| 28th January 2007 04:15 PM |
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| Ten Thousand Motels |
No Pretending for Chrissie Hynde
Sunday Star Times | Monday, 29 January 2007
www.stuff.co.nz
Reuters
STILL ROCKING: Chrissie Hynde says 'most journalists still have the nerve to ask me about historical stuff I talked about a million times'.
Grant Smithies discovers Chrissie Hynde isn't the sultry singer he remembers. Oh no, this lady may be in her 50s but she's aggressive and has all the danger of a young punk.
If I'm honest, it was probably the waitress's outfit that got me as much as the music. There was Chrissie Hynde, in The Pretenders' "Brass In Pocket" video, sashaying around a diner, jet black fringe grazing icy blue eyes, sexy as sin, telling me what she might employ to seduce little old gulping teenage me.
"Gonna use my arms, gonna use my legs, gonna use my fingers, gonna use my, my, my imagination."
Oh, yes please, I thought at the time. You'll encounter no resistance from me.
But "Brass In Pocket" was 27 years ago now, and both me and Chrissie have grown up since then. Hynde is now 55, and terrifying. Sitting in her hotel room in Melbourne, she is bored, hostile, a major league hard-arse.
"I'm only talkin' to you because I have to sell tickets for our New Zealand shows. I have nothing to say to you, really. Anything I wanna say, I'll say it on stage when I get there next week."
But in truth, she has plenty to say. It's just that none of it is the usual pop interview stuff. There's no hyping up her last record or the upcoming New Zealand gigs, no bogus friendliness, no tantalising glimpses of her private life, no misty-eyed memories of "your beautiful country" from her last tour here in 2004. Chrissie Hynde does not play the usual media game.
"That's because I hate it, man," she says in a somewhat nasal midwestern accent. "Most journalists still have the nerve to ask me about historical stuff I've talked about a million times. They want me to write their f–-ing article for them! But of course, you have to be nice, because otherwise they'll say `Chrissie Hynde is a bitch.' But you know what? Chrissie Hynde doesn't care what you f–-ing say."
Nice to get that established early.
The historical stuff Hynde doesn't want to talk about goes something like this. She was born in 1951 in the immensely dull town of Akron, Ohio, the "tire capital of America", and grew up obsessed with all things English: the clothes, accent, music, hairstyles.
Given a guitar at 14, she practised obsessively to records by the Beatles, the Stones, the Kinks.
In 1973, Hynde moved to London and immediately immersed herself in the cultural life of her adopted home, writing for influential music mag NME, working at Vivienne Westwood's SEX boutique, living in the Sex Pistols' rehearsal rooms and playing in a band that later became The Damned, before forming The Pretenders in 1978.
Their first single "Stop Your Sobbing" hit the charts that same year, and "Brass in Pocket" followed in 1979. The self-titled debut album was released in 1980, hitting No1 in the UK and grazing the top 10 in the US.
Tough, sexy and surprising, it remains an extraordinary album, the sound of three thugs from Hereford and one sassy American applying equal measures of pop and punk to the time- honoured thump 'n' squawk Rolling Stones rock'n'roll template, then buffing it up to a flashy gleam.
With her sulky alto and dirty-mouth tomboy stage persona, Hynde became a star on both sides of the Atlantic. Follow-up album Pretenders II cemented her fame. Listening back to them now, I find what made those albums special, so special, was Hynde's unusually frank songwriting. Besides tender, vulnerable ballads such as "Kid" and "Talk Of The Town", she wrote songs about rough sex and revenge, emotional independence and female power.
"People love those early songs, but I never listen to my stuff after I put it out. It is what it is. I just do my thing, and if people like it, great."
Within two years of the release of Pretenders II, bassist Pete Farndon and guitarist James Honeyman-Scott had both died of drug overdoses. The band lost much of its thrilling abrasiveness, and the past 20 years have been turbulent for Hynde and The Pretenders. There have been frequent line- up changes, patchy pop albums recorded with session musicians, dodgy duets with pop reggae dullards like INXS and UB40, failed relationships with the Kinks' Ray Davies and Simple Minds' singer Jim Kerr (Hynde had a daughter with each). But somehow, she remains a star. Even though she hasn't made a great album in more than 20 years, each release still contains a handful of deeply affecting ballads, and her voice and on-stage energy are undiminished.
Hynde is often mentioned as an abiding inspiration by female musicians worldwide. Rock heavyweights such as Bob Dylan approach her for collaborations. No one is attacking her, and her place in the rock'n'roll pantheon is secure. So why is she so damn passive-aggressive?
"Actually, I don't think I'm f–-in' aggressive at all," she says, aggressively. "I'm just a private person. I'm public when it comes to my music, and everything else is no one else's business. If you see me on stage, you know who I am in that context, but if you see me on a park bench, we are strangers and I like to leave it like that. I don't understand why people are so fascinated by rock musicians anyway. They may be able to play guitar or write a good song, but just because you're a celebrity doesn't mean you're not a moron. Most celebrities are. That's why you know a lot about them, because they don't even have the sense to respect their own privacy."
The only aspect of her private life Hynde is prepared to talk about is her commitment to animal rights. She is a long-term vegetarian, and and after her death, lobby group PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) is authorised to place print ads consisting of her photo with the caption: "Dead meat should be buried, not eaten. Take it from Chrissie Hynde." Hynde laughs at the mention of this, a sound so unexpectedly friendly I nearly topple off my chair.
"Yeah, I like that, don't you? I can't understand why anyone would want to eat meat or have anything to do with the practices of slaughterhouses or factory farms, but they do, so as long as they're doing that, I'm going to do what I can to try to stop them."
Her views on animal exploitation caused her to give up her early outfit of leather biker jackets and pants. Still, this is a woman who doesn't need the hackneyed trappings of rock'n'roll. Even as a 50-something she still exudes all the petulance and danger of a young punk.
"Man, to me rock'n'roll is how you walk down the street, how you view the world, how you relate to people. No point analysing it. You get in there, express yourself as best you can in a three minute song, then get the hell outta there. To me playing rock'n'roll is just one level up from waitressing."
THE PRETENDERS
February 5 - New Plymouth, Bowl of Brooklands
February 6 - Auckland, St James Theatre.
Tickets from www. ticketdirect.co.nz and Real Groovy.
* grant. [email protected]
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| 28th January 2007 05:10 PM |
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| Martha |
Rock heavyweights such as Bob Dylan approach her for collaborations.
;-)
She's my HERO!!!! |
| 29th January 2007 07:30 AM |
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| corgi37 |
I really cannot believe anyone cares. |
| 29th January 2007 07:48 AM |
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| Ten Thousand Motels |
quote:
corgi37 wrote:
I really cannot believe anyone cares.
 |
| 29th January 2007 07:55 AM |
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| Bitch |
Oh cool. Chrissie is a Bitch. Always knew it by her 'I can give a shit' attitude! A confirmed, certified Bitch, lol. She's not a certified fool, nobody's fool. You Go Girl! |
| 29th January 2007 09:08 AM |
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| Gazza |
Chrissie has unfortunately turned into a sad, attention-seeking old joke.
Enough of the tiresome outbursts and publicity stunts - make a fucking record. |
| 29th January 2007 04:34 PM |
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| Ten Thousand Motels |
quote:
Gazza wrote:
Chrissie has unfortunately turned into a sad, attention-seeking old joke.
LOL. Kinda like Mrs. Clinton. |
| 29th January 2007 04:44 PM |
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| texile |
i like the attitude - i like bitchy, difficult women who piss people off -
but i wish she would use it to channel it into some good music....
it's been awhile. |
| 29th January 2007 04:50 PM |
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| Ten Thousand Motels |
quote:
texile wrote:
i like the attitude - i like bitchy, difficult women who piss people off -
but i wish she would use it to channel it into some good music....
it's been awhile.
Well the problem is being bitchy and pissing people off just for sake of being bitchy and pissing people off. If someone has a good reason that's cool, but when it becomes a script it sux. |
| 29th January 2007 04:55 PM |
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| SheRat |
My father is from Akron.
You'd be bitchy too. |
| 30th January 2007 02:24 PM |
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| texile |
quote:
Ten Thousand Motels wrote:
Well the problem is being bitchy and pissing people off just for sake of being bitchy and pissing people off. If someone has a good reason that's cool, but when it becomes a script it sux.
honestly, i haven't kept up with her -
i loved her back in the day....
she was a bad-ass rocker and my role model as a teen. |
| 30th January 2007 03:00 PM |
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| Voodoo Scrounge |
I dont mind a lot of the stuff the pretenders did.
I do think her ballads are quite good though! |
| 30th January 2007 03:24 PM |
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| Joey |
" it's been awhile. "
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| 30th January 2007 04:59 PM |
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| glencar |
Her recent stuff can't thrill anyone. Posing at her advanced age is goofy. |
| 30th January 2007 10:45 PM |
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| sweetcharmedlife |
quote:
Ten Thousand Motels wrote:
LOL. Kinda like Mrs. Clinton.
Or kinda like Pete Townsend |
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