Kim Deal

Kim Deal (born Kimberley Ann Deal on June 10, 1961) is an American musician. She was born and raised in Dayton, Ohio, with her twin sister Kelley Deal. In high school she was a cheerleader and often got into conflicts with authority. Deal married and moved to Boston with her husband, John Murphy. She became a bassist and vocalist for the seminal alternative rock band the Pixies in 1986, after answering an advert for a female bassist into Hüsker Dü and Peter, Paul & Mary. Initially she went under the stage name "Mrs. John Murphy." In 1989, in order to play a larger vocal role in a band, she teamed up with Tanya Donelly and Josephine Wiggs to form a band called The Breeders, who released their debut album, Pod, in 1990. Deal recorded and performed with The Pixies until 1992, when the group split, largely because of increasing tension between her and frontman Black Francis. A year later, the Breeders released their second album, Last Splash, to critical acclaim and considerable commercial success. At the height of The Breeders' popularity in the mid-1990s, they scored a number of MTV hits, including "Cannonball" and "Divine Hammer." Although the band went into stasis in 1994, as Kelley Deal went in rehab for heroin addiction, they never officially split up, and in 2002 returned with a new album, Title TK. During this 8 year hiatus, Kim Deal kept busy by forming, recording, and touring with The Amps. She also produced albums for other groups, most notably fellow Dayton band Guided By Voices. In 2004, Deal returned to a newly reunited Pixies and headed off on a tour with them around North America through April and May. There are no actual indications that there is work on a new Pixies album at this point. Deal co-wrote only a few of the original Pixies songs, including one of their most notable early songs, "Gigantic." The first new Pixies song to appear since the reunion album, "Bam Thwok", was written by her, however, inspired by an illustration in a children's book of monsters having a party. "Bam Thwok" was written for the Shrek 2 soundtrack but was rejected. The 1997 Dandy Warhols album ...The Dandy Warhols Come Down features the song, "Cool As Kim Deal" as a tribute. The 1999 album HAPPY BIVOUAC by the Japanese rock group the pillows also features a tribute, "Kim Deal." Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.