle out, and you don’t get asked again, honestly. And you don’t want to overstay your welcome. It’s like, ‘Well, we played there’. You know, it would be cool to go to China, but I don’t think that’ll happen.”
Kurt Cobain was famously a huge Pixies fan, and described The Breeders’ debut album, Pod, as one of his favourite albums ever. Indeed, The Breeders toured extensively with Nirvana in the early ’90s. How did Kim find the experience?
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