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INTERVIEWS MAGNET EXCLUSIVE

Exclusive Cover Story Excerpt: The Breeders Interviewed By Actor Elijah Wood

Here’s an exclusive excerpt of the current MAGNET cover story.

Interview by Elijah Wood

Photos by Jon Enoch

A quarter century after releasing the platinum-selling Last Splash and then drifting into an on-again/off-again period, the classic lineup of the Breeders is back with the aptly titled All Nerve, rocking like it’s 1993 all over again. Elijah Wood sits down with Kim and Kelley Deal to illuminate everything.

Elijah Wood: Like so many, when I first heard the Breeders in the summer of 1993 (I came to discover 1990’s Pod later), my ears were struck by the opening clack of Jim Macpherson’s drumsticks as intro to Josephine Wiggs’ iconic bass line of “Cannonball.” I was hooked. These four musicians, led by the singular voice of Kim Deal, stood out then—and remain now—as a band very much its own: sonically vital, idiosyncratic and incredibly special. I was honored to be asked by MAGNET to chat with Kim and Kelley Deal over the phone about their beautiful new album, All Nerve (4AD), the first with this lineup since Last Splash 25 years ago. Enjoy and rejoice that these fine folks are coming to a city near you and continuing to share their music with us! And check out Kim’s solo seven-inch project for an early version of “Walking With A Killer”

Elijah Wood: Where are you right now?
Kelley Deal: I’m in Dayton, Ohio, in my house.
Elijah: Oh, nice.
Kim Deal: Not really. I’m in Florida and sitting in a bay on the Atlantic Ocean in Summerland Key, in the lower Keys north of Key West.
Elijah: That sounds so lovely. Are you on vacation?
Kim: Yes. We started coming down here. You know, my dad used to come down here all the time, every year. And then he got old and needed help, so me and Kelley would grudgingly come down here. I don’t know about Kelley, but I hate the beach and laying out in the sun.
Elijah: I’ve never understood that, either. It only seems like kind of a weird waste of time.
Kim: It’s a punishment.
Elijah: Yeah. I’m good with swimming. I love to swim in the ocean, but the idea of laying out a blanket and reading a book or just lying there just seems … I have the same relationship with baths.
Kim: Oh, yeah. [Laughs]
Elijah: I just feel like after 15 minutes, I’m bored with it. And I overheat, and I need to get out of it.
Kelley: Yeah. We have similar coloration, don’t we? We’re kinda light skinned like that.
Elijah: Maybe it’s just not in our blood.
Kim: Yeah.
Elijah: Um, your new record is really incredible. I was so pleased when they sent it to me. I didn’t know that I was gonna get a chance to look into it before talking to you, but it’s so good. How did it come together? I know that you all reformed the Last Splash lineup for the reunion tour. Is that kind of how you all came back together?
Kelley: Exactly. I was sitting on my couch with my sister. Kim was visiting me. It was 2012. I commented, you know, “Next year is 2013. It will be 20 years since Last Splash, it will be the anniversary. Should we, like, give a show? We could invite Jim and Josephine and could just play the record and maybe just do a show or do a couple of shows or something.” And Kim said, “Sure. You invite Jim, and I’ll talk to Josephine.” And so we did, and everybody was game for it. They texted right back and said, “Sounds awesome.” That kind of started that. That was sometime in the summer of 2012, and we played our first show at the Bell House in Brooklyn in March of 2013. That started the ball rolling.
Elijah: It obviously felt really good to be back together again as a band because it clearly led to this album. When did the conversation begin about recording something new together?
Kim: Well, at first we’re just concentrating on, “OK, this song goes into this song. This song goes into this song. How are we gonna do ‘Mad Lucas’?” So a lot of that time, you know, it wasn’t that … It was something like eight months of touring from March to the end, but then as the touring was getting a little farther in, it’s sounding really good and people are enjoying it so much. It was a London Forum show where people were so happy to see us, and there was a booking agent that’s just, like, “Man, have you guys thought to do another record? You really should. This was a really incredible night.” And our friends were saying, “You guys need to play more.” And, of course, we think, “This is sounding good.” So we began to go and do things.
Elijah: Wow. Then with Kim’s seven-inch series … I’m trying to figure out the timeline. Was that happening concurrently?
Kim: Yes, the first seven-inch, which was “Walking With A Killer,” came out, like, Jan. 1, 2013. I had some other ones, in different stages of completion, ready to go. Now, I have another one ready to go, but I haven’t manufactured the seven-inch yet. I thought I would put them all together as an album maybe.
Elijah: Oh, that’s a cool idea.
Kim: Yeah, I thought maybe I could do something like that. But yeah, it was happening concurrently. And what’s one of the ones we’ve … Josephine and Kelley said that they really liked the “Walking With A Killer” song, and I knew other than you, Elijah, and a couple of other people, not a lot of people have heard of the song, you know. So we started playing that one live, and it just sounded so big and lush.
Elijah: Yeah, that sounded good.
Kim: I’d never played it live with a band. It was always done in pieces, because it was a solo thing.
Elijah: That was ultimately how you all decided to record that for the album: just playing it live.
Kim: Yeah, I was just like, “Oh my God, we should do this one.”
Elijah: That’s so great.
Kelley: It’s interesting. I’m sitting here thinking about all those songs on there, and there are so many that I would do: “Range On Castle,” “Dirty Hessians,” “Likkle More,” “Biker Gone.” There’s so many that I would love to play live because these songs don’t get a chance. But you know what’s interesting about that is just this band—like Josephine, she really liked “Walking.” I don’t know that she didn’t like the others. They’re not the ones that spoke to her, I guess. It’s interesting how in this particular band, the push and pull is different. It’s interesting to me ’cause I’m sitting here thinking, “I’d love to do ‘Range On Castle.’ Oh, it’s so awesome.” But I gotta respect what she sees. That’s what makes this different than the last thing or the solo series. It’s really interesting how that works out. It’s fascinating.
Elijah: The thing of a group of people coming together as a band is different than an individual person writing a song. Under the auspices of the band, it’s seemingly a democratic process. And therefore, it is. It totally is. It’s fascinating. The thing of those voices coming together as one making the band what it is for whatever reason.
Kelley: Yeah. Jim Macpherson is working a full-time job, and Josephine is very busy doing her stuff: soundtrack work and art-installation work. She’s like a little scientist up in Brooklyn doing her stuff. So you would think that here we are—we’re doing this and we’re offered that. I love the idea that Kim or Josephine can say, “It’s a deal.” Or, “No, no. I don’t wanna do that.” It wasn’t until recently that I thought, “You know, a lot of people wouldn’t do that with Kim.” They would just say, “Whatever you want,” you know? It’s interesting.
Elijah: I think that’s what makes the Breeders the Breeders: the combination of those voices.
Kelley: Exactly, yeah. It’s true.
Elijah: There’s another song that you all re-recorded, I think it was on (2002’s) Title TK. You recorded the Amps song “Full On Idle.” What was the thought process behind that?
Kim: Nobody knew the Amps record (1995’s Pacer) when it was out.
Elijah: That seems crazy to me.
Kim: But it’s true though, right?
Elijah: Yeah, I guess so.
Kim: So, it felt like nobody had heard it anyway, and sometimes a beautiful song could be done better. That was really the main thing. We were playing it live, and it sounded so much better. Maybe it’s not a really great thing to do, but I couldn’t stop myself. And the same with “Hoverin’” on the b-side of “Divine Hammer.” It’s just me and Kelley just going into a demo studio and doing it together for fun. I ended up using it as the b-side because I thought it sounded really cool, so rickety. I thought it could be done way better. So me and Jim did it with (Steve) Albini for the Amps record. Were you there, Kel?
Kelley: With Albini? Yes, I was.
Elijah: Speaking of the legendary engineer/record handyman … He recorded some of the new record as well, right?
Kim: Yeah. OK, here’s the thing with Albini, I think. When you go to a studio with him, it’s not sort of a place where you can workshop an idea out or anything. There’s definitely spaces on a song that don’t sound good. [Laughs] For instance, there can be a song that I can think of that it’s not the greatest part, but if we get the guitars distorted enough or whatever, it’ll sound OK. I don’t know. There’s things like that where these things worked. But with Albini, the recording process is so revealing of what’s happening, and he takes it to the basics. So at every level, it can’t just be … I can’t cringe anywhere in the song with Albini.
Elijah: He’s sort of notorious for that, isn’t he? He’s kind of the person who refuses to be called a producer. He refuses to take that producing credit, and he’s just there to filter whatever the band is bringing them without any … I’ve heard that he notoriously doesn’t offer any kind of thoughts necessarily, right?
Kim: Right. Well, he would, you know, refer to himself as a plumber.
Elijah: Right. [Laughs]
Kim: If you want a good recording of what you’re doing in the studio, out in the room, he will give you the best recording that he’s capable of doing. And he approaches everything professionally. He will make you sound exactly like you sound, and sometimes that’s not good.
Elijah: If your idea or if your song is not as fully fleshed out as you’d like it to be, then it can showcase some of the work that you weren’t keen to experience.
Kim: It could. On the other hand, he does like to say that he doesn’t like to influence anybody’s recording and artistic decisions. But at the same time, with “All Nerve,” I definitely had a harmony that I wanted to do to that part of a song, and I got some pushback. “You don’t need a harmony.” But whenever I wanna double something, he’ll say, “It just sounds better single here.” But sometimes, he likes to listen to the damaged fragility of a single vocal. He finds that way more compelling than he would find a voice like Adele that’s beautiful. Not that she’s not doing a damaged beautiful vocal. I’m not saying that.
Elijah: He’s not looking for perfection. He just wants the naked, revealing recording of the band.
Kim: Which is sometimes extremely, exactly what I don’t wanna do. But in the end, he’s always right. He really is always right. It’s really ridiculous how right he usually is. It’s frustrating.