The Pixies don’t do half-measures. They once broke up via fax, released an album called Trompe le Monde and meant it, and now they’re back with Beneath the Eyrie and a companion podcast that does what few mythic bands dare: let us watch the sausage being made.
But don’t worry—there’s still plenty of entrails and mystery. The album was recorded in a church. There’s a vampire-tooth guitar involved. And producer Tom Dalgety, returning after his stint on their last record, seems to be leaning into the folklore. “We had a discussion that maybe the next recording session would take on a gothic tone,” said Charles Thompson, aka Black Francis. “I think in the end the result… guided it.”
Paz Lenchantin steps into the lead vocal slot for "Los Surfers Muertos" a track about Killer Dana, a legendary wave in California that was buried under a manmade harbor. It fits right in with the new album’s aesthetic of haunted Americana—surfboards, ghost towns, church reverb, and yes, the aforementioned vampire guitar. “I lost my first adult tooth a few years ago,” Charles explained, “and I had the luthier put it in a black guitar with only four strings. I was calling it my vampire guitar.”
Even the behind-the-scenes podcast leans into the chaos. “It didn’t really get in the way,” Charles said of having their recording process documented. “I wish I was more cognizant of it being recorded.” Of course, some spontaneity is more curated than others. “It’s being promoted as unfiltered,” he admitted, “but I get an advance edit of each podcast before it goes out. Just to make sure I didn’t say something stupid.”
And yet for all the vamping and vague mysticism, the most striking thing about the Pixies is how anti-myth they remain. Forget Fight Club, forget Nirvana’s name-drops. “Joey was the manager of a warehouse near the docks,” Charles said. “And I was the manager of another warehouse next door. That was our day job when we first started the band. I think the breakthrough was when we gave notice.”
No epiphanies, no champagne moments. Just the freedom to make weird, loud music full-time. “That’s the measure,” Charles said. “You get to do what you want to do.”
And what they wanted to do this time was build a haunted surfboard chapel with distortion pedals and some tooth DNA.
Watch the interview above and then check out the videos below.
