The ongoing saga that is the Pixies line-up seemed to come to a halt last week when frontman Frank Black finally spoke out about the firing of former bassist Kim Shattuck earlier this month. Of the dismissal, Frank Black (or, to some, Black Francis) told Yahoo, “it ain’t that big of a deal”.
“The big question mark is, if it was going so well, why are you changing it up again?” Black said in response to fans questioning Shattuck’s departure from the band. “I guess it’s a fair question, but what I would say is, just because some shows went well or a recording session went well with somebody, that doesn’t mean that now you guys are married and this is forever. It’s not really how it works when you’re a band. And it’s hard to explain to people, especially if they get emotionally attached to one person.”
The Muff’s frontwoman, Kim Shattuck began her stint with Pixies in July this year when founding bassist Kim Deal left the band suddenly during a recording session for their first batch of new songs since 1991′s Trompe le Monde. It was recently announced former Zwan and A Perfect Circle member Paz Lenchantin will step up to fill the space left by the two Kims and join the band on their next round of tour dates.
Last week Shattuck said she was shocked by her sudden departure from the Pixies, revealing to NME she was told of her dismissal over the phone by the band’s manager. “I was surprised. Everything had gone well, the reviews were all good and the fans were super-nice about everything,” Shattuck said.
“They were like, ‘We love you, New Kim!’ We said goodbye at the airport and the following morning the manager called me and said: ‘The band has made the decision to go with another bass player.’ I was shocked.”
However Frank Black said, fan reactions aside, decisions to do with the band’s lineup and direction are internal ones and don’t require any more explanation than that. “Frankly you don’t want to explain it to anybody – it’s a lot of its personal, private shit,” he said.
“I’m not the mayor, this isn’t the bus service for a town. This is a rock band. There’s been a shift in the lineup, big woop-dee-doo…as far as we’re concerned it ain’t that big of a deal.”
The Pixies’ EP1, released earlier this year, is their first collection of new music in over two decades. The EP’s release was announced via The Pixies’ official Facebook account, with a simple message of “We have something we would like you to hear!”
Pixies guitarist Joey Santiago implied to NME in October that there will be a follow-up. “There’s definitely EP2, but the rest is a secret,” he said. The Pixies will kick off a North American tour in Toronto on January 15th and will then hit the festival circuit in South America and Europe.
