There may be no rocker more midwestern than Kelley Deal. She insists on being interviewed right away, "because I'm almost done dyeing my mom's hair, and then I have to go to the mall," and sprinkles her conversation with "gosh," "sweet," and "nice." Kelley reminisces about how, while growing up in Ohio, she and twin sister Kim (former Pixie and leader of the on-haitus Breeders, for whom Kelley plays lead guitar) would duet with Hank Williams songs for lonely truckers in roadside cafés. Today, Kelley's promoting Go to the Sugar Altar (Nice Records), the hook-heavy debut album by her new band, the Kelley Deal 6000. Since relocating to Minnesota for a twelve-step program after a well-publicized bout with heroin and booze, Kelley cranked out Altar's impishly diverse ditties, ranging from the exhuberant suicide rush of "Canyon" to the Prince-style funk of "Sugar." Although the menial grunt work Deal endured while recuperating at a halfway house inspired the angry guitar buzz of "One Hundred Tires," for the most part Altar avoids tortured junkie confessionals. "For something to be really musical and dark is the best," opines the newly sober Deal. "But that angsty, Alice In Chains kind of thing...lighten the fuck up, is what I say! Jeez, it's so depressing!"
--Matt Diehl