The Breeders celebrate 30 years of their alternative rock masterpiece

The band travels with an espresso machine that never stopped running the entire time I was there, and they’d brought homemade brownies. It felt like a family trip. More than that, this band feels like family (and that’s not just because lead vocalist and guitarist Kim Deal and lead guitarist Kelley Deal are twin sisters).

It’s because they’ve been doing this together a long time. Kim and Kelley, along with bassist Josephine Wiggs and drummer Jim MacPherson, released their breakout album, Last Splash, 30 years ago. Now, they’re celebrating that 30th anniversary with a new remastered version of the album.

In this session, all four members join World Cafe to talk about revisiting Last Splash; what they remember from when it came out and blew up; and how they see their legacy now that their music is being rediscovered by new generations of fans.

You’ll also hear a song that didn’t originally make it onto Last Splash called “Go Man Go.” Kim explains how she’d written for the Pixies, who broke up the same year Last Splash was released.

Special thanks to Steve Albini for mixing and mastering these live performances, as well as Eric Matthews for engineering. This session was recorded at Louisville