Chrissie Hynde is not a fan of doing interviews, but she agreed to answer questions from fans and friends in The Guardian newspaper.
Among the more famous friends asking questions was Paul McCartney who asked: “You’re from Akron, Ohio, why don’t you eat meat?”
“Akron wasn’t a farming place, it was full of tire factories. It was known as the rubber capital of the world. Why don’t I eat meat? Gosh, it’s been so long now… It started back in hippie days. I heard the word ‘vegetarian’ and thought about it for about a minute, and decided, yeah. I was 16 or 17… It’s what made me friends with [your late wife] Linda. But why? Well, because I don’t see any reason to kill an animal if I don’t have to – if an animal is trying to kill me, well, maybe. But my real question is: why does anybody do that if they don’t have to? It blows my mind every day of my life.”
Ronnie Wood: “I love your painting. And I love your voice. So when are we going to paint and play together? And which painting are you most proud of?”
“Ha! Well we were actually supposed to get together and do something today, after this. But Ronnie blew me out. He said he couldn’t find a studio. A Rolling Stone who can’t get a studio? Right. I noticed it was Mick’s birthday yesterday. Though I don’t think Ronnie will have a banging hangover today, like in days of yore. But thanks, so much. Ronnie is my neighbor – we live around the corner from each other [in London]. And which painting of mine am I most proud of? I wouldn’t say proud of any of them. I’ve got them all stacked up in the warehouse somewhere.”
She tells another reader that Iggy Pop offered her “Candy,” which he ended up doing with Kate Pierson of The B-52’s.
“I always regretted that, because Iggy was always my number one when I was growing up. And then he wrote this song and he sent it to me. It was handwritten and everything. I don’t know what I did to turn him off the idea, but then I never heard from him.”
And some noteworthy quotes from some of the other questions:
“Nothing ever prepared me [for fame] because I’m just the least gracious famous person around. If you want to call me a famous person. I definitely have failed at it. I like doing ordinary things like getting on the bus or the tube. I don’t like being approached. I don’t like being recognized. All of it makes me squirm.”
On being 71: “I don’t mind getting older. I do mind getting uglier… I’m more relaxed now, if you can believe it. This is the real mellow version of me. Ageing is like being a pothead again. Though that’s not to say there are not things that wind me up daily.
Asked by a reader: “Having lost a number of band members to drugs, what was the point at which you said: ‘Right, I’ve had enough’?
“I think probably by the time I was in my 60s. For a long time you’d go to a funeral of someone who’d ODed and everyone would still be standing around the grave scoring dope and making [drug] deals. Because, you know, it’s an addiction. My advice would be, read Allen Carr, the author of books on the way to quit addiction – he’s a hero of mine. It takes a while. People think that you have problems, and that’s why you become an addict. But in my experience, most of us just wanted to get loaded, because all our heroes did it and we wanted to find out what it was like. It’s not necessarily trauma-born, but it certainly becomes a trauma.”
And, three people she would choose, dead or alive, to have dinner with: “Jimi Hendrix. Elvis Presley, and [opera singer] Maria Callas.”
And asked if she would do it all over again,” she says, “No. Not if I didn’t have to.”
Chrissie and The Pretenders will release a new album, Relentless, on September 15th.
They’re on tour opening shows this week for Guns n’ Roses on Tuesday in East Rutherford, New Jersey and Friday in Pittsburgh with their own headlining show in between on Wednesday in New York.
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