The news is almost too good to be true: The Pixies are back together and playing, really well. As if a full-blown reunion wasn’t enough, lead singer Frank Black dashed into the studio for four days in Nashville right before the band’s tour to record a long-pondered solo album, his first since 1996’s The Cult of Ray. Recorded in Nashville and calling upon veterans like Spooner Oldham, Bruce Hood, Anton Fig and Steve Cropper, Honeycomb is Black’s most soul-baring and sparse album to date. If there was any doubt, let it be squelched: Black is back.

What a group of musicians on this album. I didn’t initially look at the lineup and just spun the album a few times falling harder and harder for it each time. Then when I looked at the credits, it all made sense. Ah, so this is why it sounds somewhat timeless.
Yeah, for sure—the band was pretty shit-hot.

Did you guys attempt to make a “timeless” record or rather did you attempt to create a timeless sound on this record?
Just to speak for the concepts, I’m not sure there was an attempt to handle the songs in a certain way, but the biggest cue was probably taken from Blonde on Blonde.

What makes much of yours and the Pixies music so potent is a certain sense of brevity and I feel like all these guys have that in spades; get in, get out, say and play what you need to, done. Is that accurate at all?
Yeah, I suppose. I think to me that’s the only way to do it really.

How did you go about getting musicians on board?
I had nothing to do with it, it was all Jon Tiven. I knew that he would get an A-list group of guys, and he did. He’s a very well connected producer; he knows he lot of musicians.

I know the sessions happened pretty quickly, you had a small window in which to complete them, and you said that these guys probably weren’t familiar with your work. Did you guys just meet just as musicians, without the “I know all your work in this historical context” type of feeling?
Yeah, cause that’s all kind of ego. I think when a lot of musicians—whether they’re really famous or really obscure—show up at a studio session that’s what it’s all about. It’s about making a record, and if there’s a particular artist who’s leading the session—Frank Black in this case—there’s not really a lot of discussion, it’s just all about music, and doing it as well as you can. There’s not really a lot of sitting around going on—talking about your careers or whatever, it just isn’t like that.

Is the way this particular recording process went—very short sessions, one or two takes—very typical for you?
Well, I have recorded plenty of songs in my career that have been done in one or two takes. But, I would say—of course with it being of this caliber—you could have made the entire album in all take-ones, and it would have been a good record. It’s a combination of take-ones, take-twos, and take-threes maybe. But, lets face it, they’re [the session musicians] very, very good, they’ve got a lot of mojo. They’re kind of oozing mojo when they walk into the room. I mean Steve Cropper walks in with his long hair, and his big Hawaiian shirt on, carrying his own amp in one hand, and as he comes through the doorway he says, “Hey, how you doin’?!” like a total badass—you know that guys is going to play good, you can just tell. I mean never mind his reputation, or even his career, just look at the guy, his body language, he’s a 62-year-old guy carrying his own amp. He’s been doing it a long time, he loves music, and his whole life revolves around it. It’s the same with all of these guys—they all have their own particular personalities, they’re all different from each other. But you can just tell, these guys live and breathe music, it’s what they’re all about.

This was the first time you recorded in Nashville, what was your impression of it?
Never even saw it. I rented a car, and had a nice hotel room downtown, it was a convertible and barely warm enough to drive with the top down, but I did it anyway. I’d drive down to Starbucks, get myself my double-espresso and a muffin, and then drive to the studio. I would stay at the studio all day, and then drive back to the hotel at night. I mean, that’s all I did—but that’s how you make a record.

Outside of the musicians, how important was Nashville as an influence on this album?
This is where a lot of these guys work—they either live in Nashville, or close to Nashville, or they’re accustomed to flying into Nashville; it’s a magnet for talent. There’s LA, Nashville, New York, and London—that’s it, those are the music towns. There are obviously exceptions, but of all of those towns, I would say Nashville is pretty big for music, not just country music either. It’s the crossroads of Americana, that’s were it all happened: Tennessee, Arkansas, Mississippi, that whole part of the world.

You said, “I’ve now played with the best musicians there are, and they’ve slapped me on the back and given me a wink and a nod. So I know I am a singer. I am a musician. I can finally relax and do the gig, whatever it might be.” And the story you relay about practicing the vocal for “Dark End of the Street” quietly in the bathroom. I’m surprised, that even at your level with everything you’ve accomplished and done, that there’s still some level of self-doubt or insecurity. Does that ever go away you think? Or is it good to have?
Yeah, I suppose it’s good to have. When you get too cocky, that’s when things really get messed up.

Are you going to hook up a tour with these guys?
Yes, I’m trying to organize that, and we’ll see what happens. I’m trying organize a series of residencies, and, well, we’ll see. They all have careers and stuff, so they’re kind of hard to nail down—I mean, they have Neil Young calling them, I have a lot of competition (laughs).

Have any of your older Pixies songs taken on a new meaning due to a change in personal context over the years?
Maybe in a moment here and a moment there, but so many of the Pixies songs are so abstract which makes them difficult to connect to in a real specific way, they’re so out there lyrically.

Would you say that lyrically speaking, this is your most straightforward and honest album?
Yes, cause I’ve heard that question more than once now, so that must be what’s going on.

I like the point you make in saying, “We’re being financially rewarded for something we did 20 years ago; I’m not embarrassed by that. Isn’t that what art is about? Being recognized?”
When I say “recognized,” I tend to mean financially compensated, and that’s what it’s about for all of us… getting some money because we deserve it or because the market says you deserve X. My point is, I’m not a plumber or a school teacher, I’m a musician—I get paid to do my music by the patrons, and every musician has that opportunity, whether it’s getting back together with their old band or playing the one hit they had back in the day, whatever it is, they can capitalize on it at some point in their career. Whether it’s this really beautiful artistic statement or this crass Las Vegas medley, whatever it is, it’s the right of a musician to capitalize on whatever he can capitalize on. Being a musician is about not having to work at another job. It’s pretty significant to have your music support you as opposed to it being some sort of a hobby.

When did music become your sole means of support?
When I was about 22-years-old.

Were you surprised how good you guys sounded when you started playing with the Pixies again?
It was satisfying to be able to be like, “Oh, yes, we sound the same.”

If were to take your recent song “My Life in Storage” as something reflective of your own state of being, have you “unpacked” yet?
Well, my life is in a much happier place, but I still have a lot of storage—between my girlfriend and I, we have a lot of storage. I have a lot of musical equipment in storage too, but I’m not living life in storage. I have a home now—when I wrote that song I didn’t really have a home. I literally had a kind of storage space with running water. I lived in a loft and I was on the road all the time, and when I got home no one was waiting for me—I really felt like I was literally living in a storage space.

Has anything ever eluded you?
Performance—being able to be a real performer I suppose. I don’t have a lot of moves, and to be fair, there are a lot of people out there that have moves, and it’s nice to have that kind of confidence where you’re not only playing you’re music, but you’re performing as well; you’re really projecting to the back of the room and doing something extra. But, I come from a band that just kind of comes out there and plays the music without any kind of “hey yo, hey yo.” None of that—it’s strictly about playing the music. However, it would be nice to be more of a performer, I’ve just never been able to do it.

Josh Baron interviewed Frank Black.