If you’re of a certain age, hearing that the Pixies has been a band for 40 years is the musical equivalent of getting that first piece of mail from AARP.
It’s not possible. Not the Boston quartet that tore through the alternative rock scene in the late 1980s and early ‘90s with melodic meltdown albums like “Bossanova,” “Doolittle” and “Surfer Rosa.”
Not the band whose frontman, Charles Thompson (aka Black Francis), wrote gorgeously catchy pop hooks and then had the band – guitarist Joey Santiago, bassist Kim Deal and drummer David Lovering – drown those hooks in cranked-and-cranky guitars and caterwauling vocals.
There’s no way this band is 40 years old.
Well, go ahead and sit down, because it is. And it is celebrating that anniversary with the “P40” tour, which brings the band to the Peace Center on Sept. 15.
Deal left the band back in 2013, so bassist/vocalist Emma Richardson handles things now. Other than that, it’s the original Pixies lineup, including idiosyncratic guitarist Joey Santiago.
When contemplating the band’s 40th anniversary in our interview, Santiago remembered that “it was the first band that I’d ever joined.”
“There was hell of a lot of excitement,” he said of that early era. “And a lot of work lot of putting songs together, trying to get maybe 20 to 30 minutes of material ready. I think 20 minutes was the minimum to play a show in town on an early slot. I remember shooting for that.”
The Pixies overshot that goalpost by about a million miles. Songs like “Here Comes Your Man,” “Where Is My Mind?” “Monkey Gone To Heaven” and “Debaser,” once too edgy and loud to even sniff mainstream radio play, are anthems for an entire generation of alt-rock fans.
Some of those fans are pretty famous. In fact, musicians from Nirvana, to Radiohead, to Alice In Chains, to David Bowie have name-checked the band as an influence.
But it’s important to note that The Pixies is still a working band, not a nostalgia act. Since returning from a long hiatus in 2004, the band has released five new albums. And you can expect to hear newer songs mixed in with the classics at the Peace Center.
“It’s part of our way to entertain ourselves,” Santiago said. “I think we would have petered out a lot sooner if we hadn’t been making new music.”
But Santiago also allowed himself a rare moment of sentimentality when discussing the band’s current state.
“This sounds corny,” he said, “but I feel really blessed to be a part of this group.”
Want to go?
Who: The Pixies, with Fat, Evil Children
When: Tues., Sept. 15, 7:30 p.m.
Where: Peace Center, 300 S. Main St., Greenville
Tickets and info: peacecenter.org
