The Pixies Are More Reptilian Than Ever, And Are Still Slicing Up Eyeballs
"Being in tune is overrated," said frontman and alt-rock pioneer Black Francis.
by JV Ordoñez
Published on May 22, 2026
After 40 years of shaping the stylistic zeitgeist for the modern alternative music and even popular music landscape, the Pixies are still as uncompromisingly venomous as they are honest in presenting their intentionally abrasive sonic legacy and a museum of records yet to be released to the world.
Esquire Philippines exclusively sat down with the innovative and pioneering outfit just a few hours before their long-awaited Manila debut and living guitar god Joey Santiago's cathartic homecoming to his old stomping grounds.
"I would say that the quality of the sandwiches is better now than when we first started out. We have more money to spend on the sandwiches," Black Francis reflected on the type of mental clarity you attain when one sifts through eras in the music business.
An on-brand cheeky and self-aware musing from one of the progenitors of the quiet-loud-quiet dynamic, which has an expansive and storied history of influence on other gigantic names in the annals of music history, which includes the likes of David Bowie, Radiohead, Nirvana, and Weezer.
Filipino-American Joey Santiago earlier looked back on famously using a ski pole as a makeshift microphone receptacle in his parents' basement. "Well, now I could afford to ski with a mic stand," he joked.
"I think we look back fondly at the beginning, because those were all new things happening, and it was exciting. There is some progression, like you take notice and stuff like that, that was great as well," said drummer and magician extraordinaire Lovering.
"We've been doing this so long. We're a little more seasoned and professional at it (jamming and rehearsing)."
For new Pixies fans, it may be intimidating digging deep into the band's catalog that jumps from biblical soliloquies, UFO extrapolations, and semi-comprehensible Spanish prose.
Straight from Professor Santiago's mouth, required reading for a Pixies crash course would still be their debut and sophomore records, Come on Pilgrim (1987 mini-album) and Surfer Rosa (1988), to get a snapshot of the hemisphere in which the Pixies were operating in during an era transfixed with counterculture and sticking it to the man.
Seminal tracks from the outfit's mini-album debut would be the undying "Caribou" and "Isla De Encanta," which are still staples in every iteration of a Pixies live show.
Their debut LP and even their follow-up, Doolittle (1989), are held in the highest regard. with a consensus of both records being punk rock masterpieces.
Francis, Santiago, Lovering, and former bassist and founding member Kim Deal were revered for their raw, primal artistry in tracks like "Debaser," "Monkey Gone to Heaven," and the transcendent "Where Is My Mind?" that catapulted the band into the greater music industry consciousness.
Behind the visceral sonic curtain that made the Pixies such an unrelenting force, Francis reveals there was never a master plan then or even a forward-looking playbook.
"In the Chinese Zodiac, Joey and I are snakes. So we feel our way on the ground," the eccentric frontman hissed.
"We just react. You know, in the moment."
The Pixies are on their 40-year reunion world tour with bassist Emma Richardson, who was faced with the herculean task of filling the shoes of longtime bassist Paz Lechantin and, of course, the legendary Deal's vocal and bass chops that balance out Francis' signature proclivity for gutteral yelping.
Any conscious citizen of the world who consumes meaningful works of art should abide by their duty of asking the obvious question: What are we working on, and what should we be hedging our bets on creatively?
"Everything. We have lots of songs that are unreleased and others that are in different stages (of completion)," Francis said. "Some of them go back more than 10 years."
Santiago always had this premonition that not everyone was going to get what his band intended to put out into the world.
He fondly recounted the time a lady at Newberry Comics returned a copy of Come On, Pilgrim because she didn't really dig it.
"I don't know, I got my jollies from that. You know why? Because I knew it was good," said the guitarist, who moved to the US when he was six.
The Pixies frontman also didn't compromise his vision for the critics or even those who just didn't resonate with the band's intentionally erratic inclinations.
Francis gave a refreshingly lucid take on this: "Well, if you're going to be an artist, you have to be willing to fail. You don't think about these things.
"Also, being in tune is overrated," the vocalist added.
An unyielding refusal to pivot and the consistent "who gives a flying fuck" approach to musicianship are phenomenal ways to evade the thief of joy.
In an alternate reality, Francis added that he would have wanted to have written the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack by the Bee Gees.
"They god to do a lot of dancing, and everyone around the world love it. They looked like they were always having a good time when they were doing those songs," the singer said, in an expected out of left-field response.
Joey's Home
When local organizer Karpos Live announced the Pixies concert at the Filinvest Tent in Alabang, the anticipation for Santiago's homecoming was as surreal as it was palpable, a critical cultural juncture in local live music history.
"I expect a seat for my 85-year-old aunt. And I think that's being fulfilled thanks to our wonderful crew," said the self-proclaimed "curmudgeon" and a universally recognized axe wizard.
Santiago donned a short-sleeved barong; he finally took the stage earlier this month despite feeling the blues physically in the middle of the nearly two-hour Pixies set that covered every era and album from their 40-year discography.
When all's said and done, the Pixies aren't mystical rock deities detached from the mortal plane. They are uncompromising, delightfully eccentric pedestrians with tame hobbies. Take Lovering's love for beachcombing; Joey's mild obsession with fountain pens and vintage Seikos, Emma's fondness for falconry, and Francis' talent for time travel.
They are trying to make sense of their craft just as much as we, you and I, are.
Story and Production: JV Ordoñez
Photos: Kieffer Carascal
Grooming: Lilian Yeung
Editor-in-Chief: Paul John Caña
Creative Direction: Igi Talao
Design Direction: Igi Talao
Special thanks to Karpos Multimedia and Quest Plus Hotel in Alabang
Esquire PH's resident music scribe, wristwatch disciple, and essayist fluent in niche internet subcultures and Philippine politics.
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