Quote: Chappers @ 20th July 2016, 7:10 PM BSTEr - surely it's just Pixies - not THE Pixies.
Frank Black himself and other members of the band, and the music media and announcers generally talk about "the Pixies". If I were writing a contract or a formal list of bands, then I'd use just "Pixies" -- but in general writing I'd follow convention and use the definite article.
Frank Black says the record company advised the Pixies to drop the "the" to be cooler. And he says it's not important:
Thompson: We were like, "Record label? London? Party! Cool! What do we do?" It wasn't because we were desperate; it was because it was action. All the stuff they were talking about, whether it was a record producer or a particular song, or whether the name of the band was going to be Pixies or the Pixies -- they dropped the the because they thought it was cooler to call [us] Pixies -- all this stuff was just not important. The important thing was that we were going to go in a studio, we were going to go on tour, we were going to put a record out.
Full article of interview: http://www.spin.com/2013/06/life-to-the-pixies
Hope this clears things up.
