BASS INSTINCTS
Lenchantin keeps Pixies strummin’
The sellout response to the 2004 reunion tour by Pixies was no surprise. The Boston indie rock quartet disbanded in 1993 leaving listeners yearning for more of it’s distinctive “quiet/loud/quiet” songwriting, off-kilter vocals and lyrical free association. The music created by Black Francis, Kim Deal, Joey Santiago and David Lovering influenced some of the biggest bands to come in its wake, including Radiohead, Nirvana, Blur and Weezer.
Deal re-exited the group as it released its 2014 comeback, Indie Cindy. The touring bass position was briefly filled by Kim Shattuck (the Muffs), eventually falling to Argentine Paz Lenchantin.
A former member of A Perfect Circle, Zwan and a collaborator with Queens of the Stone Age, Lenchantin is an experienced road warrior known for often performing barefoot. She brings her characteristic heavy sound to the Pixies’ second post-reunion release, Head Carrier.
Officially a full member now, she also gives the quartet an experienced string arranger. This skill was put to work most recently when she and Joey Santiago arranged and performed a version of the band’s classic Where Is My Mind? for the new Lightning in a Bottle Acura advertising campaign.
Having already played a sold out April/May leg of the Head Carrier support tour, Pixies are taking on the West Coast. Besides past classics, this tour will showcase reunion material, too.
None of the performances comes with an arranged set list and the group has rehearsed 90 tunes from its catalogue. Each night is customized by Black Francis, who communicates the next song selection either through pre-agreed hand signals or a private microphone system linking only the musicians and lighting director Myles Mangino.
Lenchantin chatted about the band, the tour and her interests from her Los Angeles home.
Q You’ve been involved in a variety of music acts, ranging from dramatic metal to the grittier pop of Pixies. Is there a consistent thread between them? A I’m most certainly not a genreist. I’m a musician that loves
music, and some things resonate and others don’t. I do what I want to and skip the rest. Most of the projects I’ve been involved with have actually cross pathways as we’ve toured together or shared players in the studio and so forth.
Q Do you think that you are playing a part in elevating the bass to a position it deserves, on equal footing with those show off guitar players?
A Around age 11, I was introduced to The Beatles and immediately found myself following Paul McCartney’s basslines on a guitar. Then I finally got a bass and began to teach myself as much as possible about this beautiful instrument and its ability to both drive the rhythm and provide so much melody. I’m learning more all the time which is continuously exciting.
Q Your predecessor, Kim Deal, was a star in her own right, leading groups such as the Breeders. Her style defined the Pixies sound, too. How do you bring your own sound into the mix?
A The key is not making it too complicated. The lines need to be clean, mod, not too busy to work with this band. From a harder, louder song like Head Carrier to something like Tenement Song, we almost always move forward with an agreed plan. That said, there was a lot of work to do coming in to learn the entire back catalogue as well as everything on Indie Cindy. I think of this more as a continuation rather than a replacement, because this is a great band moving forward.
Q So this isn’t a band that jams its way around to determine the final outcome of what goes on the record?
A Every song has its own development. Charles (Black Francis) comes with the skeleton, for the most part, sometimes with a shape and other times with the elbow by the knee and the fingers by the eyeball. Then you have to work it out to get a proper skeleton and add all of the other parts that make it full-bodied. We certainly do all jam together though. I co-wrote All I Think About Now with Black Francis, which was the mysterious last song that we recorded for the album.
Q Given how well Head Carrier came out, I was surprised to find out the album was put together in a month. Is this what happens when lots of touring makes you a well-oiled machine?
A I think it’s important not to overthink anything, particularly when it’s something that you’ve been doing a long time and we all have — even though I’m shy of the other’s years by a few. We all get along very well together and there are no complications about whose role is what and that makes it possible for us to work quickly and, it turns out, for us to flow out new material and collaborate together.
Paz Lenchantin’s latest solo project involves making films and live soundtracks.
The Pixies are already involved in writing the followup to Head Carrier, so fans can rest assured the reunion is ongoing.
Stay tuned for what might be the band’s first song in Spanish.