Our first taste from the album was the strutting There’s a Moon On, followed by last month's Vault of Heaven. Now, the Pixies have premiered the LP's third single, which – in an unlikely twist – name-checks Van Halen.
You can hear the song – the otherwise very Pixies–esque Dregs of the Wine – below.
"While I prefer the original version of You Really Got Me," frontman Black Francis intones theatrically in the song's first line, "she will defer to the Van Halen version." What follows will be warmly welcoming to any Pixies fan – mildly depraved lyrics over an insistent bass guitar line, and an explosive, heavy chorus with Francis and Pixies lead electric guitar player Joey Santiago's six-strings kicking up quite the dust storm of riffing.
Dregs of the Wine, Francis explained in a statement, was about “living in Los Angeles in the ‘90s with my then-wife, hanging out with Joey and his ex-wife, lots of trips to Las Vegas, a lot of drinking, little bit drug taking, some genuine good times.”
Amazingly, the song is the first Pixies tune to ever feature a writing credit for the Les Paul-wielding Santiago, who has served as the quartet's lead guitarist for the entirety of their existence.
“I guess I was in kind of a zombie state, just playing," Santiago explained of the song's origins. "After I stopped playing, I put [my guitar] down and went, ‘Well, that was a fucking waste of time, what a piece of shit I am.’ I beat myself up a lot, but my girlfriend, unbeknownst to me, was recording me. She played it back to me, and I go, ‘Fuck! Hold on a second here! This stuff is good!’”
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Doggerel is set for a September 30 release via BMG. You can check out its cover art and track list below.
Jackson is an Associate Editor at GuitarWorld.com. He’s been writing and editing stories about new gear, technique and guitar-driven music both old and new since 2014, and has also written extensively on the same topics for Guitar Player. Elsewhere, his album reviews and essays have appeared in Louder and Unrecorded. Though open to music of all kinds, his greatest love has always been indie, and everything that falls under its massive umbrella. To that end, you can find him on Twitter crowing about whatever great new guitar band you need to drop everything to hear right now.
