Pixies Part Ways With Longtime Bassist Paz Lenchantin After Ten-Year Run
The Pixies have parted ways with bassist Paz Lenchantin after a decade-long run with the band. They’ll be joined by former Band of Skulls bassist Emma Richardson when they kick off a European tour on March 8 in Dublin, Ireland.
The news of Lenchantin’s exit from the group came via a curiously dry statement from the group. “We’re grateful for Paz’s many contributions,” they wrote, “and wish her all the very best going forward.”
In an e-mail to Rolling Stone, Lenchantin made clear the decision was not her own: “It has been a dream of dreams these past 10 years to have been accepted as a Pixie by the band and by fans and an honor to have contributed to the Pixies legacy. My departure is a bit of a surprise to me as it is to many, but it looks like they have a solid plan figured out which in turn has pushed me to move onwards onto new projects that I am excited about.”
Kim Deal played bass in the Pixies from their founding in 1986 until 2013, when she left to focus on her work in the Breeders. Former Muffs bassist Kim Shattuck (who died in 2019) briefly toured with the group in 2013. At the end of the year, they replaced her with Lenchantin, who previously played in Zwan and A Perfect Circle.
In a 2022 Unknown Legends interview with Rolling Stone, Lenchantin said that she was a die-hard Pixies fan as a teenager in the Eighties. She was overjoyed when presented with an opportunity to join the band. “Charles [Thompson, a.k.a. Black Francis] is the greatest artist I’ve ever worked with,” she said. “I used to be like, ‘This is missing in this band, and this is missing in this band…’ But working with Charles, Joey [Santiago], and David [Lovering] really glued me together and completed me in every way I was looking for. It really is the peak of the mountain.”
Lenchantin first came into the orbit of the Pixies in the Nineties when guitarist Joey Santiago asked her to tour with his side project, the Martinis. Seventeen years later, she heard via drummer Josh Freese that the Pixies were auditioning new bass players. They initially gave the position to Shattuck, but they turned to Lenchantin a few months later.
“It wasn’t working out [with Shattuck] for whatever reason, energy-wise, and they called me,” Lenchantin told Rolling Stone. “They were like, ‘I don’t know if you’d still be interested. Sorry.’ They were kind of apologetic. I was, ‘Of course I’ll do that! Yeah!'”
From the beginning, her goal was to perfectly recreate Deal’s original bass parts and vocal harmonies. “I want to do it like the records,” she said. “Sometimes I’ll hear live shows where she isn’t even doing it exactly like the record or there’s differences with the harmonies or some of the notes she’s hitting. I’ll also use live things she’s done. I do a combination of things…Everything that I’ve played from this point has been influenced by her playing.”
After two years of road work, the Pixies made Lenchantin a full member of the band. They also invited her into the studio to record 2016’s Head Carrier with producer Tom Dalgety. On that album, she sang and co-wrote “All I Think About Now.” At Lenchantin’s urging, Thompson wrote the lyrics (“Remember when we were happy?/If I’m late can I thank you now?”) as an open letter to Kim Deal.
Lenchantin played a larger role in the writing of the 2019 Pixies album Beneath the Eyrie. She’s credited as a co-writer on “Los Surfers Muertos,” “Long Rider,” and “On Graveyard Hill.” She last recorded with the Pixies on 2022’s Doggerel. Her final show took place September 17, 2023, at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles.
Lenchantin’s departure comes ahead of a very busy period of touring with the Pixies. Their upcoming European tour will feature complete performances of 1990’s Bossanova and 1991’s Trompe Le Monde at every stop. On May 31st, they are kicking off a long series of American dates with Modest Mouse and Cat Power. They head back to Europe in the late summer and are opening for Pearl Jam in Australia at the end of the year.