The Breeders' Kelley Deal has come to terms with always being the bridesmaid in the spotlight to her sister and band mate Kim, who helped form influential alternative underground act The Pixies.
When it comes to recording and touring with The Breeders, the group often takes a backseat to her twin sister's commitments. However, the Breeders are getting a little time in the sun right now — and the act is returning to Northeast Ohio Thursday at the Beachland Ballroom.
"If Kim (stops touring) with The Pixies, maybe The Breeders can record again," said Deal, calling from her Dayton home. "But things are good. Kim has been really busy this year so this upcoming tour is the first thing we've done, except when Kim and I go down into the basement and play. Now I can run a little Pro Tools unit, so we're always kind of fooling around down there."
With its last full-length effort being 2008's "Mountain Battles," which was followed by 2009 EP "Fate to Fatal," The Breeders are about due for something new. So far the tinkering by the Sisters Deal led to a brand-new tune, which is expected to be played at the Cleveland show.
What the girls haven't settled on yet is the name, with working titles including "Happy," "I Really Want to Be Your Friend," "Weird" and "Woe."
One thing The Breeders members are all in agreement on is their tour will feature older and obscure material.
"We'll be dusting off some things and playing some songs that we haven't played in a long, long time, which is really fun for me," Deal said. "Like, we're playing ‘Don't Call Home,' and also ‘S.O.S.,' which is off ‘Last Splash.' That's the song The Prodigy used for ‘The Firestarter.' And ‘S.O.S.' has a sewing machine in it, so I'll be bringing my Kenmore on tour. It's really funny to go back to that material."
When comparing The Breeders now to back then, the one thing that stands out is mainstream accessibility based solely on mainstream acceptance. While the alternative act is remembered as a where-are-they-now group of the early '90s, with its 1993 album "Last Splash" yielding the popular video and radio hit "Cannonball," musical tastes have shifted to the point where the band is still recording the same quirky tunes with oddball time signatures. The only difference is now the outfit exists decidedly under the radar. And that's fine with the Deal Sisters.
This leads us back to the band's next project, which has yet to be fully written. Still, Deal has an idea of what she hopes it will sound like.
"The weirder the better for me, but I'm not the primary songwriter in The Breeders," Deal said. "So it's hard for me to say this album is going to be this. I have to see what Kim is feeling, what she's vibing and what she's coming up with. My job is to just help make it as weird as possible."
And being second banana is OK with Deal?
"The second banana, excuse me?" Deal questioned with a laugh. "This is something Josephine Wiggs, the old bassist in The Breeders, would have said. She'd say, ‘Actually, it is the most powerful position in the band. It's actually the puppet master.' But in reality, I'm happy. There is plenty of music in the world."
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