{"id":8022,"date":"2026-01-13T15:12:50","date_gmt":"2026-01-13T15:12:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/chrissie-hynde-on-the-pretenders-debut-album-we-were-pretty-hardcore-152819\/"},"modified":"2026-01-13T15:12:50","modified_gmt":"2026-01-13T15:12:50","slug":"chrissie-hynde-on-the-pretenders-debut-album-we-were-pretty-hardcore-152819","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/chrissie-hynde-on-the-pretenders-debut-album-we-were-pretty-hardcore-152819\/","title":{"rendered":"Chrissie Hynde on the Pretenders\u2019 debut album: \u201cWe were pretty hardcore\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"
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CHRISSIE HYNDE:<\/strong> \u201cI\u2019d been in England five years and thought I was too old to be in a band, but I finally met the right guys \u2013 James Honeyman-Scott [guitar], Pete Farndon [bass] and Martin Chambers [drums]. They were these rural thugs from Hereford. Really, they were like the guys in Straw Dogs. That was the beauty of The Pretenders. We had this image of being a nice pop band, but really we were pretty hardcore. We liked melodic pop music, but we liked to get fucked. It was never a problem making that first album. It was dead easy, in fact. It was only later on that it did become a problem, with Pete and Jimmy. But then it always does when people start getting addicted to smack.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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CHRISSIE HYNDE:<\/strong> \u201cI\u2019d been in England five years and thought I was too old to be in a band, but I finally met the right guys \u2013 James Honeyman-Scott [guitar], Pete Farndon [bass] and Martin Chambers [drums]. They were these rural thugs from Hereford. Really, they were like the guys in Straw Dogs. That was the beauty of The Pretenders. We had this image of being a nice pop band, but really we were pretty hardcore. We liked melodic pop music, but we liked to get fucked. It was never a problem making that first album. It was dead easy, in fact. It was only later on that it did become a problem, with Pete and Jimmy. But then it always does when people start getting addicted to smack.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat first album\u2019s a pretty cohesive piece. I think the songs rely on each other; I don\u2019t have a favourite. A lot of it was written in my room in Tufnell Park. I was in this weird girls\u2019 rooming house. The landlord wouldn\u2019t allow guys back there and it was freezing cold, but that\u2019s where things like \u2018Up The Neck\u2019 and \u2018Tattooed Love Boys\u2019 were born.<\/p>\n

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\u201cOther things, like \u2018The Phone Call\u2019; that came from me hanging out with a bunch of bikers. There were a lot of threats and someone I knew got killed and it was all fucked up. The whole scene was fucked up, so it was meant to be a death threat that someone gets through the mail, which is why it\u2019s spoken.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe instrumental, \u2018Space Invader\u2019, came about because the rest of the band were insanely in love with those arcade machines. Not me. I loved pinball. We all loved pinball, but then suddenly every pinball machine disappeared, replaced by fucking Space Invaders. I boycotted them, but the others were obsessed and had them all over the studio. That\u2019s all you ever heard, those fucking Space Invaders the whole time!<\/p>\n

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\u201cI didn\u2019t really want \u2018Brass In Pocket\u2019 to come out as a single. I\u2019d never liked it that much and, frankly, I was a little embarrassed about it, even if it did go to No 1. I felt that people in my scene were laughing at me, because it just wasn\u2019t my favourite. The stuff that really represented me and how I felt was never really heard on the radio. Like \u2018Precious\u2019. That was written about times I spent back home in Ohio.<\/p>\n

\u201cI guess that\u2019s what gave an interesting flavour to the band, that a lot of it came from the gutter view of Ohio and the mid-western industrial suburban malaise. But I knew \u2018Precious\u2019 would never be played on the radio because of the \u2018fuck off!\u2019 line. Someone told me it\u2019s the best use of \u2018fuck off!\u2019 in rock\u2019n\u2019roll. But it\u2019s backfired for me, because these days when I tell someone to fuck off, they look at each other and say, \u2018Wow! She said it!\u2019 I mean, how am I supposed to tell somebody to fuck off now?<\/p>\n

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\u201cWhen the album finally came out, it went to No 1 and everyone said it was hyped up the charts. Yeah, that was the big scandal! I don\u2019t know who hyped it in, but if someone did then I\u2019m grateful. But I didn\u2019t care if it was No 1 or not. Really, I was just glad to be playing guitar in a band and not waitressing. Obviously you want to make records because making records is a gas and you want to sell enough so you can stay alive. But I\u2019ve never had that \u2018We want to be the biggest\u2019 mentality. It\u2019s always better to have not as much success as you want than to have excess success.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u00a0This article originally appeared in Uncut Take 111<\/strong> (August 2006<\/strong>)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

The post Chrissie Hynde on the Pretenders\u2019 debut album: \u201cWe were pretty hardcore\u201d<\/a> appeared first on UNCUT<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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