hynde in sight but Martin chats

Rip It Up, Issue 57, 1 April 1982, Page 6

hynde in sight but Martin chats

"Aw c'mon, we're not that good," said Chrissie Hynde, as an ecstatic audience screamed for another encore. Trouble was, she couldn't stop grinning as she said it. She knew damn well the Pretenders had been exceptional.

Chrissie looks much better in the flesh than she photographs. Not sulky or bitchy, but smiling, laughing, bumping and grinding. Also a voice that owes nothing to studio artifice. English Roses', Talk Of The Town', 'I Go To Sleep', 'Kid' and 'Stop Your Sobbing' were lump-in-the-throat perfect.

A raunchy lady, too. Bad Boys Get Spanked', taped whipping noises added, was Heavy, with the capital. By the time they crashed into the Troggs' 'Wild Thing', everyone had surrendered.

A mean wee band, this. James Honeyman-Scott rides the thin line between flashpoint and smoulder, a guitarist with lots of presence, but just as much control. Pete Farndon, into Samurai chic, is a visual foil and a superbad bassman. Martin Chambers is a drummer who wants to be seen as well as heard, thrashing the day-

lights from his kit, loose drumsticks flying around like broken teeth.

The god of Television still takes precedence in this country, and we were kept waiting far too long for an interview, while Chrissie and Martin were forced to answer inane questions for some children's programme. God, this country does embarrassing things to visiting celebrities, treating them as though they're lions who jump through hoops. The Pretenders have been touring since last July. Their only break from gigs was for six weeks last year, when Martin badly injured his right hand. It still bears a jagged scar right across the knuckles. The story given at the time was a 'freak accident'. Martin confesses he got a bit mad' one night, and smashed a large vase, which bit back. Too much pressure.

But Martin still prefers playing live ito anything else. The one problem has been getting anything new together. • ; "We've been on the road pretty constantly since the recording of the second album," says Martin.

"Material doesn't come to us particularly well on the road. Chrissie is getting better at it, and there are a few ideas going on at present. We'll take a break soon, get some demos together, probably about the end of May. Things usually come together pretty quickly once we've started them." The second LP was much closer to the Pretenders' live sound than the first, which was a little tentative in places. "Practically all of the first album was Chrissie's stuff that she'd had for years. The second album, of course, was written in the time the band had been together, so obviously it sounded more like the Pretenders. The third will be even more so, by the time we get around to it.

"During that period of those two albums, the band changed so much, because of being on the road pretty continually." I remark about the changes to some of the older material, such as 'Brass In Pocket', which had a completely new instrumental section in the middle.

"It does change, because you want to keep it interesting for yourself, so you get little ideas as you go along. Some of them are very subtle, others are obvious. It adds interest, I think, and a challenge, because it's never quite as good as you'd like it."

Chrissie apologised on stage, for having to do "boring old songs" like 'Brass in. Pocket'. \

"Actually, we never liked it particularly, because it had been around for a long time, and we had a problem getting a good bassline for it," says Martin. "When we eventually finished it, somebody said it would make a good single. We'd had it around for so long, we'd lost any thoughts of it at all. It just happened that that was the one that really took off in most areas of the world."

So were you surprised when that happened? "It was a bit of a pleasant surprise, really. It happened over Christmas when they freeze the British charts for a fortnight. It crept slowly up the charts, got to number 10, and the charts froze. I had an Advance phone call on Christmas Day that it had gone to number three, then the first week of 1980 it went straight in at number one, coinciding with the release of the first album.

"And the best thing was that it knocked a really good single out of the top spot, too. That was Pink Floyd's 'Brick In The Wall, which is better than knocking off some rubbishy disco song.

"Well have to write a few more like that, I think.

"Let's hope 1 can."

Duncan Campbell