Dayton Roots and Early Sparks
“We were just trying to figure out how blue rhymes with you.” – Kim Deal
It was Kim Deal who always said, “To my mind, there is a reason that music is there and it’s about being human.” Those words—simple yet profound—are the heartbeat behind every bassline, every lyric, every discordant harmony she’s ever shared with the world. Born in Dayton, Ohio on June 10, 1961, Kim and her twin sister Kelley were inseparable from the start. Their early musical experiments were humble—four- or five-year-old sisters singing into a two-track tape recorder, until the day Dayton became too small for their imaginations. “We were just trying to figure out how blue rhymes with you,” Kim later recalled, referring to the awkward teenage scrawl of her lyrics from that time.
As teenagers, they found solace in the wild cassette tapes sent from California. Bands like Siouxsie and the Banshees, the Undertones, Elvis Costello, and the Sex Pistols became their most treasured connections to what lay beyond suburbia. “These tapes were our most treasured possession, the only link with civilization,” Kim remembered.
Answering the Ad: Kim Joins the Pixies
“To my mind, there is a reason that music is there and it’s about being human.” – Kim Deal
In 1986, Kim stepped into what would become her rite of passage: answering an ad in The Boston Phoenix that read, “Band seeks bassist into Hüsker Dü and Peter, Paul and Mary. Please—no chops.” She was the only response and soon became the Pixies’ bassist and co-vocalist, cheekily adopting the pseudonym “Mrs. John Murphy” on the early releases Come on Pilgrim and Surfer Rosa.
Kim’s bass was the glue behind the Pixies’ tumult, her voice a quiet counterpoint to Black Francis’s wildness. Her songwriting instincts burst through in the iconic track “Gigantic,” and tracks like “Silver” added depth and texture to the band’s trajectory. Yet behind the albums and tours was a simmering tension—creative friction, exhaustion, and unspoken desires—that would eventually draw the band into breakup.
Through it all, Kim carried her humanity firmly in her hands. She observed early on that “alternative” was a word coined by the media, to get more money for their advertisers… Actually, you know who said “alternative music”? My mother… they’d go, “I’ll tell you what it’s alternative to. Good music.”
Birth of the Breeders
“I’d never played guitar in a band before… then I was suddenly in The Breeders.” – Kelley Deal
In 1989, craving space for her own voice, Kim formed the Breeders alongside Tanya Donelly, Josephine Wiggs, and Britt Walford. Their debut album, Pod, produced by Steve Albini, was raw and mesmerizing—Kurt Cobain even counted it among his favorite records. When Tanya departed, Kim invited Kelley—who’d never played guitar—to join in 1992 for the Safari EP. By the time Last Splash arrived in 1993, Kelley’s scrappy, emotionally honest playing had become a signature staple.
Addiction, Hiatus, and Reinvention
“I didn’t know how to knit… then I started obsessively knitting.” – Kelley Deal
But sudden success came with its storms. Kelley’s addiction became public amid touring in 1994, and she entered rehab. The Breeders shuttered, leaving Kim to tenderly care for their ailing mother in Dayton. It was during this abyss that Kim birthed the Amps, under the persona Tammy Ampersand, releasing Pacer in 1995—a lo-fi, restless burst of creative truth.
Meanwhile Kelley was battling darker tides. As she later reflected, she’d been a heroin addict since her teens—but rehab sparked a turning point. In the stillness of recovery, she began writing again, forming The Kelley Deal 6000, releasing Go to the Sugar Altar (1996) and Boom! Boom! Boom! (1997), before returning to the Breeders fold.
Solo Detours: The Amps, Kelley Deal 6000, and R.Ring
“I thought I’d do everything on four-track… then I’ll have a solo album.” – Kim Deal
Despite the rupture, the sisters rediscovered their synergy. They reformed the Breeders in various incarnations, releasing Title TK (2002), Mountain Battles (2008), Fate to Fatal EP (2009), and ultimately, the triumphant All Nerve in 2018, uniting the classic lineup.
In quieter moments, Kelley carried another life in her hands. She learned to knit while newly sober—a meditative craft that held her through lonely hotel nights on tour. “I didn’t know how to knit… the girlfriend of the opening band’s drummer taught me how to knit on that tour… and that was it. Then I started obsessively knitting.” She boxed up sweaters, knitted them into unique scarves, and named them—each with a story. “Each scarf is a song… it’s its own complete thought, and it even has a name.”
She even published a book in 2008, Bags That Rock: Knitting on the Road with Kelley Deal, blending patterns with backstage reflections. “Steve Albini once told me that I am basically the answer to a trivia question: Name a person who has a platinum record, is a published author, has a top-secret government clearance (now inactive), and has been arrested for a felony.”
In 2019, she spoke candidly about her apparel venture in More or Less Magazine: “Collecting and reusing… The idea of buying new things makes me sick to my stomach… Every scarf has its own name…” Kim even pitched in as the namer of one piece: “Sunken Living Room.”
Kelley’s weaving across media and music embodied creative freedom. “I think about that both when I make ‘things’ but also when I make songs… It’s not about perfection—it’s about joy.” She and Mike Montgomery formed R.Ring in 2010, releasing music in handcrafted packaging—CD cases with CD titles hammered in, crocheted covers, recipe-card inserts—joyfully tactile, deeply personal.
The Return: Reunions and Resurgence
“All of my favorite music came from bands, so doing a solo project was never something I had in mind.” – Kim Deal
Meanwhile, in 2004, Kim rejoined the Pixies, reuniting them until 2013. But ever restless, she channeled her decades of experience into her long-delayed solo album. Nobody Loves You More dropped on November 22, 2024—the culmination of years of intermittent studio dares, family grief, and simmering artistry.
In a rare Louder feature in November 2024, she reflected on working with Albini: “When we were doing the strings for ‘Summerland’, there’s like 11 or 12 players… Steve’s not harried… He was so elegant and so professional, I’d never seen that from him.” The album is a surprising collage: brass-laden bossa nova, orchestral laments, brittle electronic textures. Critics lauded it. The Quietus hailed it for its emotional range; AllMusic gave it an Editor’s Choice tag; Mojo and Uncut ranked it among the year’s best.
Kim admitted she never planned to go solo. In a recorded sit-down with WFUV in June 2025, she said: “All of her favorite music came from bands, so doing a solo project was never something she had in mind… Over a period of years, [she] crafted an album worthy of a Kim Deal billing: ‘Nobody Loves You More’.” And on a November day in Ohio, she was tending her dog—“dog, dog, dog” became her rhythm—with a simple truth: “Fall was great… global warming is horrible and all, but damn, it makes for beautiful weather.”
Thus the sisters’ stories often mirrored each other—creative twins walking parallel paths through noise and silence, reinvention and memory, collaboration and solitude.
Now: What the Deal Sisters Are Doing Today
“Fall was great… global warming is horrible and all, but damn, it makes for beautiful weather.” – Kim Deal
Kim Deal continues to live in Dayton, walking her dog, composing quietly, and tending to the legacy she’s still crafting. She’s ventured into solo territory not as a flashy divergence but as a statement of mature self-ownership—making music on her terms, folding in strings, horns, memory, and mortality. Her studio sessions in Greenwich Village earlier in 2025, with small ensembles and raw intimacy, signaled that her solo voice has room to roam still. The album’s reflective tone and sophisticated textures suggest that she has many more stories to tell—not out of need, but because music, for her, remains where humanity meets resonance.
Craft, Commerce, and Kelley’s DIY E-Store
“Each scarf is a song… it’s its own complete thought, and it even has a name.” – Kelley Deal
Kelley Deal, meanwhile, has not ceased. Knitting remains a thread through her days—DIY, upcycled scarves moving slowly from her kitchen table to collector’s hands. On her website and through select boutiques, she still offers handmade accessories that are pieces, names, histories. In music, she continues with R.Ring and occasionally with the Breeders, leaning into intimacy rather than spectacle. She is still creating at the intersection of craft and song, slowed but never stale, imbued with a fierce compassion and handcrafted wisdom.
In the end, it’s fitting that Kim and Kelley’s creative outputs mirror each other: Kim, weaving orchestral solos from memory, rhythms, grief, and wit; Kelley, knitting texture into tangible expressions that wear stories. Both echo the ADHD generosity of twin souls who learned early that making things—be they songs or scarves—is not just artistic impulse, but lifeline.
When Kim said, “I thought I’d do everything on four-track… then I’ll have a solo album,” she laughed at the luxury of imagining a quick spring release. But real art rarely fits schedules. It arrives when it’s ready, shaped by the pacing of life, the tremor of longing, the need to be understood. In their voices—Kelley’s fabrics and Kim’s harmonies—we hear not two careers but one continuous song of two lives: intertwined, divergent, bold.
The Deal sisters are proof that survival and creativity aren’t separate threads—they’re the same stitch, pulled tight and loosened as life demands. Kim’s solo work pushes into new sonic territory while staying grounded in the raw pulse that made her iconic, and Kelley continues to knit worlds out of yarn and riffs, balancing fragility with ferocity. Together, they’ve shown that making—whether a platinum record, a hand-stitched bag, or a song whispered into a four-track—isn’t about chasing perfection. It’s about insisting on your own voice, again and again, no matter how loud the world gets.
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sources: moreorlessmag.com, wfuv.org, Louder, thecreativeindependent.com, The Chicago Ambassador, American Songwriter
AXO (she/her) is a multidisciplinary creator, editor, and builder of feminist media ecosystems based in Toronto. She is the founder of She Zine Mag, Side Project Distro, BBLGM Club, and several other projects under the AXO&Co umbrella — each rooted in DIY culture, creative rebellion, and community care. Her work explores the intersection of craft, technology, and consciousness, with an emphasis on handmade ethics, neurodivergent creativity, and the politics of making. She is an advocate for accessible creativity and the power of small-scale cultural production to spark social change. Her practice merges punk, print, and digital media while refusing to separate the emotional from the practical. Above all, her work invites others to build creative lives that are thoughtful, defiant, and deeply handmade.
