But because of the nature of the whole way it went down, I didn’t see any dignity in talking about it.
“If I was a professional widow, I could spend the rest of my life just digging up the deceased to give myself some prominence in the world. “One of the main motivations for the book was because I see Jimmy as one of the great guitar heroes, and he didn’t really get his due,” she says. In fact, Hynde brightens when talking about the early days of the Pretenders, and says setting the record straight was one of the motivations for writing her memoir last year, especially as it relates to Honeyman-Scott’s status as an unsung guitar hero. But if people still care, that’s really not such a bad thing, I guess.” “Besides, I always say that whatever you said in your first interview I think you have to keep repeating for the rest of your life.
“I’m not really moany because everybody wants to keep talking about the same thing over and over again,” Hynde says. And those songs were always on the radio, constantly.”Īs great as Alone is, Hynde admits it’s those glory years that everyone still wants to hear about, though she says it’s just part of the job. “It was like Tom Petty, in that there were these bands that, even if you’d never owned one of their records, you knew all of their songs somehow, miraculously, just because it was part of the fabric of the community. “It was kind of the thing where, even if you weren’t a fan, you knew all the songs,” Auerbach says of growing up in Akron, Ohio, also Hynde’s hometown, and hearing the Pretenders seemingly everywhere. They’ve got a solid new album to promote, Alone, produced by Dan Auerbach of the Black Keys. She released an excellent, if left-of-center solo album, Stockholm, in 2014, and a memoir, Reckless: My Life as a Pretender, in 2015, but hadn’t released new music as the Pretenders since 2008’s Break Up the Concrete.īut Hynde and the current lineup of the Pretenders, which includes original drummer Martin Chambers, aren’t just out on the road on a victory lap. She regrouped, and continued under the Pretenders moniker with a rotating cast of bandmates and mostly stellar results throughout the 1980s and well into the 1990s, before she began taking her career at a more leisurely pace, though with no less enjoyable results.
A fantastic self-titled debut album, produced by Chris Thomas, plus a follow-up and a string of groundbreaking singles followed, but Honeyman-Scott and Farndon died drug-related deaths in 19, respectively, leaving Hynde battered and broken.
Hynde, of course, founded the Pretenders in 1978, along with ace guitarist James Honeyman-Scott, bassist Pete Farndon and drummer Martin Chambers. It just depends on who’s going out, who’s available, what’s compatible.”
“Management asked if I was into it, you know, how all tours come about. “It was just availability,” Hynde says with a shrug. However, Hynde admits the pairing was all down to luck. “I like that, and I know the guys in the band like it.”īut for fans, it’s a dream bill: Two of the most powerful female singer-songwriters of the past 40 years bringing down the house each night on a coast-to-coast trek that’s been filling arenas since it began in September. “If we can go out on our own, do our own show, it’s going to be a little more crazy,” Hynde admits. trek, Hynde says it’s been good for her band to stretch their collective legs. While the Pretenders have been fitting in the odd headlining show while supporting Nicks on her U.S. She’s got an incredible voice, and it’s a good audience.” “Stevie’s shows are great, and she’s a darling.
“I adore her,” Chrissie Hynde says of fellow rock legend Stevie Nicks, on whose current tour Hynde’s band the Pretenders are filling the supporting slot.