E-Mail This Article to a Friend Black is back (continued)

The Pixies were kind enough to play "Here Comes Your Man" — a song they left off many set lists in the years before the break-up — at Coachella. They even included "Gigantic," a song that features Deal on lead vocals and, perhaps for that reason, also remained conspicuously absent from those latter-day set lists. It was also apparent that Thompson, Deal, guitarist Joey Santiago, and drummer David Lovering had come to terms with whatever bitterness caused the break-up — a bitterness that has often been characterized as acrimony.

"I don’t know what people mean when they say that the break-up was acrimonious, because that seems like a very strong word," Thompson says. "I can’t say that at the time we were hanging out and playing backgammon together in our spare time."

So how would he describe the emotions at the time of the split?

"Not playing backgammon," he deadpans before offering a more-considered response. "There wasn’t a lot of talking going on. And we broke up. That’s pretty typical. We weren’t pulling guns on each other — that sounds acrimonious. There wasn’t even any fighting or arguing going on. That sounds acrimonious. People just weren’t saying anything. It was just sort of grouchy — grouchy, grumpy, I’m in a bad mood, why are we doing this ... that kind of thing. Plus, we weren’t selling as many records or playing bigger places, so, in terms of numbers, it had planed out. Even the reviews had started slipping. It just seemed like the right time to break up.

"So, yeah, we were in a bad mood at the end of our career. And, now we’re focused on what it is that we’re doing and not on all those other things that put us in a bad mood. We have our own reasons internally why we were in a bad mood. And you know what? It’s between us and only us, and nobody will ever know. Whatever negative experiences we had became blown out of proportion. All you know is that bad taste that gets left in your mouth. So you avoid it for a super-long time. Having said that, I think it worked in our favor in terms of this reunion tour. Because if we’d broken up for three years and come back, no one would have cared."

Though Thompson gets to it in only a roundabout way, it’s clear (as it was a dozen years ago) that there was friction between him and Deal. When I bring up the Breeders and the success they had post-Pixies, his response is, "People have success for all kinds of reasons. It’s showbiz. So the Breeders didn’t surprise me. I have come to realize more than I realized back then that Kim has a lot of charisma. I mean she just stands there smoking a cigarette and people go bananas. People just like her. I don’t know why. I’m not saying she’s not likable. But she doesn’t have to parade around going, ‘Look at me, look at me,’ and people still go nuts over her. I hate to sound like I’m getting down on women performers because there are just as many if not more shitty male performers, but there are a lot of women in rock who kind of play up the whole sexual thing even when they’re supposedly not playing up the sexual thing. There’s nothing wrong with that. But that is what it is. And Kim doesn’t do that. So when she doesn’t do all the stupid shit and say, ‘Look at my boobs, everybody,’ and she just stands there in her jeans and rumpled T-shirt, it just drives men insane. She’s totally being herself. I think people sense that. They appreciate that she’s not going for all the obvious moves because she’s a gal or dumbing the whole thing down. She just has this attitude that’s like, I’m going to rock and either you like me or you don’t, but I don’t give a shit. People love that. And before, I may have been put off by that, for whatever the reason."

One could get the sense that Thompson was also put off by the fact that the Pixies were embraced in England back when they were still playing club gigs in Boston, and by the fact that they’ve taken such a circuitous route on this tour to the city that gave them their start. In fact, he harbors no bitterness, and it was simply the logistics of setting up a tour for a band who’d been away for a dozen years that affected when and where they’d play. "In certain big markets we could book a big show and wait to see what would happen. And in others we had to wait around until we had proven ourselves."

At the same time, there have been murmurings (mostly by other musicians) that the Pixies are just in it now for the money. That’s something Thompson takes exception to. "If people are commenting like that because they’re assuming we’re going to go through the motions and deliver a subpar show, then, yeah, that’s bad. That’s making a lot of assumptions, and we’re not 90 years old. It’s the original line-up — the precious four, the magic line-up. We’re not doing medleys. We know how the songs go. And, as a matter of fact, I have more experience now. I can sing a lot better than I used to. I can scream louder, too. Maybe if I couldn’t scream and do the barking like I used to, then that would be cause for dismay. But that’s not really an issue. I’ve kept my rock muscle up."

The Pixies play Wednesday, December 1 and Thursday, December 2 at Tsongas Arena, 300 Arcand Avenue, in Lowell. The Wednesday show is sold out; tickets are still available for the Thursday show. Call (617) 931-2000.