The Breeders Artistfacts

1990-
Kim DealGuitar, vocals
Tanya DonellyGuitar, vocals1990-1992
Josephine WiggsBass, vocals
Shannon DoughtonDrums
Kelly DealGuitar1993-
Carrie BradleyViolin1990-
James MacphersonDrums1993-1997
Nathan FarleyGuitar1996-
Luis LermaBass1996-
Tyler TrentDrums1997-
Kim Deal and Tanya Donelly formed the band as a side project. Deal was in The Pixies and Donelly in Throwing Muses.
"Breeder" is a term used in the gay community to refer to straight people.
Kelley Deal is Kim's identical twin. She had never picked up a guitar until she joined the Breeders.
Most of the members of the Breeders were previously in other bands:

Kim Deal: Pixies
Tanya Donelly: Throwing Muses
Josephine Wiggs: The Perfect Disaster
Shannon Doughton: Slint
Jim Macpherson: The Raging Mantras
Luis Lerma: The Tasties
Carrie Bradley: Ed's Redeeming Qualities.
In 1993, Kelly Deal was arrested for heroin possession and entered rehab.
Shannon Doughton is also known as Mike Hunt, but was born Britt Walford.
They opened for Nirvana on a European tour in July 1992. Breeders drummer Jim Macpherson was very green at the time. "The first show with Nirvana was one of Macpherson's first shows out of Dayton, Ohio ever," laughed Kim Deal to NME. "He asked Dave Grohl, 'What are those big black boxes?' Dave is like, 'You idiot, they're monitors. You listen to the band through them!' I think that's why Nirvana enjoyed touring with us so much: to see it through other people's eyes."
Many members of The Breeders have also gone on to work in other bands:

Tanya Donelly: Belly
Josephine Wiggs: The Josephine Wiggs Experience
Kelley Deal: The Kelley Deal 6000
Jim Macpherson: Guided By Voices.
The lineup of Kim Deal, Farley, Lerma, and Macpherson recorded as The Amps and, in 1995, released an album called Pacer.
Kelley Deal's hobby is knitting. She explained to Artist Direct: "My mom and dad are from West Virginia and West Virginia takes handcraft seriously. My grandmother had rheumatoid arthritis and she used a tiny needle and made intricate bedspreads, quilting." The Breeders instrumental S.O.S. features the sound of Kelley's sewing machine miked through a Marshall amp.
Kim and Kelley Deal grew up surrounded by music because they hailed from West Virginia coal country, where the culture embraced women playing guitars and singing. Their father was a physicist at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, and their mother was a teacher, yet they encouraged their daughters' musical endeavors.

"There's a tradition there of women playing guitars and singing, so it was sort of expected," Deal explained to The Independent. "They loved listening to us sing."
While the Deal sisters' parents didn't discourage their passion for music, they also didn't think it would lead to a viable career. "They were like, you do you - but also, you'll find out there's no career in it or any money," Kim Deal said.
To her parents, Kim reached celebrity status when the Pixies made it into People magazine.

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