Guitarist, singer and songwriter Kelley Deal has had an enviable career since she started playing in the Breeders with her twin sister Kim (formerly of the Pixies) in 1992. The elder Deal sister – she was born 11 minutes before Kim – played a key part in the band’s groundbreaking 1993 album Last Splash, a platinum-selling alt-rock blueprint that has been named one of the greatest albums of all time by Rolling Stone, NME and others, as well as the rest of the group’s output since. She has also fronted a solo project, the Kelley Deal 6000, and is returning with the first album in six years by R Ring, her long-running experimental project with Mike Montgomery.
Born in Dayton, Ohio, Deal started playing music in her youth, singing Hank Williams covers in local bars with Kim. In 1992 she joined the Breeders, Kim’s Pixies side-project turned main project, becoming the band’s lead guitarist after the departure of founding member Tanya Donelly. Last Splash was a chart success, peaking at No 5 on the UK charts and No 33 on the Billboard 200 and becoming platinum-certified in the US. In addition to guitar, Deal layed a variety of instruments on the record, including lap steel and mandolin, sang lead on I Just Wanna Get Along, and co-wrote two of the album’s 15 songs.
