It’s always fascinating, and often inspirational, to hear top artists and producers talk about the nuts and bolts of creating songs. Hey, it’s what MusicRadar's here for.
And so the different sections, the A section, the B section, the C section, oh, we’ve got a D also, we’ve got onion on this sandwich
Black Francis
This week, Pixies’ Black Francis - or Frank Black in solo mode - laid out the band’s blueprint for building tracks. And it all comes down to sandwiches. And widgets. Best of all, you can clearly hear it working throughout the band's always-dynamic output.
“This is how the Pixies put together music”, he told Consequence, in a wide-ranging interview as the band returns with Doggerel, its 8th studio album.
“The main metaphor that we use is a sandwich, and it’s how you stack the sandwich. That’s how we think about pop music.”
“Now, there’s other ways to think about pop music, but the way that we think about it, is in this very blocky, kind of sandwich-y kind of way. And so the different sections, the A section, the B section, the C section, oh, we’ve got a D also, we’ve got onion on this sandwich."
“So you start to think about it as kind of like our widgets that you can move around in a different sequence, right?
“So basically, sometimes the song requires some more, I don’t know how to put it, classical music or kind of theatrical kind of arrangement.
Warming to the theme, Francis drew parallels, if not comparisons, between Pixies' approach and the work of Charles Mingus vs John Coltrane's more dogmatically improvisational approach.
"Mingus, as chaotic as some of his recordings are, they’re very arranged, right?
"[Mingus] was more of, as I would term it, he was more of a sandwich stacker musician, not to compare myself to Charles Mingus. So for him, a certain type of playing, to him that was just jamming. He wouldn’t call that composing."
"Now, Coltrane, I think, was trying to take something that was more improvisational, and I don’t know, making it the composition, I suppose. But, you know, Mingus has all this big band kind of background, playing with Duke Ellington and stuff. And so there’s a lot of arranging going on."
For more, head over to Consequence. Pixies' new album, Doggerel, is out now.
