LSXX Tour

In the early 1990s, Kim Deal was a member of both the Breeders and the Pixies; the latter broke up in 1993.[1] When the Breeders released their second album Last Splash that same year—on 4AD Records—the group consisted of Kim and her twin sister Kelley Deal on guitar and vocals, Jim Macpherson on drums, and Josephine Wiggs on bass and vocals.[2] The album sold well, reaching platinum status in the USA,[3] and gold or silver in France, Australia, Canada, and the UK.[4][5][6][7] Kim Deal's contract with 4AD did not require each record to necessarily be under the Breeders moniker, and for her next album release she chose to form a side-project band called the Amps with fellow Daytonians Macpherson, Luis Lerma, and Nate Farley.[8] During this time, Kelley was undergoing drug rehabilitation;[9] Wiggs was involved with other projects with members of Luscious Jackson.[10]

There have been different accounts of why Wiggs chose not to work with Deal in the mid-90s. Between 1992 and September 1994, the Breeders had an intense schedule including touring and recording, and most of the band members were very tired.[10] During the Lollapalooza tour in summer 1994, Deal mentioned to those around her that she wanted her next project to be solo.[11] Wiggs, who by March 1995 had temporarily returned to her home country of England, recalls offering to fly to Deal's hometown of Dayton, Ohio "if [the next album] was going to be a Breeders' record" but being convinced that Deal wanted to do a side project.[12] Deal remembers intending to record her next album as the Breeders, but that Wiggs wanted to take some time off.[10] In 1996, Deal reformed the Breeders using the Amps' lineup of herself, Macpherson, Farley, and Lerma.[13] In several interviews in 1997, Deal complained that she had formed the Amps out of respect for Kelley and Wiggs, who needed time off,[9][13][14] but that even after the end of the Amps' tour in 1996, Kelley and Wiggs still did not choose to rejoin the Breeders;[9][13][15][16] It was May 1996 that Kelley and Wiggs told her this.[17] Kim Deal wished then that she had instead recruited Farley and Lerma for the Breeders in 1994 after Lollapalooza, instead of forming the Amps.[9] In a 1997 interview, she said, "I was doing the Amps thing because Kelley and Josephine were tired and I was just waiting for them to come back to the Breeders".[9] In another mid-1990s interview she said, "I'm not doing a solo album because Kelley or Jo or Jim were being uncooperative or irresponsible. It was because I work more and faster than they do and I was downstairs with my four-track."[18]

Macpherson had a fight with Deal and left the Breeders in the mid-1990s.[19] Deal has said: "And then he left ... and took his drums and I never saw him again. E-ver. And it hurt my heart, cos he’s such a great guy and I felt dumb and I’m sure he did too, whatever, we don’t even know."[19] Macpherson has said that for 15 years "Kim thought I hated her, and I thought she hated me".[20] By the time of the Breeders' next album, 2002's Title TK, Mando Lopez, Jose Medeles, and Richard Presley had replaced Wiggs and Macpherson;[21] this same lineup, without Presley, performed on 2008's Mountain Battles[22] and the Fate to Fatal EP (2009).[23] Kim Deal has recalled that in the spring of 2012: "Kelley was on the couch ... and she said in a year it will be the 20th anniversary for Last Splash, and she wondered if [Wiggs and Macpherson] would do shows with us." The Kim contacted Wiggs and Kelley contacted Macpherson,[19] and they regrouped for a 2013 tour.[24] Kim Deal and Macpherson had not talked to each other for fifteen years,[25] and each believed the other was still angry about the way things had ended in 1997.[20]

The Breeders performed sixty concerts in 2013 for the LSXX Tour.[26][24] On each date of the tour, the Breeders performed the entire Last Splash album.[26][27] Another song they added later in the tour was "Walking with a Killer",[24] which Kim Deal had originally released in 2012 as an independent solo 7" single;[28] a full-band studio version of this composition was later released on the Breeders' 2018 album All Nerve.[28]