A rolling Pixie gathers no dust seems to be the way Kim Deal is looking at life as an alt rocker in the midst of the 21^st century. Fresh off the European tour with the Pixies, the veteran bass player is working on new demos for her longtime side project The Breeders for a potential upcoming album which would be the band’s fifth and ninth overall release. As it was in the beginning, Deal uses her band as a creative outlet which affords her more artistic freedom than that was gained with the aforementioned Pixies. Playing in the shadow of Pixie frontman Black Francis, Deal is able to play co-lead with twin sister Kelley as the two only consistent members of The Breeders. Prior to continuing with a Pixies stateside tour and in Japan and Australia, the Deal sisters along with Jose Medeles, Mando Lopez and Cheryl Lindsey will be playing an abbreviated three Breeder tour. The first of these three dates will be at the Beachland Ballroom, September 2. The band, still based out of Dayton, will cut through NE Ohio and on to Philadelphia, en route to the 10^th anniversary celebration of All Tomorrow’s Parties in Monticello, New York. The Breeders will play the legendary festival at Kutsher’s Country Club, on September 5 with Sonic Youth, Explosions in the Sky and eight other bands. Cuyahoga Falls native and legendary Indies filmmaker Jim Jarmusch is curating the third day of bands. “I have just enough time to go home (to Dayton) and do my laundry,” Deal said speaking from LA where she is recording some Breeder demo tracks. “I usually do it (demos) in my space in Ohio, but I’m sick of being in the basement.” Ohio Breeder fans are the beneficiaries of the band making a stop in Cleveland prior to NY, Deal is looking forward to the unique festival which began in England. “In All Tomorrow’s Parties, a band gets to pick the other bands on the bill. In theory, like Sonic Youth they would get to pick all the bands that they like. We got to curate the event one year and we had Heartless Bastards play. So, it is nice because you know everybody, you get to hang out during the weekend. You have people who summer camp.” The idea of the Breeders came about initially before the Pixies time, when the Deal sisters used the name as teenagers playing folk music. Deal joined the Pixies in 1986 but after three quick albums in two years, Come on Pilgrim, Surfer Rosa and Bossanova, friction between Black Francis and Deal caused a hiatus of that band and after Tromp Le Monde was released, the band split in 1992. The stress of the road and label recording expectations came to ahead. Fortunately for Deal and her need to have more of an active role in writing songs, the  about the formation of The Breeders using the name once again, proved to be a catharsis. The band which followed the Pixies onto the English label 4AD released its first LP Pod in 1990 to critical acclaim and to the liking of Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain who called the album one of his favorites. The original lineup included the Deal sisters, and Throwing Muses Tanya Donelly whose band, like The Pixies was on 4AD and was at a breaking point and Britt Walford. By 1992, after recording its EP Safari, Donelly left to form Belly. By 1992, with the Pixies split, Deal wrote new material for the Breeders next release, Splash and recruited Jim McPherson on drums to replace Walford. The result was the band’s most popular album to date. Three singles, led by “Cannonball” gained the band critical and popular acclaim and a platinum album. Following the drug bust of Kelley Deal in 1995, she formed several bands such as Kelley Deal 6000 and the Last Hard Men with Skid Row singer Sebastian Bach, Smashing Pumpkins drummer Jimmy Chamberlin, and Jimmy Flemion of The Frogs. By 1996, Deal and the Breeders were back with the support of Kim’s band The Amps which she had formed while during this time. For its third full-length LP, the band recruited guitarist Richard Presley, bass player Lopez and drummer Medeles. The album Title TK was released in 2002.the same lineup would also record Mountain Battles in 2008 and Fate to Fatal EP in 2009. Making it in today’s music world is quite different than when Deal first joined The Pixies a quarter of a century ago, and she feels the industry is dying due that paradigm swing of downloadable music. “Bands are not signing anything anymore because the music is free,” she says quite honestly.” There is no money in it at all. We don’t make money at all. Going to Cleveland, we will probably lose money.” Deal feels like a lot of musicians that the industry is dying out in terms of making a living recording due to all the available internet outlets for fans to pirate and download songs for free. She noticed it a few years back and she feels it is only getting worse. “Here it is 2010 and it’s still dying. Even in the automotive industry. In Dayton we have had a lot of plants close down. I tell myself its no big deal, a lot of industries have died. Towns change and demographics. They change their import and export sectors.” “I was talking to this skateboard dude. People give him money to ride around on his skateboard. It’s interesting because those companies would get extra money. They would make these great DVDs of these guys doing skate tricks. Now they have them on YouTube. And it’s no big deal, but that was real money for those skateboarders.” Deal feels that for the celebrity musicians such as Jessica Simpson or Kid Rock, it really doesn’t affect them. “They have brand names, like she has her shoes, but for someone like Erika (from Heartless Bastards), she is not a brand name. She just puts out music. New bands today cannot make a little bit of music and try to get a band to tour; they are the ones who don’t have the backing. Jessica Simpson will put out music to promote her shoe line.” So what do bands like the Breeders and Heartless Bastards do? They continue to tour and record. They play to their fans and hope that somewhere there is enough money to make ends meet and still maintain artistic integrity. But do they put out albums. Do audiences think bands like The Breeders which have survived the economic changes of the music industry have it made? “I don’t think our audience thinks that way,” Deal is quick to note.” I think half of our audiences are in bands and they know that we don’t make money.” So how does a band like The Breeders go about planning new material in an era where concept albums are making a comeback? “We try to put 40 minutes of good music together,” Deals says frankly.” I really like albums, I’m from the album generation. When the Pixies were playing, basically we recorded our live set, like Husker Du. It wasn’t high art or concept, that sort of Asia, prog rock concept, so we were happy to have 15 two-minute songs. It was like ‘Cool, we’ve got enough to make another record.’” That strategy is pretty much the same for the Breeders and concept or not, the next Breeder release could be a surprise. Maybe they will preview some of that new material. Whatever the case may be, Deal remains staunch in her efforts to persevere through sheer guts and grace. She manages to stay just ahead of the lean cut fat times of the music industry which still finds a way to promote the prefab emo rockers and pretenous posturing bands rather than original-sounding bands such as hers.