Pixies guitarist has good memories about bad internships
We catch up with Joey Santiago ahead of the band’s triumphant return to the city for Boston Calling.
In the history of Boston music, few bands stick out quite like the Pixies. Initially forming in the dorms of UMass Amherst, frontman Charles “Black Francis’’ Thompson and guitarist Joey Santiago then moved to the city, and after placing an ad in The Boston Phoenix in 1986, rounded out a band that would go on to write four records that would help to define the rock sound of the 1990s, influencing bands like Nirvana, Radiohead, and David Bowie in his later years.
And they certainly aren’t done yet.
“We’ll probably start recording sometime in the fall, definitely before Christmas,’’ he says. “We have a group of songs together — 50, 100, whatever it is. We just need to slim it down to the most awesome pieces.’’
Pixies released Indie Cindy last year, the band’s first album since 1991, and will return to Boston on Sunday to play the Boston Calling Music Festival. We spoke with Longmeadow native Santiago, who called in from Niagara Falls, about TT the Bear’s, their return to the city, and why the Government Center MBTA stop will always have a special place in his heart.
When Pixies were first starting out in Boston, were there any particular local bands or clubs that helped champion you guys early on?
As far as bands, the big one would be Throwing Muses. They helped us get a record deal. They had a manager that was hooked up with 4AD [Records], Gary Smith, who ended up recording Come On Pilgrim. We gave him our demo, and from there, it took off.
As for other bands, we would always watch the opening acts. We started to pay attention to whatever the opening act would play [length-wise]. We eventually figured out the sweet-spot was 25 minutes. Anything after that, according to our attention span, was fucking enough.
But there’s Dinosaur Jr., there’s Throwing Muses, there’s the Zulus. Those were the bands that I guess we really looked up to.
Pixies press photo from their 1989 album Doolittle. Original bassist Kim Deal (second from left) is no longer with the band.
What was the music scene like out at UMass at that time?
I wasn’t as much into the music scene per say, as I was into listening to college radio. I didn’t have it growing up in the ‘burbs. I started listening to it at UMass and I attached myself to bands like Violent Femmes. That was the strongest one. I wasn’t really into punk rock at that time. I didn’t have one ounce of emotion that could really relate to it. I really wasn’t that angry. I was more more or less concerned with my studies at that point. I was also apolitical — that had a lot to do with it.
When you guys moved out to Boston, I heard you were working at a butcher block factory while the band was getting started.
That’s right: Eastern Butcher block. I actually started out at a brokerage firm because I was studying economics. That was just to appease my parents, I was going there for an internship. I think it was Prudential Credit at the time? They’d keep switching, but I worked there for a bit and I went out to get lunch for the brokers one day, [and] I just said “fuck this,’’ got on the Government Center line and went home.
Were you living in Allston then?
Charles and I were roommates at first and we were in The Fenway. Then we moved to Allston afterwards. We were rooming together and, after a while, we met girlfriends there and we parted ways.
The Fenway area was pretty cool back then for music.
Yeah, the Rathskellar, that was one of the places where we got exposed to big crowds and that’s where 4AD was watching us. That’s when they were convinced that we were… I’m guess I’m not really sure what it was. They were surprised at our image — I think they expected more outfits, and we didn’t have any. I mean, we were dressed, but we didn’t really look the part. The audience at [The Rathskellar] looked like they were in rock bands, not as much us.
The venues I think that really broke us were Green Street Station and TT the Bear’s, which is closing now. Those were the two clubs that we really played often. The Rat was standard throughout; they helped, too. But I think the ones that gave us the most exposure were those other two.
Early on, you’ve said that the job for Pixies was to make music that sounded different than others of its time. With Indie Cindy coming out 23 years after the album before it, did you try to make it sounds less like an older Pixies album?
It just kind of came out like that. We don’t try to sound like anything. When Charles wrote albums like Trompe Le Monde, those were very different records. But I do know that when Charles wrote that stuff, he was in a ‘Pixies’ frame of mind, and he knows what that is — we all know what that is.
And now you’ve been taking to film scoring lately.
It kind of just fell in my lap, I guess. Charles and I were helping to do a movie, and he bailed out on it. But then they called me in to do a few scenes. I did one and I nailed it, so they gave me more to do to make the important scenes more important, I guess. The director invited me out to the London Film Festival and that’s when it started taking off.
Pixies at Boston’s Orpheum Theatre in 2014. Their first local appearance with new bassist Paz Lenchantin
Do you keep up with any new Boston bands?
You know what? No. And that doesn’t mean anything. I’m just oblivious now, there’s so much music out there. I’ll maybe listen to some of the old stuff, but I think it’s pretty dangerous listening to current music, for us anyways. For me, at least, that’s what I think.
I just thought about it coincidence, though. We’re playing in Government Center, right?
Correct.
That’s where I took the T to get the hell out of my old job.
It’s all coming full circle!
I love those days though, it was so much simpler. All I had to be concerned about on a given night was a slice of pizza, frozen peas, and having beer — that was basically it. How much more simple can that get?
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Boston Calling Spring 2015 Lineup
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