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After her 2007 tour with the Pretenders, frontwoman Chrissie Hynde vowed not to return to the stage until she wrote some new material. "Frankly, it was just embarrassing that I hadn't had a record out in so long," she says. Now, after recently resettling in her childhood home of Akron, Ohio — she has lived primarily in London for the past 35 years — Hynde can hit the road and draw from a brand-new batch of tunes: the rootsy, rocking Break Up the Concrete, the first Pretenders disc in six years. Checking in from London, Hynde still oozes an old-school rock & roll spirit.
The opening line on your album is a Buddhist phrase,
"Nam myoho renge kyo." Where did you learn that?
About 1971, this guy and I were hitchhiking through Canada. We
thought we were John and Yoko. Somebody told us that if we got to
Toronto, we should stay with this woman Georgia Ambrose, who held
Buddhist ceremonies at her house. We called her and she said, "What
sign are you?" "Well, we're both Virgos." And she goes, "Come over,
I need some Virgo energy." When we got there, that's what they were
chanting. It means, basically, that every drop that goes to the
vein comes back to the heart.
There are a few songs on the album that seem to be about
your ideal man.
I live alone, except for my dog. But those songs were inspired by a
few people. The people I'm attracted to would never go near
celebrity or fame. They're the ones who are in the shadows. That's
why I spend so much time away from the limelight.
The first verse of the title cut is about growing up on
a red-brick road. True?
All the roads in Akron are made out of red brick. They're
beautiful. I saw that beauty again when I moved back there.
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So you have an apartment now in Akron?
Yes. The apartments there are about $500 a month, and it's really
nice, like what the Chateau Marmont used to be when it was a dump.
I've opened a vegan restaurant there, VegiTerranean. The food is
just sublime. I didn't write the menu — I don't think I would
have called it the Pretenders Haute Dog.
You turned 57 on September 7th. How did you
celebrate?
My mother got me a nice vegan cake. And my dad told me that all my
old records were upstairs. I thought I'd lost them, but there was
this huge box: Tim Buckley, the Stones, the Beatles, the Kinks,
Buffalo Springfield. If you looked at the collection, you'd find
everything I plagiarized on every Pretenders record. It was fucking
great to touch them again.
How would you assess the current state of
rock?
It used to be a secret between the audience and the artist. But I
think a lot of bands turned it into a sport, like, "We want to be
the biggest band in the world and play in the biggest places!" It
just got all flabby and stupid. Musicians started going to gyms,
and it was all about choreography. That's not my cup of tea. Think
small — that's my motto.
I saw the Pretenders tape a VH1 special, and you were
gushing about Kings of Leon.
I was gushing! It's embarrassing but true. I was so glad
to love something again. It gets harder as you get old. But there
are a lot of artists that I love for their original spirits and
voices, like Amy Winehouse. She's a gas.
Who are your favorite bands to tour with?
We recently toured with the Almighty Senators, a great band from
Baltimore. And we've been out with the Stray Cats and ZZ Top. Every
night, I smoked a joint and watched the show from the sound
board.
How do you warm up to sing?
If you want the truth, I smoke Bugler tobacco. It's a shame,
really. But it's rock & roll — if you need to warm up,
God help you.
[From Issue 1063 — October 16, 2008]
Related Stories:
- More from Issue 1063
- Review: Break Up the Concrete
- Video: Behind the Scenes of the "Boots of Chinese Plastic" music video