There’s no way to start a conversation about Chicago with Kim Deal without the name Steve Albini.
The late, great producer and audio engineer behind Chicago’s Electrical Audio recording studio was basically on Deal’s speed dial for almost 40 years, as she came up the ranks in iconic acts like Pixies and The Breeders. From his legendary Studio A, he zeroed in on the raw power and vociferous noise characteristic of Deal’s many seminal projects — albums like Pixies’ “Surfer Rosa,” The Breeders’ “Pod” and her 2024 solo debut “Nobody Loves You More.”
More than a year after his death in May 2024, the magnitude of his loss is still apparent. “I was just talking about how it feels like he’s been gone forever,” Deal said during a recent call. This trip, ahead of her solo return to Chicago to play Thalia Hall on July 23, marks one of her first times back to the city since last November. That time, she drove up from her home in Ohio to help dedicate Steve Albini Way near his studio at Belmont and Rockwell.
During the ceremony, Deal gave a speech that championed the way Albini always fought for the underdog, while also outing the lovable industry curmudgeon as finding the music business “exciting.”
Even from the great beyond, Albini continues to exert a seismic influence. “I realized, when I was at a memorial for him the week he passed … and saw all of these friends … that I would never know any of them if it wasn’t for Steve,” she said. These friends included Chicago musicians in her current band: violinist Susan Voelz, guitarist Rob Bochnik and cellist Alison Chesley, a.k.a. Helen Money. “That’s when I came to the idea that I’m not the main player in my own game,” she said. “Steve was.”
“Nobody Loves You More” was their final collaboration, and Albini Easter eggs appear throughout. One of the best is the breezy orchestral song “Summerland.” Its plucky rhythm comes courtesy of a ukulele Albini once gifted to Deal and her twin sister, Breeders guitarist and singer Kelley Deal, after the siblings provided the music for his Hawaiian wedding to Heather Whinna.
“I put that thing down for years, thinking, ‘What the hell am I going to do with this? I don’t play the ukulele,’ ” Deal joked — except something told her to take it out of its case again and write the track that anchors her latest album.
The record holds a number of other unfinished creative threads. And while it may be Deal’s first proper solo LP, the work behind it actually spans close to 15 years. Some of the tracks, like the lo-fi banger “Wish I Was,” were written in 2011, at a pivotal time. It was not long after Deal wrapped the Pixies’ Lost Cities Tour, one of her final jaunts with the cult-classic group she co-founded in 1980s Boston. The emotional lullaby “Are You Mine?” is about Deal’s late mother and her nearly 20-year battle with Alzheimer’s. “The only reason why I was writing was to cope,” Deal said.
At the time, she had moved from Los Angeles back to her hometown of Dayton, Ohio, to care for her mother. She has remained home ever since, a choice that has proved serendipitous. Deal now lives down the street from The Breeders’ original drummer, Jim Macpherson. “I go to have dinner with his grandkids; we went camping,” she said. Their relationship today is a far cry from their mid-‘90s rift, which erupted after their short-lived side project The Amps. More recently, Macpherson played on two tracks for Deal’s solo album.
Time has a way of healing wounds, as do celebrations. When it came time to fete the 20th anniversary of The Breeders’ landmark 2013 album “Last Splash,” the original members reunited for a proper party. They did so again in 2023 at Riot Fest with a highly touted full-album play-through, a set that drew Foo Fighters’ Dave Grohl and Sonic Youth’s Kim Gordon to watch from the wings.
Deal calls that performance, in a word, “challenging.”
“I mean, there’s a sewing machine on the record,” she pointed out.
The sewing machine, which appears on the track “S.O.S.,” was her sister’s idea.
“[Kelley] had never been in a band. She had never been to a recording studio, so she thought, ‘I’m going to work on Mom’s quilt,’ and she brought her Singer machine and set it up,” Deal recalled.
Little details like these are ingrained in Deal’s catalog, works appreciated by the likes of vaunted Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain and pop superstar Olivia Rodrigo. In 2024, Rodrigo recruited The Breeders to open on her Guts World Tour. Every night, the pop star told audiences how much The Breeders meant to her, particularly their uberhit “Cannonball.”
“There was my life before ‘Cannonball’ and after I heard ‘Cannonball,’” Deal recalls Rodrigo saying.
“I think it made quite an impact on her, in a way that music can make an impact on people,” Deal said. “The way that one can find acceptance, understanding, peace, identity and friendship when you listen to the right music.”