Clash Music

Black Francis

Former Pixies' frontman's solo guise

You really shouldn’t need an introduction to the man his mum knows as Charles Thompson IV. Having fronted the wildly influential Pixies, he’s had a wide and varied solo career, pursuing muses such as surf, punk rock and Nashville twang. These stylistic shifts have also been accompanied by changes in name: from Black Francis to Frank Black to Frank Black and the Catholics and finally back to Black Francis for the punky, edgy ‘Bluefinger’. The reason for all the chopping about? Why, semiotics, of course.

Apparently, ‘Frank Black’ was muddying the creative waters. “My wife said, ‘You’re cocooned: go blossom into a beautiful butterfly.’ So I changed it back to Black Francis.” Shifting back to the tag of his Pixies days gave Black the “most mild notion: go up-tempo and aggressive. I go through the symbolism of it; Black is back baby: it just happens.”