Pixies' "Doolittle" Turns 20: Frank Black on the Band's Return to the Road

For a band that went 11 years between live performances, the Pixies are feeling awfully nostalgic this fall. The gargantuan box set Minotaur (which collects all their albums, plus extras like a concert DVD, art work and other fan bait) is out next month, and in November they're be celebrating the 20th anniversary of their iconic Doolittle album by playing the entire album all the way through on tour. We checked in with Black Francis — or Frank Black, as he's also known — about why the band is looking back.

When did the Pixies start thinking about a Doolittle tour?
There was some talk about doing it in London, but we thought, "When you do that, it's sort of like signifying you're officially retired." So we kind of avoided that. We weren't even planning on doing it this year. We got a call to open for Neil Young at the Isle of Wight, and as soon as we said yes to that gig, the phone wouldn't stop ringing. We wanted to do some more shows, and it was a coincidence that it was the 20th anniversary of Doolittle and also that Minotaur was coming out. Someone said, "Hey, let's do a Doolittle show!" We were kinda hesitant. We're a little sensitive about milking the reunion thing to death. We don't want to be seen as taking advantage of all the good will. At the same time, we are in show business and it is our right to go play — at county fairs if we want to.

How much rehearsal will go into preparing for the show?
The only songs we haven't played ever is "Silver," which was done in the studio during the mixing period of the album. And we haven't played "There Goes My Gun" in, like 14 years. But everything else we've been more or less playing during the reunion period. To flesh out the show, we're going to do all the related B sides, five or six songs.

How difficult is it to recreate that music 20 years later?
Well, fortunately, even at our most produced, say, Bossanova or Trompe Le Monde, we kept the arrangements simple enough that we could recreate them live. There are a few overdubs on Doolittle, like strings on one song, and I don't know what we're going to do about that, but I don't think it's required. It's not Sgt. Pepper. Two guitars, bass and drums will suffice. Kim is the quality control. She goes, "No, no, no — you don't strum it like that, you strum it like this." She's very persnickety. Which is a delight. It relieves the rest of us from having to do that.

Can you still do those screams "Debaser" and "Tame"?
Oh yeah. It's actually easier.

Why is Doolittle your biggest album?
For people who wanted raw and primal, it fit the bill. And for people who wanted it to be sonically full and not haphazard sounding but sounding like it had real vision, it satisfied those people. So it was twice as many people. Before we recorded with Gil Norton, we made a little demo and I remember lying on Joey Santiago's living room floor in his apartment, going, "Wow, we really did something special." And we hadn't even made the record yet.