“And the inimitable Pretenders sound… I mean if I wrote a song and got a bunch of session musicians to do it, it would in no way sound like anything that we do because The Pretenders have a very definite sound.” I'll come in with a riff on the guitar, you know melody, hopefully I'll have lyrics, and the band just go to town on it. “The other three are just fantastic musicians, I wouldn't want to replace them with anybody if I had the choice of any musician in the world. “There's no rifts between members, everyone really digs everyone else and everyone totally respects everyone else. “As a working unit, I can't imagine a band that could get along better with each other,” she said. Hynde told Countdown she knew she had a winning combo on her hands. Fuelled by a punk attitude and energy, but stretching themselves beyond to explorer reggae inspirations (‘Private Life'), 60s pop (‘Stop Your Sobbing'), pop balladry (‘Lovers Of Today') and just razor tight propulsive rock (‘The Wait', ‘Mystery Achievement', ‘Tattooed Love Boys'). Throughout the album's 12 songs you get the sense of a band who was riding a surging creative wave. There's no denying the range of moods and stories Hynde must have been storing up in the lead up to making the group's debut.įrom the confident swaggering lines of ‘Brass In Pocket' like ‘ cause I'm gonna make you see, there's nobody else here, no one like me', to her heartfelt and tender delivery in ‘Kid': ‘ You think it's wrong, I can tell you do, how can I explain, when you don't want me to…', which featured beautifully supportive guitar work by James Honeyman-Scott. “So, the fact that I eventually got a very good record company and a very good manager and a very good band, very good producers and everything… I don't really call it luck, I just waited until the best came along and then I snatched it.”
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So, I just waited instead of getting up there and doing something that wasn't as good as I could do. In that time I could have easily gotten on stage with a variety of people but I never thought it was good enough, that it was right. And it seems she knew exactly what she was looking for in a band.Ĭherry Ripe chanced to ask if The Pretenders had any lucky breaks coming up as a group. It illuminates, both then and now, how rare she is as an unapologetic, straight talking, intelligent and talented figure in rock music. It's just more evidence of what we already know about Chrissie Hynde. To hear her composure and her insights into her craft and the industry that surrounds it in this 1980 interview, just over a year since the formation of The Pretenders, is refreshing. “A lot of people say rock writers are just frustrated musicians, but I disagree with that, I mean quite often they are, but someone who's good at it, that's just as interesting and entertaining as being in a band. “A good writer… it's sort of an art form in itself,” she said. Of course, there's the stories of how she almost started a band with The Clash's Mick Jones or a project with members who went on to form The Damned, and how she had a stint writing for NME. She left America in the early 70s, bound for England, to be amongst the bands she adored as a teenager. What did serve her well were her strong instincts for seeking out the people and places where great music developments were about to happen. Maybe it's because I don't think I could do that very well.” But I don't like to play on those things too much myself.
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People give you a break because they think you're a novel act or whatever. All in all, it's to your advantage really. “It's never bothered me, no one's ever discriminated against me because I was a woman. “I've no inclinations toward feminism or whatever,” she said. In a 1980 Countdown interview with Cherry Ripe, she was equally dismissive of aligning herself with any gender focused movement or ideology. It's never occurred to me.”Ĭhrissie Hynde's response to the question of whether she'd encountered sexism of any type in the music scene dripped with dispassion, but the intensity of her words gives insight into a person that refused to be messed with. “I've never for a moment thought that I was unliberated as a woman.