Black Francis

Black Francis was born Charles Michael Kittridge Thompson IV in Boston, Massachusetts. His father was a bar owner and moved to Los Angeles, California to explore more about the business. His parents separated, and his mother re-married.

Introduced to music at a young age, he learnt to play the guitar by the age of twelve. His stepfather was religious, and they joined a church attached to evangelical ‘Assemblies of God’.

He graduated from high school in 1983, and enrolled at the ‘University of Massachusetts’, Amherst, for a major in Anthropology. He became friends with Joey Santiago who introduced him to punk music.

A college exchange program took him to Puerto Rico. On returning back, he left college, and joined Santiago in Boston. They formed the band ‘Pixies’ in 1986 with bassist, Kim Deal, and drummer, David Lovering.

In 1987, Pixies released ‘The Purple Tape’. The demo tape helped them win a recording contract with English record label ‘4AD’. He adopted the name ‘Black Francis’ when they released the mini-album ‘Come on Pilgrim’.

He wrote and sang all the tracks, (except for ‘Gigantic’ which was co-written and sung by Deal), on their debut album ‘Surfer Rosa’ in 1988. The band went on a European tour to promote the album.

Between 1990 and 1991, the band came together and recorded the albums ‘Bossanova’ and ‘Trompe le Monde’, the latter being his first collaboration with Eric Drew Feldman, with themes touching on aliens and UFOs.

Starting with the album ‘Bossanova’, he began writing all the lyrics, causing tension between him and Kim Deal. Tensions peaked, and Pixies split in 1992.

In 1989, the Pixies’ critically acclaimed second album ‘Doolittle’ was released. It contained songs like ‘Debaser’ and ‘Monkey Gone to Heaven’, with lyrics by Black.

Black’s second solo record called ‘Teenager of the Year’ was released in 1994 and included the song ‘Headache’. It marked a change in style, and covered various topics and genres.