The Breeders’ take: No need for mainstream

By John Benson

The band did have a hit but didn’t capitalize on it.

Teaching her dog a new trick.

That’s exactly what The Breeders guitarist Kelley Deal was attempting to do with her fully grown bull mastiff just before recently calling for a brief phone interview.

“I’m trying to train my dog using Cesar Millan stuff, you know ‘The Dog Whisperer,’” said Deal, calling from her Dayton home. “He’s real gentle and he really scares every dog. He’s doing good, but I do have to hold his head and say ‘Stay.’ So I guess I don’t know how well I’m doing. Actually, he’s a complete brat and has no discipline at all.”

In case you can’t tell, the irony of teaching an old dog a new trick is thick when considering The Breeders – the indie rock act started by Deal’s twin sister Kim (Pixies founding member) and known for its grunge-era hit single “Cannonball” – has spent the last 15 years refusing to polish its decidedly lo-fi and late ’80s underground sound. The same can be said for its latest effort “Mountain Battles.”

“It’s weird because our vocals do sound really strange,” Deal said. “People say, ‘Wow, what effect are they using?’ And the thing is, there is no effect. Because we don’t have the pitch shifter tuner on our vocals, they will sound really unusual now, because all you hear are vocals going through an auto tuner. So I think that’s good.”

She added, “One thing I read that I could connect to – because I wasn’t connecting with a lot of popular bands in the mainstream – talked about the Disneyification of music. Like every song is a pop song or a pop-punk song and all pop-punk bands. So I find that I have to go further and further kind of underground to find music that I like and that speaks to me.”

In part, it’s this mind-set that explains why in some circles The Breeders are viewed as a where-are-they-now band. Just as the alt-rock movement of the early ’90s was cresting, the band’s 2003 album “Last Splash” yielded the popular video and radio hit “Cannonball.”

Despite whatever momentum the song provided the band, it never capitalized on it, which brings up the idea that The Breeders were never bred (sorry!) for long-term mainstream success and notoriety.

“To be one of those really big bands, there are choices you make that The Breeders never did make,” Deal said. “So it was really kind of a fluke that we ever got into the mainstream. We didn’t do the fashion spread in Spin magazine.

“We got offered that and never did that stuff, so it is weird that ‘Cannonball’ was so successful, but it was a really good song and a really popular song.”

Even though “Mountain Battles” has been positioned as a Breeders comeback album, Deal points out the group didn’t disband as much as have to deal with other commitments (The Pixies reunion tours) and personal issues. In fact, two of the newer songs – “Spark” and “No Way” – date back to the sessions for the band’s previous effort, 2002’s “Title TK.”

Still, “Mountain Battles” did act as a homecoming for the Deal sisters, who moved back to the Buckeye State to help take care of their mother, who suffers from Alzheimer’s. The entire experience has been familiar yet surreal to Deal.

SDLqIt’s weird because some things never change,” Deal said. “Kim and I will say to my mom and dad, ‘Hey, we’re going to Kim’s house and work on music,’ and they don’t say it but you know. They just kind of roll their eyes like we’re going over there to [expletive] around. Like ‘Get a real job’ kind of thing.

“You get this feeling like we’re going to go over there and waste time. It’s weird. I still have that feeling, and I remember that when Kim and I were younger and we’d be in our bedroom, they’d come up and say, ‘What are you doing? Why are you wasting so much time up here?’ So it does really bring us back.”