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U2 frontman Bono has described alt-rock band Pixies as “progenitors” of the rock era, hailing their song “Monkey Gone to Heaven” as “the first of its kind”.
“In the history books, if we are still writing them, Pixies will be one of a dozen bands described as progenitors in the rock era,” he said.
“Their song about a monkey heading off to break the Kármán line… It’s the first of its kind. Untouchable. And incomparable. A big bang we were waiting for.”
Bono shared his appreciation of Pixies along with British singer Nilüfer Yanya and Interpol frontman Paul Banks as they mark 35 years since the release of their breakthrough second studio album, 1989’s Doolittle, and their new record, The Night the Zombies Came.
“The first time I heard Pixies I was 15. It changed my life a little bit,” Yanya told The Independent. “Their songs, the way they arranged their music, the unusual guitar lines, the way he uses his voice; I connected to all of it in a different way than I’d connected to other music before.”
“What a blessing to be alive at the same time as Pixies; one of those truly creative and unique bands that are few and far between,” The Wombats frontman Matthew Murphy said.
“Touring the US with them was so cool, after their set they would bounce into our dressing room for a lengthy chat and usually some magic tricks.”
Interpol frontman Paul Banks called them “one of the great rock bands” with each member “integral [both] to their collective sound and influential in their own right. Their influence on bands that came after cannot be understated, and I personally owe them a huge debt of inspiration. Pixies forever!”
Musician Chelsea Wolfe recalled coming across a CD copy of Pixies’ debut album, Surfa Rosa, when she was 18 and feeling “intrinsically drawn to it” despite knowing nothing about the band, or realising that the record had been released 13 years ago.
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“Not long after listening to and loving that album, I answered a flyer about a ‘Pixies-style band looking for a female bass player’,” she recalled. “I didn’t play the bass but I went out and got a cheap one and learned, joining the band, inspired by Pixies’ magical weirdo approach to songwriting, and had a lot of fun doing it.
“Pixies are one of those bands that deeply inspired me at a formative time, so even though you may not hear them in my music, their influence is definitely there. I think ‘Silver’ is my all-time favourite song of theirs. They remain one of the coolest, most unique bands out there.”
British singer and producer King Krule said he first stumbled upon Doolittle aged 10: “I was doing little, the bass emerged in my head like steel worms stretched across the blue sky.
“Later [musician Jacob Read, aka Jerkcurb] and my brother’s band Horsey would play ‘Velouria’ at their shows and [the lyric] ‘How does lemur skin/ reflect the sea?’ was carved into the pink gloop of my brain. Mysteries like this would make me wonder and wander through the labyrinths of the universe.”
It’s not just musicians who have praised Pixies, either. Academic and presenter Professor Roberts, who chose “Monkey Gone to Heaven” as one of her Desert Island Disc songs for the long-running BBC Radio show in March this year, recalled the 1980s being like “an auditory desert” until she heard the song.
“There were small, shallow pools of glistening fun that were momentarily distracting but had no depth and didn’t lure me back,” she said of that period. “There were some other rivers that I had no interest in swimming in. And then I heard ‘Monkey Gone to Heaven’ and it was like a deluge.
“It got into my ears and into my soul and I knew I’d found my sound. The poetry, playfulness, weirdness; the guitars, those two perfectly opposed voices. The Pixies became my favourite band of all time – and opened up a lifelong love of indie music/alternative rock for me.”
Comedian, actor and writer Richard Ayoade said: “No band has ever been more playful, thrilling, and cliché free – they never waste a note.”
Marking the 30th anniversary of Doolittle in 2019, The Independent’s critic Mark Beaumont described it as “songs about suicide, psychopaths, ecological disasters and mutilated eyeballs, delivered in a series of unholy screams, hisses, wails and growls.
“Sleeve images seemingly found in a serial killer’s scrapbook: human teeth lining the rim of a rusty bell, a dissected crab, horse hair curled around a spoon laid on a naked female torso. And its iconic cover, a halo-clad monkey hemmed in by quasi-religious symbols and numbers, was like a sepia snapshot from the cell of a sacrifice.”
He wrote: “Doolittle was no mere indie rock breakthrough record; it was the seed from which decades of febrile rock brilliance would sprout.”
“I think we knew we were doing good work at the time,” Pixies frontman Black Francis said in an interview with the Associated Press. “We were glad people liked it.”
“At the risk of sounding faux-humble, it’s not really my position to kind of go, ‘Well, here’s how my music sits in the pantheon of records and what it means and all that (expletive),’” he added. “It’s hard to talk about your own records as being quote-unquote influential or important or whatever because yeah, it sounds a little crass.”
