Kim Deal

Kim Deal
Deal performing as part of the Pixies at the Tsongas Arena in Massachusetts on 1 December2004
Background information
Birth name	Kimberly Ann Deal
Also known as	Mrs. John Murphy
Born	June 10 1961 (1961--) (age 46) Dayton, Ohio
Genre(s)	Alternative rock
Occupation(s)	Musician
Instrument(s)	Vocals Bass guitar Guitar Drums
Years active	1985 — present
Label(s)	4AD
Associated acts	Pixies The Amps The Breeders

Kimberly Ann Deal (born June 10, 1961) is an American singer, songwriter, guitarist, and bassist. Deal first joined the Pixies in January 1985 as the band's bassist, adopting the stage name Mrs. John Murphy (after the name of her husband at the time) for the band's releases Come on Pilgrim and Surfer Rosa. After Doolittle and the Pixies' resulting hiatus, she formed The Breeders, who soon released their debut album Pod. After the Pixies reconvened, her influence in the band lessened and she felt increasingly sidelined by the band's frontman, Black Francis; this led to the Pixies' breakup in late 1992 and early 1993.

Deal then returned her focus to The Breeders, who released the Safari EP in 1992, and then the studio album Last Splash in 1993. In 1994, the band went into hiatus after her identical twin sister, Kelley Deal, entered drug rehabilitation. During the band's eight year period between releases, Deal formed The Amps, who recorded a single album, Pacer. The Breeders' third album, Title TK, was released in 2002, but failed to garner the critical acclaim of previous releases. Deal is currently working on a new The Breeders album.

Biography

Youth

Kimberly Deal was born in Dayton, Ohio on 10 June1961.^[1] She and her identical twin sister Kelley were introduced to music at a young age; the two sang to a "two-track, quarter-inch, tape" when they were "four or five" years old. When Deal was 11, she learned Roger Miller's "King of the Road" on the acoustic guitar. In high school, at Wayne High School in Huber Heights, she was a cheerleader and often got into conflicts with authority.^[2]

As a teenager, Deal formed a folk rock band named The Breeders with Kelley. She then became a prolific songwriter, as she found it easier to write songs than cover them. Deal later commented on her songwriting output: "I got like a hundred songs when I was like 16, 17. I look at 'em and think, "Oh, you poor..." The music is pretty good, but the lyrics are just like, OH MY GOD. We were just trying to figure out how blues rhymes with you. When I was writing 'em, they didn't have anything to do with who I was."^[3] The Deals bought microphones, an eight-track tape player, mixing boards, speakers and amps for a bedroom studio; according to Kelley, they "had the whole thing set up by the time we were 17". They later bought a drum machine "so it would feel like we were more in a band".^[4]

Unlike her Pixies bandmates, Deal did not go to college. She met John Murphy, an Air Force defense contractor who had recently moved to Dayton, through her brother, Kevin; Murphy and Deal then started to date. Although Murphy was not a musician himself, he wrote the song "Hoverin'" with Deal. The couple married on Memorial Day, 1984, and moved to Murphy's hometown of Boston, Massachusetts in January 1985.^[5]

Pixies

Main article: Pixies

Deal became a bassist and backing vocalist for the Pixies in January 1985, after answering an advertisement in the Boston Phoenix for a bassist who was into hardcore punk band Hüsker Dü and folk music icons Peter, Paul and Mary. Deal was the only person to respond and arrived at the audition without a bass guitar; she had never played the instrument before.^[6][7] She claimed her twin sister Kelley Deal had a bass back in Dayton and that she had no money to get it. Thompson lent her $50 for the airfare and Deal returned with the bass guitar.^[8] She joined lead guitarist Joey Santiago and frontman and guitarist Charles Thompson, who had formed the band a week earlier.^[9] To complete the lineup, Murphy suggested they hire Dave Lovering, a friend of his, as drummer; Deal had already met Lovering at her wedding reception.^[10][11]

For the release of the band's first recording Come on Pilgrim, Deal, whose day job was as a receptionist at a doctor's office, adopted the stage name "Mrs. John Murphy," following Thompson's choice of the name Black Francis. She chose the name as an ironic feminist joke, after conversing with a lady who wished to be called by her husband's name. Murphy was impressed, later saying: "I know she was doing it as a goof on feminism, but it made me proud."^[12]

For 1988's Surfer Rosa, Deal sang lead vocals on the album's only single, "Gigantic," cowritten by herself and Francis. It was one of her few songwriting or vocal contributions to the band. Doolittle followed a year later, with Deal contributing the song "Silver." By this time, however, tensions began to develop between her and Francis, with bickering and standoffs between the two marring the album's recording sessions. This led to increased stress between the band members.^[13] Husband Murphy commented that during the sessions, it "went from just all fun to work" for the Pixies.^[14] Exhaustion from releasing three records in two years and touring contributed to the friction. This culminated at the end of the US "Fuck or Fight" tour, where they were too tired to attend the end-of-tour party. The band soon announced a hiatus.^[15]

The Breeders and Pod

Main article: The Breeders

During the Pixies hiatus, Deal formed The Breeders, named after the folk band she formed with Kelley as a teenager. She initially formed the band in 1988 as a side-project with Throwing Muses' Tanya Donelly, but after their respective bands became less active, the two enlisted the help of drummer Mickey Bones, violinist Carrie Bradley and bassist Josephine Wiggs to record a demo. Their demo was sent to Ivo Watts-Russell, who immediately signed the band to 4AD. The Breeders allowed Deal to become more active in songwriting, and their debut album, Pod, containing mostly Deal-written songs, was recorded in Edinburgh, Scotland by Steve Albini and released in 1990.

Bossanova and Trompe le Monde

Deal recorded and performed with Pixies until 1992, when the group split, largely because of increasing tension between her and frontman Black Francis.

Last Splash and The Breeders

Last Splash (1993)

A year after the Pixies breakup, Kim's identical twin sister Kelley Deal joined The Breeders on lead guitar and the band released its second album, Last Splash, to critical acclaim and considerable commercial success. The record went platinum within a year of its release.

At the height of The Breeders' popularity in the mid-1990s, they scored a number of MTV hits, including "Cannonball," "Divine Hammer," and "Saints." The band also released the vinyl-only "Head to Toe" 10" EP during the summer of 1994, when they appeared on the main stage of Lollapalooza. Although the band went into stasis in 1994 when Kelley Deal entered rehab for heroin addiction, they never officially split up, and in 2002 released Title TK.

The Amps and other projects

During this 8-year hiatus, Kim Deal kept busy by forming, recording, and touring with The Amps. She also produced music for other groups, most notably fellow Dayton band Guided by Voices.

Kim contributed her voice to the Sonic Youth single, "Little Trouble Girl" from their 1995 album Washing Machine.

Title TK, Pixies reunion and beyond

In 2004, Kim Deal returned to a newly-reunited Pixies and toured North America with them. One notable performance included a live taping for public television's "Austin City Limits" in October of 2004. Pixies also played the Coachella Festival in Indio, CA in 2004 and headlined Lollapalooza in 2005 at Chicago's Grant Park. Pixies also toured the UK to massive acclaim including a headline appearance at the Reading/Leeds Festival.

As of May 2006, Deal is working on new material with The Breeders with plans to release an EP and a full length album in 2007. The working lineup at this point includes Kim and Kelley Deal, Jose Medeles and Carrie Bradley. The Pixies announced they were recording a new studio album in January 2007.^[16]

Musical style

Instrumentation

Kim's first bass guitar in the Pixies was an Aria Cardinal that belonged to Kelley and later reappeared in The Kelley Deal 6000. This bass was used on Come on Pilgrim EP and Surfer Rosa LP. For the recording of the Pixies' next album, Doolittle, producer Gil Norton insisted on getting a better-quality bass, so Deal acquired a Fender Precision. For Bossanova, she added a red Music Man StingRay as her main bass, only using the Precision to record "Dig for Fire". Her arsenal expanded once again with a white headless (but full-bodied) Steinberger bass used on Trompe Le Monde.

Deal does not generally switch basses onstage as "There's just no time between songs".

Legacy

In popular culture

Dandy Warhols' released a tribute song, "Cool As Kim Deal", on their 1997 album ...The Dandy Warhols Come Down. Japanese rock group the pillows released a tribute song, "Kim Deal", on 1999's HAPPY BIVOUAC. The line "Here Comes Your Man" appears at the end of their song "Backseat Dog," and immediately precedes "Kim Deal" in the track listing.

References to her musical work have appeared in popular culture. Boston band Francine released a tribute song, "Pop Warner", on their 2000 album Forty on a Fall Day. It references some of her work with the Amps. French Indie-Rocker Julie Peel covered Kim Deal's "Divine Hammer" for a limited edition blue vinyl split single released by indie label American Laundromat Records in December 2006. American Laundromat Records announced plans to release a Kim Deal Tribute CD in late 2007 or early 2008. Bands from all over the world will cover Kim's work from the Pixies, The Breeders, and The Amps.

Jim DeRogatis' book Staring At Sound states that The Flaming Lips song "Kim's Watermelon Gun" is a "song that paints an impressionistic portrait of [...] Kim Deal", whom band member Steven Drozd befriended when they met at Lollapalooza.

In an episode of How I Met Your Mother, the main character Ted tells his friends that he is looking for a girl who can play the bass like Kim Deal.

Television appearances and videos

She appears in the Mark Romanek music video for the song as well. She also contributed to Ultra Vivid Scene's "Special One" single (1990). In the video for that song she cheerfully knocks Ultra Vivid Scene's singer Kurt Ralske off a bar stool. She also appeared in the BBC's "Seven Ages of Rock" documentary series and talked about the style of the Pixies' music, and its influence on other musicians, most notably Kurt Cobain.

Notes

References

• Frank, Josh; Ganz, Caryn. "Fool the World: The Oral History of a Band Called Pixies." Virgin Books, 2005. ISBN 0-312-34007-9.

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to:

Kim Deal

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to:

Kim Deal

• Kim Deal's Allmusic entry
• Kim Deal at Last.fm
• Kim Deal at the Internet Movie Database

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