I don't really care about anything
but smoking pot and playing music,
so it doesn't matter where I am.
— Kim Deal

Raw Deal

With the Breeders on hold,
Kim Deal pares down her sound
and gets Amped up

Story by David Holthouse — Photo by Derek M. Powazek

Dayton, Ohio — the town that sprouts rock bands like corn. Check out the run-down: Guided By Voices (together since '86, discovered in '93), Brainiac, the Tasties, the Method, the Afghan Wigs, and the subject of our talk today — the Amps. A sort of Dayton scene supergroup, the Amps are fronted by one Tammy Ampersand. Never heard of her? Try "Kim Deal."

Ah, now we're in familiar territory. Kim Deal, the former Pixie who, along with sister Kelley and Throwing Muse Tanya Donelly, formed the Breeders as a side-project in 1990. Side-line shifted to center after Kim split with Frank Black and the Pixies, and the Breeders released that killer album, Last Splash, in 1993. The band is currently on hiatus, due mainly to Kelley Deal's ongoing problems with heroin (Kelley is reportedly in Minnesota now, trying to get straight).

In the meantime, Kim and Breeders bassist Jim Macpherson picked up a couple members from the Tasties and started playing as the Amps. The band's first full-length, Pacer, came out last year on 4AD, the same division of Elektra that signed the Breeders. Recorded in six different studios across America (and one in Ireland), Pascer's basic lo-fi guitar rock was a turn-off for most Breeders fans, who were hoping for at least a quick fix of the bizarre song structures, effect-drenched vocals and noisy pop-punk grooves that took Last Splash over the top. To date, Pacer has sold just over 25,000 copies. Contacted recently at her home in Oakwood, a sleepy suburb of her hometown, Deal took one super-lunged bong hit and settled into the following chat about life in Ohio, cell biology, and the Marquis de Sade.

Tweak: So, Dayton — the Midwest's answer to Seattle?

Kim Deal: [Laughs] Man, the only people who go to see bands here are other bands. [A piercing beep sounds in the background] Hold on, I'm getting a fax.... Fuck! This magazine in Britain keeps faxing me the same question over and over. Let's see what they want. [Laughs] Check it out — they want to know what author has been a major influence on my work. Hah!

You don't care for the question?

I've just never connected music with books. Wait, that's not entirely true. "Cannonball" was inspired by the writings of the Marquis de Sade.

What? "I'll be the bong in your reggae song" was inspired by de Sade?

Well, not that line specifically. But the message of the song as a whole was making fun of de Sade and his libertarian views that if he was better off than someone, then they were just fodder for him. Playthings. It was saying,"Come on, life's not a contest."

So you're pretty much anti-de Sade.

Well, I don't know. Later on I found out he used to suck the snot out of people's noses, and I thought that pretty much ruled.

So what's your take on the Dayton phenomena? Seems to be pretty fertile ground for a small town.

Yeah, well, there's a lot of great bands from here, but the ironic thing is that here in Dayton no one really knows it. There's not this bustling music scene or anything. The kids here just want to see Bush and Pearl Jam. They don't care how good the music is, if it doesn't have the right brand name they're not into it.

The Amps played a show here last year at the Canal Street Tavern, which is this club on the main drag right by the [University of Dayton] campus, and all these kids were calling up the day of the show asking where the club was. It was like, "Hello, Canal Street Tavern!" They just don't go out to hear live music.

If it's so dead why do you live there?

It's pretty here. I've got a nice big yard with squirrels in it. See, I'm not one of those people that is real attached to where I live. I don't really care about anything but smoking pot and playing music, so it doesn't matter where I am as long as I can do that. That sounds pathetic, I'm sure, but it's true and there's a lot to be said for honesty, especially when you don't give a fuck what people think.

In Dayton are you "Kim Deal, rock star" or the weird chick down the block?

A little bit of both. When the Breeders were really hot and the "Cannonball" video was out people knew who I was, because we have MTV here. Now they've more or less forgotten, which is just fine with me. Either way, they generally leave me alone. Which is cool.

You've got a degree in biology. If you weren't a musician would you be in science?

Oh yeah, I suppose. Cell biology was my thing. To me, math was impossible. It was just intangible ideals. You match ideal to ideal to ideal to ideal, and I was bad at that. I need something real to grab onto, and with bio you just visualize and memorize. That I can do.

Will there ever be another Breeders record?

If none of us are in jail we're going to do one soon, yeah.

There are rumors that your sister has formed a side project in Minnesota. Any light to shed?

That's true. She's playing out with a band in St. Paul right now. They're calling themselves Solid State, but it turns out someone else may have the rights to that name. They should be pressing a record soon.

So what was up with the jet-set recording schedule for Pacer?

It was a good excuse to travel. Usually you do like 18 songs for an album in one place, and after Last Splash I was thinking why not do it in small batches all over the place. But it turned out to be a lot of heavy tapes to lug around. I think next time I'll go with two cities instead of six.

Any cities you'd like to play that you haven't?

I'd like to play somewhere in Brazil or Indonesia. And oh man, I'd love to play Jamaica. I heard if the crowd gets into you there they start shooting their guns in the air. [Laughs] Isn't that fucking cool? Think about it — "Oh shit, they like us! Duck!"

© 1996 Tweak