If something wasn't working, they turned the lights off, or changed rooms, or ran a lap. “The whole band was constantly engaged in discussing ideas on arrangements, dynamics, room sounds, string sounds, effects, amp choice, nuance, and energy. “Kim composes with air and electricity as much as with a guitar,” Violinist Carrie Bradley recalled. Because we had no idea - no one had any idea what was gonna happen.” “And I think there wasn't any sort of portentousness about what might happen or what kind of an album we were making. “We had a bunch of songs that Kim had written, and we had worked on them quite a bit, playing them live before we went in to record them,” Josephine Wiggs added.
“We never thought about the charts,” Kelley Deal told SPIN. It starts with that incredible vocal feedback through the Marshall - of course, it's not meant for radio.”īut radio and television audiences embraced it enthusiastically, and with the song's video – directed by Kim Gordon and Spike Jonze – on high rotation on MTV, success was pretty much assured. It wasn't ever thought that it would be out as a single, it would just be serviced as a single. The label would service radio stations with it - college radio. “We were on 4AD, so if we made a single, it was a promotional single,” she told SPIN in 2013. Her hopes for The Breeders were more than realised with the unexpected success of ‘Cannonball', with its curious air raid siren start, bubbling bass hook and its strange lyrics about being ‘the bong in this reggae song.'ĭeal told Kingsmill that the song was Inspired by a combination of Willy Wonka's Oompah Loompahs, a Marquis de Sade biography, dive bombing and an accidental bass line that Josephine Wiggs devised. I hope people go to our shows and like the music.” Men, they have a stronger purpose, more of a reason to be out there.”ĭeal's purpose and broader ambitions were for her band's songs. “If I was a guy, I don't think you'd be asking ‘how does it feel to be the centre of attention?' That kind of desire is only given to women, because only women want to be the centre of attention. In 1994, she spoke to Richard Kingsmill about being ‘the centre of attention', as journalists had put it, in her own band. Her sister Kelly was the one to pass on the news during the Last Splash recording sessions. Black Francis, legend has it, informed Deal that the band was over via fax. She had started The Breeders as a side project and their debut album Pod, released in 1990, was greeted with critical acclaim.īy early 1993, creative tensions within her other group Pixies had escalated to an intolerable and unworkable point. True to her words, Kim Deal had well and truly been amongst it. Her profile meant she regularly had to field the oft repeated question ‘Is there a resurgence of women in rock?' Bored, she opted to tell journalists, ‘There is no resurgence, they're just in it.' Kim Deal wasn't in the best mood when she gave a 1995 cover story interview to SPIN.Īs a female musician in a then very male-centric domain, she had to contend with an industry geared toward generating ridiculous hype and was patently frustrated by its emphasis on image and appearance before the thing she cared about the most, her music. So, I don't wanna wash my hair, fuck you, this is how I look.” "I know I come off lookin' like a fuckin' haggy housewife compared to all these other women in rock, and that's fine with me, man.