Episode 556 - Chrissie Hynde
Guest:all right let's do this how are you what the fuckers what the fuck buddies what the fucking ears what the fuck sticks what the fucksters what the fuck uh holics what the fucking delics
Marc:How are you?
Marc:Hi.
Marc:Hi, it's Marc Maron.
Marc:I'm losing my mind.
Marc:Chrissy Hynde is on the show today.
Marc:I had a lovely chat, an engaged and intense chat with Chrissy Hynde that you will hear momentarily.
Marc:Obviously, she's from the band The Pretenders and now is doing some of those much-love songs on the road a bit, but also touring on her new album,
Marc:Stockholm it's uh her first solo album it was released in the summer it's great record and you can see her actually live here in Los Angeles this Saturday at the Pantages I may be there I may be there oh my god I'm uh I'm not I'm not great things are not uh I'll just I'll be honest with you what's happening
Marc:um i didn't do any coffee today and i did not eat any nicotine today and the day i'm recording this it's well into the afternoon okay i know i don't want to shatter your idea that we're all you know walking together or exercising together and that this is happening in real time but it's 2 30 the day i'm recording this which is yesterday and
Marc:And every cell in my body is wondering what the fuck is happening.
Marc:Every cell is like, we're not used to operating without the juice.
Marc:Can we have some of this stuff?
Marc:Can we have some of the chemical stuff?
Marc:Where's that stuff usually eat?
Marc:Where's both of those compounds?
Marc:We're shutting down, man.
Marc:That's every cell in my body.
Marc:It's also going like, all right, you're going to fuck with us.
Marc:We're going to fuck with you.
Marc:That's the other side of the cellular conversation.
Marc:Yeah, keep this up.
Marc:Keep it up.
Marc:Sure, keep denying us what we want, and we're going to make you very aggravated and perhaps make somebody you love cry.
Marc:That's what we're going to do.
Marc:We're going to get together on a cellular level all throughout your body, including your brain.
Marc:And we're going to seek out your loved ones and make them cry using you as a vessel.
Marc:If you deny us this nicotine and caffeine, you fuck.
Marc:So that's what's going on with me.
Marc:I'm having tea.
Marc:I'm having tea.
Marc:It's interesting when you want to do the addicting thing.
Marc:Like I was getting prepared to do this and talk to you, and my body was crawling.
Marc:We're just crawling with the need to take, like right now, I'm like, why isn't there one in my mouth?
Marc:It's so fascinating.
Marc:fucking addiction because i'm strung out on that shit dude i i mean i don't even know i don't even want to really think about how much of those nicotine lozenges i'm doing it's a lot so my body is screaming screaming for some relief and uh and that's what's going on in my in my body i and it's very hard for me to keep thoughts together which is not great for this not great for radio please mark just give us a fucking nicotine lozenge
Marc:For God's sakes, man, what are you trying to prove?
Marc:Go make some coffee and get a lozenge in your mouth.
Marc:What the fuck, Captain?
Marc:Who's in charge of this vessel?
Marc:Feed us!
Marc:Sorry, that was the leader of my cells who will speak through me occasionally.
Marc:Oh, please, please.
Marc:We're going to do something stupid.
Marc:We're going to do something stupid, man.
Marc:Okay, look at it.
Marc:You see this little cell?
Guest:I'm going to kill it if you don't get us what we need.
Guest:Please, Mark.
Marc:one nicotine wallet just do one just do one you can do one man you can just do one just have a half just have a half and that'll be it that'll be it just do a half and that's and then i'll be good well i'll be good in here well i'll be good with just a half right right you guys just a half yep everyone's nodding yes just give us a half i can't do it i gotta go for a day without it why you fuck
Marc:Come on, man.
Marc:Come on.
Marc:Just relax.
Marc:Let's just go through a day.
Marc:But then everything's going to be normal.
Guest:And then it's just like, what happens when we want to feel good?
Guest:We're just sort of like, oh, how can we make ourselves feel good?
Marc:And we just kind of go like, I guess nothing.
Marc:I guess no way.
Marc:Please relax.
Marc:If we could just get through...
Marc:three days i think we'll all feel more comfortable but who wants that i want to feel juice now i want to feel jacked i want to feel like we're engaged in the world and and relaxed at the same time just do a half just do a half just do a half i'm not not doing it i'm not doing it can you relax i'm gonna do uh an advertisement now no just give us what a quarter please
Marc:Please.
Marc:So I'm still recovering from Thanksgiving.
Marc:I think you should know that.
Marc:I'm not sure it's all out of me.
Marc:I'm not even sure it's all out of me.
Marc:I was on Conan last night or the night before last.
Marc:I'm sorry I didn't let you know.
Marc:I forgot to let my mother know.
Marc:I forgot it was on my agenda.
Marc:I forgot it was part of the plan.
Marc:You can go watch it.
Marc:I talked a little bit.
Marc:I did jokes.
Marc:There's some stuff there you guys probably haven't heard, but I'm sorry.
Marc:I'm sorry, friends, that I did not alert you.
Guest:Maybe if you were eating nicotine lozenges right now, you would be a normal person that you could talk like a person to your fans and listeners.
Guest:Just give us one.
Marc:I can't do it.
Marc:I can't do it.
Guest:You fuck.
Guest:Come on.
Guest:I'm uncomfortable and I'm not enjoying it.
Marc:All right.
Marc:Just just relax.
Marc:We'll get through this.
Marc:So what's been going on since Thanksgiving?
Marc:Well, we had a little tragedy here at the house.
Marc:And, you know, I feel like you're a little out of the loop with that, too.
Marc:I there was a cat coming around.
Guest:years ago uh brown and white cat who cares just one lozenge why are you doing this it doesn't make any sense just can't we just live our lives like we used to just one lozenge
Marc:you're just gonna have to excuse him so there was this cat coming around this cat came around maybe it's been in and out for about a decade but never hung around that often but i'd see it occasionally it's brown and white cat it showed up at the house on the deck probably about um i don't know maybe two weeks ago and it did not look well but i didn't know what to do with it it was eating i was feeding it but it didn't look well and this is a wild cat
Marc:And then I started to realize, well, it's dying.
Marc:It seems to be dying.
Marc:I don't know if it's old.
Marc:I don't know if it has the AIDS, the feline AIDS.
Marc:But it was beyond help.
Marc:It was emaciated.
Marc:It was having trouble breathing.
Marc:But it was calm and I was feeding it.
Marc:But there was no way I could trap it because it wasn't eating enough to get him into a cage.
Marc:And I couldn't grab it.
Marc:So, you know, I just kept feeding it and giving it water and treating it as well as I could.
Marc:And...
Marc:in hopes that it might turn around.
Marc:And over the course of about a week or so, I noticed that he didn't have really any teeth, and he was not able to really breathe that well.
Marc:But I just kept giving him food, and sometimes he'd eat it.
Marc:But he passed away when I was in Florida, and my friend Sarah, who was watching my house, had to deal with that, but said he died very peacefully.
Marc:But it's so sad when things die.
Guest:If you had a nicotine lozenge right now, you could deal with grief.
Guest:Nothing would matter.
Marc:Please stop.
Marc:So we lost that guy.
Marc:But my guys, everything's pretty good at the house.
Marc:But there's sort of a cloud of loss around.
Marc:He was under the house is where he was.
Marc:He was living under the house, riding out the last week or so of his life.
Marc:Oh, sad, sad.
Marc:Oh, God, I want it.
Marc:Okay, all right.
Marc:Stop, stop, stop.
Marc:Pull it together.
Marc:Don't feed that voice.
Marc:So, yeah, a little post-mortem.
Marc:Is that what we call it for Thanksgiving?
Marc:Things went well, but I was ready to leave.
Marc:I was certainly ready to leave.
Marc:And as I said, I'm not sure it's all out of me.
Marc:So I've been kaling.
Marc:I've been doing the healthy thing.
Marc:I've been on a cereal cleanse.
Marc:That's where you get many cereals, bran buds, bran flakes, puffins perhaps.
Marc:And you just eat that for two or three days until your colon is spick and span.
Marc:That's my theory.
Marc:I've never heard of anyone talk about the cereal cleanse, but certainly...
Marc:I encourage it.
Marc:Serial cleanse.
Marc:Maybe I invented it.
Marc:I had a great time talking to Chrissy Hine.
Marc:We did start out talking about S. Clay Wilson, who we are both a fan of and who has hit some hard times physically.
Marc:I think I told you about S. Clay Wilson.
Marc:The website, S. ClayWilsonTrust.com, because he does need some help.
Marc:And Chrissy Hine is right there on the front.
Marc:Of it.
Marc:Talking-ass Clay.
Marc:She loves him.
Marc:So that's when we started talking about that, me and Chrissy.
Marc:If you weren't clear who he was, he's one of the great dark wizards of the underground comic art.
Marc:One of the originals.
Marc:Checker Demon, baby.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So you're going to have to forgive me.
Guest:uh my scatteredness because uh but i think you know if i get through these few days i'm gonna really level off oh my god you're what a bore jesus christ do everyone a favor just have a nicotine lozenge you're putting me to sleep and i'm inside of you
Guest:Oh, God, Mr. Excuses!
Guest:Just give us the drugs, you fuck!
Marc:Okay, all right.
Marc:That's, uh... That's enough of that guy.
Marc:Huh?
Marc:No, it's not!
Marc:All right, stop.
Marc:All right, look, can we... I gotta talk to Chrissy Hynde and, uh... And you... We're just... Let's just keep it together.
Marc:All right, let's now go to my conversation with Chrissy Hynde.
...
Guest:Do I need headphones?
Guest:No.
Marc:Not if you don't want to.
Marc:I mean, it's not a requirement unless you want them.
Guest:Well, why would I want them?
Marc:Some people can regulate their voice better.
Marc:Oh, should I do that?
Marc:Nah, just pull the mic into your face and I think you'll be fine.
Marc:Some people know how to talk.
Guest:I don't know how to talk.
Marc:But you don't have to wear them if you just keep the mic close to your face.
Guest:Do most people use them?
Marc:Yeah, a lot of people do.
Marc:But you don't have to.
Marc:You sound good.
Marc:Most people?
Marc:I'll let you know if you're fading.
Guest:Okay, I mean, generally I won't use them for anything if I don't have to.
Marc:You're good.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:I don't need my glasses either, do I?
Marc:No, you don't need them.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:It is an honor to meet you, Chrissy Hind.
Guest:Thank you.
Marc:likewise here's the weird thing is I was listening to the new record and on the song which song was it adding the blue you brought up S. Clay Wilson oh yeah how much did you love S. Clay Wilson a whole lot right yeah when you first saw S. Clay Wilson didn't it blow your fucking mind yeah
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:In fact, my nickname was Bernice at one point.
Guest:Oh, for the character?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:The one that got the cum fix who had the penis tattoo on her arm.
Guest:The wish I had one tattoo.
Guest:When was the first time you saw that guy's stuff?
Guest:Oh, you know, Zap Comics.
Guest:And then I was doing a show, obviously, many years after that, 30 years after, somewhere in San Francisco.
Guest:And it was Valentine's Day, a radio show.
Guest:So I said, oh, ask Clay Wilson, won't you be my Valentine?
Guest:And I think someone that worked with him told him that.
Guest:So then he, you know, sent me a message.
Guest:So, of course, I was thrilled.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Did he send you a little checkered demon with the message?
Marc:He sent me some comic books and stuff.
Marc:Really?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then I've seen him when I've gone out there.
Guest:He's come to the show.
Guest:So, yeah.
Guest:Huge fan.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:He's like I because I'm going to I need to.
Marc:He's not well.
Guest:right now and i need to i want to move some no he's not well but he's not dead no he's not dead but um but he uh yeah he was a huge influence on me because he was he came at a time when that biker culture was not hadn't gone underground yet you know they hadn't brought in the rico law to get rid of the mafia so they hadn't really got rid of the real criminal element of that biker culture
Guest:which at that time, you know, in the end of the 60s, mid to end of the 60s, was a real heyday for those bikers because, you know, there was all these hippie chicks who, you know, and everyone was having sex and taking birth control, and so it was like a free-for-all, and you were supposed to do all that.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And, you know, on acid, you probably did, and, you know, you were...
Guest:The whole idea was not to be inhibited because that was part of being free and it was on the back of beat poetry and we were reading all that stuff.
Guest:So these bikers, they really cleaned up.
Marc:Fucking a biker on acid might be the last thing you do with your freedom.
Guest:In your mind.
Guest:You had to be careful with those guys.
Guest:But S. Clay, of course, reading his stuff, because he was a biker.
Guest:He had a Harley back, I guess.
Guest:When was he born?
Guest:He was probably riding his bike.
Guest:Where was he from?
Guest:Oklahoma, I think.
Guest:I'm not sure.
Guest:He was a biker probably in the early 50s.
Guest:He was a little older than me.
Guest:So he kind of glamorized it much the way that Robert Crumb sort of was, you know, it sort of documented the whole culture.
Marc:Right.
Marc:In all its insanity at the time.
Marc:Yeah, all of it.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And, you know, he wasn't really a hippie himself.
Guest:Right.
Guest:You know, he was more of a nerdy guy.
Marc:A lot of them were like that.
Guest:There was a lot of those guys that were documenting it that were sort of... I think cartoonists probably generally were, because they were kind of intellectuals, but they had a, you know, with an artistic thing.
Marc:And they had to get their work done.
Marc:They were the only ones sitting there drawing things.
Guest:Yeah, and compulsive, and they were pretty nutty.
Guest:But S. Clay really, I don't know if I would say he did a disservice to girls like me, but he, you know, he sort of had the language and the whole thing that...
Guest:You know, it was a turn-on to a young girl and all that biker culture and the checkered demon and all the dyke pirates and everything.
Guest:But, you know, it was a dangerous thing to get involved in if you actually did get involved.
Marc:Right.
Guest:And if you were in Cleveland and places like I was, it was easy to access that sort of stuff.
Guest:And there were the security guards at all the, you know, cool bands.
Guest:So they were around.
Guest:When you were like 18, 17?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Younger than that even.
Guest:And, you know, so, yeah.
Guest:You...
Guest:You kind of got a taste through S. Clay, but if you really went in there, then that's not an easy thing to get back out of.
Marc:Yeah, I find that about a lot of things, about certainly drug culture and a lot of times that the people who were like, I'm going to fucking do it and experience that, some things are really hard to come back from.
Guest:Well, yeah, drug addiction is hard.
Guest:Alcoholism is bad to come.
Guest:I mean, a lot of things.
Guest:I mean, even people, promiscuity, just becoming too many choices and getting too loose with your whole, you know, having no structure.
Guest:And that was really the thing then.
Guest:It's gone very conservative now.
Guest:But what...
Guest:I think the aftermath of a lot of that behavior is kind of not being able to stick to the plan, not being able to commit to anything because there's, you know, a kind of a free for all of choice.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And also you kind of like you lose sense of your own self parameters.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You know, you're sort of like, you know, who am I?
Marc:If you annihilate yourself with all these choices, eventually you're like, I'm just a beat up broken.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Well, yeah, that's absolutely true.
Guest:I mean, I see it all around me and I also am trying to not be a beaten up broken mess.
Marc:Well, thank God you have a point of view and a voice and you can manage a guitar and you have a thing.
Marc:I mean, if you have a thing, you can hold on to yourself a little bit better.
Guest:Yeah, definitely.
Guest:But I still feel that if I represent anyone, and I think anyone does who's in the public eye or making music or doing your thing, I definitely represent people who are in their 60s, divorced, ex-girls.
Guest:You know, waitresses or, you know, divorcees, single parents, people who have limped along and tried to get through it.
Guest:I don't represent, you know, successful, you know, people who were after the money and who were after.
Guest:I still feel my kinship is to the...
Guest:I don't even know what it's called anymore.
Guest:Rugged independence in a way.
Guest:Yeah, it used to be anti-establishment.
Guest:And that kind of doesn't even, even the music culture now, it's all about the establishment.
Guest:So I'm kind of lost in it myself.
Guest:I don't know really why.
Marc:But all that other stuff, I mean, as a woman and as a role model, all that stuff, I think your determination and your ability to transcend a lot of...
Marc:I don't know if I'd call it tragedy, but certainly within the band there was that.
Marc:But then the heartbreak of just getting older and all that stuff.
Marc:I mean, you still, you know, you persevere.
Guest:That's not heartbreaking.
Guest:Getting older.
Guest:No, no, no.
Marc:Just having weather divorces and stuff.
Marc:There's heartbreak in life and you can't avoid that.
Guest:Yeah, there is.
Guest:But there's no more for me than for an estate agent.
Marc:That's right.
Marc:Absolutely.
Marc:That's absolutely true.
Marc:So how do you think, like, when you first came out of, where'd you grow up in which part of Ohio?
Marc:Akron.
Marc:And you still have a place there?
Marc:No.
Marc:No?
Marc:Are you done with Ohio?
Guest:No, I did have a vegan restaurant there, which was very successful, but I didn't set it up right.
Guest:I wanted something as my parents were getting older to engage myself with when I was there.
Guest:But I went against the advice of all my advisors.
Guest:I was the only investor.
Guest:I didn't know anything about restaurants, but I did it anyway.
Guest:Yeah, that's what everyone told me.
Guest:And it did go under.
Guest:anyone that went there thought it was a big success but you know like the fellow that was supposed to be managing it like didn't pay taxes and stuff like that so it kind of went under there's a lot of rogues in the restaurant business it's like the rock business a lot of guys undercover somehow avoiding some stuff
Guest:But I take responsibility because I set it up and I'm, you know, it's very easy to try to do something.
Guest:And then when it doesn't work out, you know, I think a lot of people always find excuses why it didn't work for them.
Guest:But, you know, I always will take the responsibility that, you know, I got myself there and it didn't work out and I didn't manage it properly.
Guest:I did.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:It was down to me in the end.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But it was a good restaurant from what I understand.
Guest:It was amazing.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:It was really great.
Guest:It was called The Vegetarian.
Guest:And I'd still like to do one, but next time I would make sure I had people in place that knew what they were doing.
Guest:Get some other people's money.
Guest:Yeah, I suppose.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I took a real kick in the teeth myself.
Guest:But in Akron, they probably thought I was rolling in it.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:But that's what it's like when you go back to, I'm not going to say a small town.
Guest:Akron wasn't a small town.
Guest:But when you leave a place and then you come back and you try to,
Guest:put something into the community and get back into the downtown and give it some.
Guest:You know, people still see you as a little bit of an outsider and I'm not too sure how much they appreciate it.
Marc:So it was part of a thrust to sort of reinvigorate the downtown of Akron?
Marc:Definitely.
Marc:That was part of my whole... Did that succeed at all?
Marc:I haven't been to Akron.
Guest:Well, yeah, it did because Akron, like all those other American cities, just collapsed.
Guest:I'm not going to go...
Guest:Cleveland, Detroit, you know this story.
Guest:The industry collapsed and then for a whole lot of other reasons that we could talk about for hours.
Guest:Everyone bailed out of the city and the train stations closed down.
Guest:There's no public transport to speak of.
Guest:And everyone bailed out to the suburbs and it became the mall culture.
Guest:So I went back and tried to put my restaurant in the downtown and tried to say, come on, everyone, let's go.
Guest:Let's do it.
Guest:You know, I get on the bus and I get the local paper, the Akron Beacon Journal and say, come on, public transport's for everyone.
Guest:And everyone was like standing there going, no, it's not.
Guest:And I was like, no, come on, it is.
Guest:I'm sorry.
Marc:You championed it.
Guest:You put yourself out in front of it.
Marc:I tried.
Marc:Well, what's interesting to me is because of where you're at and what you grew up in.
Marc:Last night I watched a documentary on the MC5.
Marc:And Cleveland, Detroit, and a lot of those bigger industrial cities had a great rock and roll scene.
Marc:Like the MC5, I'd never seen that thing.
Marc:It was pretty astounding.
Guest:Well, the reason that we had such a great rock and roll scene is because we didn't really have a scene.
Guest:So you've had people...
Guest:in New York.
Guest:I mean, there were pockets of activity in New York.
Guest:There was the Philly sound, the Detroit sound.
Guest:There was, you know, all these places that every, everywhere of course had its own radio station and its own sound.
Guest:It was very regional.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And that all went to the, you know, that, that,
Guest:was destroyed by, well MTV came in and it all became very uniform and then you know.
Marc:And satellite killed everything.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:So again another.
Marc:And queer channel and corporate programming.
Guest:The corporate thing.
Guest:When I went back to Cleveland after I got in my band and it was now in the 80s and when I went back and I saw what happened to radio I was in tears because you know I grew up with WMMS and the disc jockey was a guru.
Marc:Right.
Guest:Who showed us everything and everything I know about music I learned from listening to the radio.
Marc:What DJ?
Guest:Well, it was Billy Bass was the guy there.
Marc:These are guys that could make choices about music, had a point of view.
Guest:Whatever was going on that day, if it was raining, they play Rainy Day by Jimi Hendrix.
Guest:Whatever it was, Rain by the Beatles, they would just make up the playlist according to... And when I went back and saw that the DJ had no power and that he was given a playlist...
Guest:It's horrible.
Guest:Anyway, but then it went on to college radio.
Guest:And I know I'm older and I'm old-fashioned that way because I loved radio, but I've never got so good with the technology.
Guest:For me, I just turn it on.
Guest:And even when it went to buttons, I got it started to lose my place.
Marc:Yeah, I always just turn on the radio.
Marc:I don't make a lot of choices, but I usually listen to NPR now.
Marc:So who were the people that had the most influence on you as a teenager that sort of defined your brain rock-wise?
Guest:oh well i mean i was in the heyday of all the best stuff yeah yeah you know i was 14 when the first beatles album came out so you know that was just so you're like wide open and there you go yeah it was all there i remember where i was standing when i saw the jimi hendrix's album when i was you know when i first saw it yeah i went to where were you standing in someone's house you know just in their basement they said look at this was it their brothers or was it theirs did they just buy it
Guest:It was someone's, yeah, maybe someone.
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:I can remember when I went to Disc Records in the Summit Mall and I was going through the bins and I picked up an album and I thought, Freak Out, what does that mean?
Guest:And I opened it up and I was like, I took it to Danny Smoot, who was the working behind the tail.
Guest:Zappa's Freak Out?
Guest:Yeah, and I said, will you play some of this?
Guest:And he played Help, I'm a Rock, and it was like this sort of beat poetry, this sort of jazz rock.
Guest:So I bought that, and then you'd go home and call everyone and say, you've got to hear this.
Guest:Zapper's alive.
Guest:It was amazing.
Guest:So I grew up through, you know, there was, of course, Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels were just up there.
Guest:There was...
Guest:Paul Butterfield Blues Band was out there.
Guest:Oh, my God.
Guest:All the great stuff was coming through Cleveland.
Guest:Everything came through Cleveland.
Marc:Because it was down the street, kind of.
Guest:Well, because Cleveland was like a testing ground because we didn't have our own scene so much.
Guest:I mean, there's a few things that came out of Cleveland.
Guest:Bobby Womack was from Cleveland.
Guest:There was a few bands.
Guest:Ruby and the Romantics, The Outsiders.
Guest:There was a few things.
Guest:But because we didn't have our own scene, people were more...
Guest:collectors and listeners because they weren't out grooving.
Guest:They were sitting by the radio listening.
Marc:So you actually took more in probably.
Guest:I think so.
Guest:I think we had a better education.
Guest:And when Bowie did his first tour of America, the first stop was Cleveland, Ohio.
Guest:When Lou Reed, all the bands.
Marc:Did you go?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:You saw Bowie on his first tour?
Guest:Of course.
Guest:I was standing outside his sound check.
Marc:So what album would that have been?
Guest:Hunky Dory was out, and Ziggy Stardust had come out now.
Marc:So that was like full on.
Guest:Yeah, it was right at the moment.
Marc:And you saw Lou on what album?
Guest:Well, I saw Velvet Underground there, and then when Lou, that's probably one of his first stops when he went solo.
Marc:So you knew to go see all these people.
Marc:Fuck yeah.
Marc:Are you kidding?
Marc:But those weren't necessarily mainstream acts, were they, at that time?
Guest:Mainstream wasn't a term.
Marc:Right.
Marc:So you would go and would it be packed out?
Marc:Like how big were the rooms when you saw Bo?
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:They were, you know, like the Agora.
Guest:They were, you know.
Marc:Were they clubs or concerts?
Guest:Kind of standing clubs with a, yeah.
Marc:God, that must have been mind-blowing.
Guest:There was no mainstream.
Guest:It didn't exist.
Guest:The term household name didn't exist.
Guest:If you were a rock fan.
Marc:But there was still a circuit of like old rockers, right?
Marc:That did, you know, like hit music.
Guest:Well, I mean, the people that were enthusiasts, there might be like 12 in your high school.
Guest:Right, exactly.
Guest:It wasn't everyone.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So, you know, if you went to a place like that, you saw everyone else from northeastern Ohio who happened to like the Rolling Stones.
Guest:I've seen every Rolling Stone lineup.
Guest:My girlfriends and I were 14 when we went and saw them with Brian Jones.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I was there, man.
Guest:That's how I can be the leader of a rock band because I listened to the radio and I saw these guys.
Marc:But you saw Brian Jones.
Marc:I've never talked to anybody that saw Brian Jones, I don't think.
Marc:It must have been amazing.
Marc:I can't even imagine what that was like.
Marc:And I'm a Stones fan.
Marc:The first time I saw them, it was like 1981.
Guest:No, this was like 66.
Marc:Yeah, I know.
Marc:I missed it by 10 years.
Guest:Well, I didn't see everything.
Guest:I didn't see Hendrix and I didn't see the Beatles.
Guest:But I saw what I could.
Marc:So what was the big switch?
Marc:Because I know that music changed drastically and you felt the movement to do something with it.
Marc:When did that start to happen for yourself?
Guest:Oh, well, I would have liked to have done something, you know, when I was listening to Blind Faith and The Cream and, you know, Traffic and all the bands.
Guest:But you weren't playing at all?
Guest:Yeah, I had a guitar, but, you know, I was a girl and I wasn't good enough to play along to the radio.
Guest:I wouldn't have gone with the guys in the art room and gone to a jam on the weekend because I just would have been too, you know, I mean, some of my girlfriends played.
Guest:Right.
Guest:You know, I was still shy around guys.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And I didn't.
Guest:want to say hey look i learned born in chicago you know i would have i just couldn't have but i had my guitar and yeah um and i um you know i had my johnny winter albums and i you know i loved it i my john hammond albums i mean i loved that john hammond those are those are the older john hammond records are great amazing they're great yeah
Marc:I was just listening to Johnny Winter yesterday.
Marc:Fantastic.
Marc:Still alive and well.
Marc:I mean, it's the one I was listening to.
Guest:I had the one with the black sleeve and his reflection in the black guitar.
Marc:Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:It was like a mirror-y reflection?
Marc:Yeah, with a little circle on it and everything.
Marc:I don't know what it was called.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:God, he could play, man.
Guest:Oh, amazing.
Guest:I actually saw him once backstage somewhere at a festival and I couldn't even walk up and say anything to him.
Marc:Yeah, I was supposed to interview him like a week or two after he passed away.
Marc:It was pretty sad.
Marc:What's amazing about him is how pure blues he went.
Marc:He started with that rock and then he just went straight up.
Marc:Blues.
Marc:It's great.
Guest:It was a great, great time.
Guest:So the music was definitive.
Marc:When did you first start to say, like, I'm going to do it?
Guest:Well, you know, first I had to leave the States.
Guest:And then I went over to, and I would have maybe wanted to be a singer.
Guest:I mean, I tried a little something in Ohio with a couple of guys we did.
Guest:I was too, I couldn't get out.
Guest:I was too afraid.
Guest:Yeah.
Yeah.
Marc:Why'd you have to leave the States, did you think?
Guest:Well, it was just time for me to go.
Guest:You know, like that S. Clay Wilson influence didn't work out very well for me.
Guest:You hit the wall?
Guest:I needed to get out.
Guest:And, you know, things, I didn't know what I was going to do there, but I wanted to, you know, see the world.
Guest:That's what I wanted to do.
Marc:How old were you?
Guest:22 when I went to England.
Marc:And what was the reason?
Guest:I wanted to go somewhere.
Marc:And you just moved there?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:What did your parents say?
Guest:I think they probably didn't know what was happening.
Guest:And you just left?
Guest:Pretty much, yeah.
Marc:Do you have siblings?
Guest:I have an older brother.
Marc:Yeah, he's there.
Marc:He's in England?
Marc:No, he's in Ohio.
Guest:He's played in the same band for 45 years, the Numbers Band in Kent, Ohio.
Guest:He was the musician.
Guest:Terry Hynde, he was this great musician.
Guest:I was just Terry Hynde's little sister.
Guest:What kind of music did he play?
Guest:He's a jazz saxophonist.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:And is he great?
Guest:Yeah, he's really great.
Marc:I mean, he really is great.
Marc:So you grew up with that in the house?
Guest:Yeah, but he would say, Christy, you know, in 10 years' time, people won't even know what rock and roll was because he came from a jazz background.
Guest:He thought jazz was going to win?
Guest:Well, you know, maybe it should have.
Guest:You know, as a musical form, it should have.
Guest:I mean, it's definitely got dumbed down.
Guest:You know, there's no question about it.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:Especially as it's going now.
Guest:And there's no bands anymore.
Guest:That's kind of over.
Guest:It's a dying breed.
Guest:But at the time...
Guest:You know, in the mid-60s is when jazz was in its heyday.
Guest:I saw Moe's Allison just stop touring.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:Huge influence, another one.
Guest:Anyway, I took off.
Guest:And then it was around the time that punk started to happen.
Guest:At that point, by the time I was 24, I thought I was too old to get in a band.
Guest:You know, back in those days, 24 was, you were already, you know...
Guest:People were in bands when they were 15 and 16, and they went out and played.
Guest:I mean, that's why the Beatles, Led Zeppelin, and those guys, they all could make albums in three days, their first albums, because they'd been playing it for years.
Guest:And they could play.
Guest:It's the opposite of how people make records today.
Guest:They can't play, and it takes them two years.
Marc:And there's no one in the room with them when they're playing.
Guest:Yeah, and they've never played in front of anyone.
Guest:So they get a huge hit and they've never been on stage.
Marc:But those guys who played their dues, they had that one mind thing, right?
Marc:Yeah, they played.
Guest:They could play.
Guest:And every band, I mean, every town in the States had a bar band, a local bar band, which is what Bruce Springsteen was.
Guest:He was like the local bar band that European kids never had.
Guest:In Asbury Park.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:We all had one.
Guest:Like in my town, we had a band called the Brambles.
Guest:I mean, everyone had a band that everyone went to see in the 60s.
Guest:Was Iggy around when you were in... Iggy was, but I got introduced to Iggy when I became interested in David Bowie, because to me, Iggy and the Stooges would have still been a little bit like a local thing, and I thought I wanted English music.
Guest:So when I saw that Bowie was listening to him, then I...
Guest:Then I went up to see, well, Bowie played in Cleveland, then we drove to Detroit to see him.
Guest:And this is on his first tour.
Guest:And I would never leave the place when everyone was like, come on, Chris, we have to drive 100 miles, let's go.
Guest:And I couldn't take my eyes off the stage, even if the crew was breaking down the gear and the lights were up.
Guest:And there he was, he popped, he walked by me.
Guest:Yeah, did you say anything?
Guest:Of course not.
Guest:But, I mean, he looked at me and I looked at him.
Guest:And, you know, that's it.
Guest:I couldn't talk for the next three hours.
Guest:I was stricken.
Marc:He's sort of an astounding performer, that guy.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, he was just walking by.
Marc:Even then it was great.
Guest:Oh, I mean, I was just... And that changed everything for me.
Guest:And I thought that...
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I thought that in England they would understand Iggy more because I read an article of someone that, anyway, it's a long story.
Guest:It's a long story and it's probably boring, but I got there in the end.
Marc:No, it's not boring.
Marc:You're good for a long story.
Marc:I got there in the end.
Marc:But so you were hung up on the British rock.
Guest:Yeah, but I liked the Buffalo Springfield and Crosby Stills.
Marc:Sure, I get it.
Marc:You thought your future was in England somehow.
Guest:Well, I knew that I just had to go.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So when did you get there?
Marc:What year was that?
Guest:1973.
Marc:So what was going on?
Guest:What were you doing?
Guest:Well, I had to walk up.
Guest:I was with a friend, and I said, take us to a hotel.
Guest:So they took us somewhere in London, near the Bayswater Road.
Guest:I didn't know anything about London, so I...
Guest:We went to some kind of a hotel or hostel.
Guest:And then I walked up to the top of the road where there's these sort of like a street market.
Guest:I'd never seen anything like that.
Guest:And I just went to every stall and asked if anyone could give me a job.
Guest:Because, you know, of course, I was going to have to work.
Guest:I only had a couple hundred dollars.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And then someone agreed to give me a job.
Guest:And it just went on from there, selling handbags.
Guest:And then I met, you know, it just went on from there.
Yeah.
Guest:Within about five years, I'd done some traveling around.
Guest:I went back over to Paris and then back to Cleveland by the time I wanted to get into a band.
Marc:What bands were you seeing then, though, like in 73?
Guest:Well, that was a bad time for music.
Guest:Of course, the New York Dolls were about to emerge.
Guest:Todd Rundgren had been doing some really great stuff.
Guest:Here.
Guest:Yeah, I'd seen him before I went over when he was with those sales brothers.
Guest:And he had a guy named Yves Labatt or Jean Labatt, Jean something.
Marc:I interviewed Hunt in Tucson.
Guest:Right, well, the Hunt brothers were there.
Guest:And, yeah, I mean, when I got over to London, no, it wasn't...
Guest:I was thinking that Mark Bolin would be playing down the street, but it was kind of the end of that.
Guest:I'd seen him.
Guest:I'd driven up to Toronto with a friend, and he was playing when I was still in Ohio.
Marc:You saw T-Rex?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Oh, my God.
Marc:yeah you you were like a full-on fan totally that was are you kidding that was the you know that was your life of course big time with that that's that was it you just loved rock totally that's what it was and so when you went to england it was more to sort of get your head together than anything else kind of and to start see the world and you know see what i was going to do and um did you study or did you go to school or anything
Guest:No.
Guest:Well, I'd gone to Kent State for a little while to buy some time.
Guest:I started there when I was 17, and it was that summer, the first Neil Young album was out, and the first Tim Buckley album, or not the first Tim Buckley, Happy Sad had just come out.
Guest:So that's what I did that summer.
Guest:Was listening to those two records.
Guest:That was it.
Guest:That was it.
Guest:Yeah, I mean, I wasn't doing real good in school.
Guest:And then, yeah, there was a course and I went to Mexico.
Guest:That was the one time I'd been there with my school course.
Guest:I kind of flunked that too.
Marc:You saw Mexico.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And then there was the shootings at Kent State, and then they closed down the school and all that.
Marc:Oh, so you were there?
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:Oh, my God.
Marc:Just having seen this documentary last night about the MC5 in like 67, 68, 69, 70, I mean, I can't even imagine, because I didn't live it, the amount of weird chaos and unpredictability that was just everywhere.
Marc:So the music sort of like reflected all that.
Guest:Yeah, it was certainly an interesting time with, you know, Vietnam.
Guest:Everyone was taking a lot of drugs of which were still limping away from that.
Guest:You know, that was a tragedy in the end because it started out as mind expanding pot and that sort of thing.
Guest:But then, of course, you got the criminal element there because it was illegal.
Guest:So you had to buy it from, you know, people that were selling you anything they could.
Guest:And then the drugs got and people get addicted and they started buying.
Marc:Speed and heroin.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Killed a lot of people.
Guest:Sure did.
Guest:And then, yeah.
Guest:I mean, alcohol was not the drug of choice.
Guest:But as we know, that's probably the most insidious because it's been legal.
Guest:And that's the one that's killed most people.
Guest:And usually when there's some sort of weird cocktail, it's alcohol related.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:It's persistent.
Marc:It keeps going.
Marc:It keeps giving.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It takes a licking, but it still keeps ticking.
Marc:That's right.
Marc:So what was the first sort of forays into like, you know, standing up with your guitar and getting involved?
Marc:I mean, how did you transition from selling handbags in England?
Guest:Yeah, well, I had a bunch of different jobs and then that punk thing was happening.
Guest:You know, I went over to someone's house to get a cat from this woman, a kitten.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I walked in and I think she was a pot dealer.
Guest:And I heard this little band and I said, what's going on there?
Guest:And she goes, that's my son's band.
Guest:And I went,
Guest:I walked in the next room, and it was just in a little flat.
Guest:And I said, they were like 14-year-old kids.
Guest:And I thought, wow, I thought they were amazing.
Guest:And I said, they were playing sort of kind of heavy metal type thing.
Guest:And I said, well, why don't you guys play like Velvet Underground if you can only play three chords?
Guest:And they went, what's that?
Guest:And I said, well, here.
Guest:I took the guitar and showed this kid how to play White Light, White Heat.
Guest:And I could see them looking at me like, how come mom's friend knows how to do that?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And that occurred to me, I thought, oh, yeah, I can play.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Because I'd been doing that, you know, in Ohio, obviously.
Guest:And I thought, wow, I wonder if I can manage these.
Guest:I mean, I've got no business, nothing to do.
Guest:I'm the most hands-off with business person I've ever met in this business.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But I thought I was too old to be in a band.
Guest:Well, maybe I can guide them somehow.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Because I was maybe 23, 24 at the time.
Guest:And did you?
Guest:No.
Guest:But I kind of got the taste for the guitar again.
Guest:And I thought, well, you know, and then around then I started, it was just before punk.
Guest:And then I started meeting a lot of people and everyone was at it trying to get a band together.
Guest:And that's when I kind of got in there and being a girl wasn't kind of a novelty then.
Guest:It was very nondiscriminatory, the punk thing.
Guest:So anyone could do anything.
Guest:You didn't even have to play.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I mean, you didn't have to be able to play.
Guest:In fact, it was kind of a disadvantage.
Guest:So, you know, everything was going in my favor.
Marc:And so you saw that scene sort of taking form.
Guest:Totally.
Guest:I was there.
Guest:I played with everyone in that scene and I knew everyone in the scene.
Marc:Who were those kids?
Marc:Did they end up anywhere?
Guest:Well, I mean, I was working for Vivian Westwood and Malcolm McLaren in their shop for a little while.
Guest:I knew all the guys.
Marc:Where was that?
Marc:On like King's Road or somewhere?
Guest:The King's Road, yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I knew all the guys that were...
Guest:Got into the Sex Pistols, the Damned, I was going to do a band with them.
Guest:Some of the guys in the Clash I started working with before they became the Clash.
Guest:I knew all of them.
Guest:I was in there trying to get a band together.
Marc:How'd you meet them all?
Marc:Just from working at the store?
Guest:Just from being in London, yeah.
Guest:I just met everyone that, yeah.
Marc:And what was McLaren like?
Guest:I loved him.
Guest:I really looked up to him, actually.
Guest:I thought he was really... He wasn't a hippie.
Guest:That was the thing about Malcolm and Vivian.
Guest:They weren't hippies.
Guest:They weren't coming from that.
Guest:They were more coming from a sort of...
Guest:teddy boy student intellectual kind of thing and very english so it was kind of new to me so i found it fascinating and i looked up to them because they had this whole other way of you know this look was different than anything i'd seen and i i and they loved like the new york dolls that malcolm was going to do something with them um and we talked about doing something to together and he tried to help me too but
Marc:So in looking at it, do you think that when the New York Dolls sort of happened, because I mean, you know, I read the Legs McNeil book and he sort of thinks that they were the beginning of what became American punk anyways.
Marc:But do you think that what Malcolm was seeing was interpreting this fashion?
Marc:I mean, did it start with fashion?
Guest:Well, I would say more of an anti-fashion.
Marc:Right.
Guest:It didn't seem like it at the time.
Marc:But it defined the look.
Guest:Well, they defined the look, Malcolm and Vivian.
Marc:They designed all that stuff.
Guest:They designed it all.
Marc:And that became the standard.
Guest:Well, people copied it.
Guest:The idea was to do your own thing.
Marc:Right.
Guest:You know, it was such a great look and everyone, you know, so they just certainly, you know, people are natural born followers.
Guest:If you see a band and it looks great, you want to look like that.
Marc:And it was completely anti-establishment.
Marc:Well, yeah, it was.
Marc:That was the idea of it.
Marc:Even more so, like, because then they had to make it different than the 60s anti-establishment.
Guest:Yeah, it was very, very different.
Marc:It was almost anti-60s anti-establishment.
Marc:Sure it was.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, I remember standing in a club called the Vortexes after the Roxy close, and Elvis Presley died, and they were cheering.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, I thought that was out of order, but that was the tone of things at the time was like, you know, the king is dead.
Guest:They wanted it all to go.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I mean, this was six months after punk had, you know, punk only lasted about six months.
Guest:So this is toward the end of it.
Marc:It only lasted six months in earnest.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:What were those six months and who were the prime movers in that?
Guest:Well, the Sex Pistols, the Clash then came along after the Sex Pistols.
Guest:The Damned came along then after that.
Guest:There was the Adverts.
Guest:Then the Slits came along.
Guest:There was, I mean, this is just in London.
Guest:Of course, there was all over the UK.
Guest:There was the Buzzcocks were happening.
Guest:There was the Undertones.
Guest:Then there was all that two-tone stuff going on from like Coventry, Bristol.
Guest:The ska stuff?
Guest:All the ska stuff.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, UB40 was a little reggae band who I saw in a basement somewhere and said, hey, come and
Guest:You know, by then, around that time, I'd got my band together.
Guest:So this was over a period of three years.
Guest:But the punk thing didn't last very long, no.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Did you see the Sex Pistols?
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:Of course.
Marc:Was it a mess?
Guest:uh it was always um you never knew what was going to happen but you come from like you know they like you said that these you you had a tremendous respect for people that played and that you know made amazing music you grew up with yeah but now and now it had got a bit flabby and it was getting a little bit prog rockish yeah so when the sex pills was coming along it was a very you know uh you know
Guest:Up yours to all that.
Guest:And it was really deconstructing everything and bringing it back to basics.
Guest:And in England, it's very tribal, too.
Guest:And I like that.
Guest:It was more attitude than playing because the playing had become too important in music.
Marc:But a lot of those people that you mentioned could really play.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I mean, you know, the Clash could play.
Guest:Well, yeah, they were pretty basic.
Guest:As soon as you really got serious about playing, it started not being so punky anymore.
Marc:Was that what killed punk?
Marc:Pretty much.
Marc:People said, like, well, we got the look.
Marc:Let's play for real.
Guest:And also, if no one could really play and there wasn't, that was frustrating, too, because people, you know, guitar players wanted to learn their craft and to get better.
Marc:And was the end of punk sort of around, like... Probably about 78.
Marc:Because your band...
Guest:Well, my band wasn't a punk band.
Marc:No, it was very articulate.
Guest:Jimmy Scott, last of the great guitar heroes, if you ask me, James by the name of Scott, he didn't really like punk.
Guest:He was in Hereford, which was out in the sticks.
Guest:And to him, it was kind of angry and it wasn't musical.
Guest:He liked Abba and the Beach Boys, which you couldn't say at the time.
Guest:But he was 23.
Guest:And that's what he liked.
Guest:And he came into it.
Marc:And how'd you meet him?
Guest:Through Pete Farnden, who was also from Hereford.
Marc:The bass player.
Guest:Lemmy told me to look up this guy who was, I was looking for a band.
Guest:It's a long story, man.
Guest:Lemmy did?
Guest:Yeah, Lemmy was another.
Marc:That was the whole other side that you didn't even mention was that metal side of punk.
Guest:Oh, Lemmy was very instrumental in my history.
Guest:Without him, the pretenders wouldn't have happened.
Marc:Well, how'd you meet him and how does that unfold?
Guest:Because he hung out with all the bikers and stuff in London.
Guest:So, of course, you know, I gravitated.
Guest:That was your thing?
Guest:It seems to have been.
Guest:And when I got there, that's who I met.
Guest:And then, you know, and they were all, you know...
Guest:In fact, Lemmy, the first time I met him, I was in a shop on the King's Road.
Guest:He walked up to me and he stuck a... He didn't say anything.
Guest:He just stuck this silver tube he had around his neck on a chain in a bag of white powder and shoved it up my snout and walked away.
Guest:I was up for three days.
Guest:That was the first meeting?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He didn't talk.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But Lemmy was always around.
Guest:And Lemmy was coming... Hawkwind was shutting down and he was about to start Motorhead.
Guest:And Motorhead had its own thing.
Guest:There was also T-Rex and some of those bands had been pre-glam, were sort of still into this kind of hippie.
Guest:And there was a lot of... In that Notting Hill area, there was a lot of Rastafarians too.
Guest:They influenced the punk thing a lot.
Guest:In fact, in London...
Guest:The only music that the punks listened to was reggae music.
Guest:I never heard anything else in anyone's house.
Guest:No one listened.
Guest:In the Roxy Club, all they listened to was reggae music.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:So that was a big influence.
Guest:And it had an influence on the music.
Guest:But Hawkwind and, well, Motorhead now, they kind of lived outside of it all because it was Lemmy.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And Lemmy's always Lemmy.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Did you like Hawkwind?
Yeah.
Guest:Well, it was a little before my time.
Guest:I probably arrived, there was the Hawkwood and the Pink Fairies and those bands.
Guest:Right.
Guest:The first band I saw when I got to London was Kilburn and the High Roads, the 100 Club, and that was then became, well, that was Ian Drury's band.
Marc:Okay.
Guest:So Lemmy, how did he introduce you to... Well, he told me to, I went over and, you know, I was talking to him and he said to keep my eye out for a guy that he thought could be a drummer for me.
Guest:And, you know, I was kind of feeling sorry for myself because nothing was happening.
Guest:I'd been trying to get a band together for a long time.
Guest:And he said, well, no one said it was going to be easy.
Guest:And I was really shocked that I thought he was going to be a little more simpatico.
Marc:So he was a guy, his crew were who you would hang out with.
Marc:He was sort of like a big brother, buddy kind of thing.
Guest:Yeah, he wanted to fuck me, you know.
Marc:You didn't relent?
Guest:Well, you know, this isn't a kiss and tell.
Guest:So I went over and I said, look, man, nothing's happening.
Guest:And he said, well, check this guy out named Gas.
Guest:So anyway, then I saw this guy in the street one Saturday.
Guest:Gas Wild, his name was.
Guest:So I saw the guy that Lambie described on the street, and I opened the window.
Guest:I said, is your name Gas?
Guest:And he went, yeah.
Guest:I said, you want to get in a band?
Guest:He went, yeah, but I don't have any drums.
Guest:I said, I'll sort that out.
Guest:So I brought him into it.
Guest:And then through this guy, Gass, he was from Hereford.
Guest:And through him, I met Pete Farnden, who was from Hereford.
Guest:Pete Farnden was my bass player then.
Guest:And through him, we got James Honeyman Scott.
Guest:And then we found Martin.
Guest:So they were all from Hereford.
Marc:Right.
Marc:So they were completely outside of punk.
Guest:They were completely outside of punk.
Marc:What were they coming from?
Guest:Pete was very enamored with punk.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But he was more enamored with the Heartbreakers when they came to town.
Guest:And when they came to town about heroin, it was the end of punk.
Marc:Right.
Guest:And Pete got into all that.
Marc:So Johnny Thunders changed it.
Guest:Yeah, he did.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And that was sort of what became known as American punk was that trip.
Guest:Well, they weren't considered punk.
Guest:They were musically, they were the first band that came to the Roxy Club where they could actually play and everyone was blown away and just loved them because they were even more fucked up than the punks.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But they could play.
Guest:So, I mean, you know, people really were very respectful of the Heartbreakers.
Marc:Great tone.
Guest:They were amazing.
Guest:And I mean, of course, I mean, I saw the New York Dolls with Malcolm and Vivian, actually, when they came over.
Guest:And then the first gig I had as the Pretenders, I was invited by David Johansson to play with his band, the David Johansson Band, up at Barbarella's in Birmingham.
Marc:And what was Jimmy Scott then?
Marc:How did you guys sort of meld minds around what you were going to do, your tone?
Guest:Well, I needed to get to put some demos together and I got... Actually, there was rumors that Motorhead might break up and I knew that someone said that the Heartbreakers kind of had their eye on
Guest:filthy animal taylor who was their you know kid drummer yeah and i wanted i wanted phil in my band because i had this idea that my band would be like a motorcycle club but with guitars you know i mean i thought i was a badass so you know and i didn't want anyone else sniffing around phil in case they did break up but of course i couldn't approach him because he was in motor i would have dreamt of doing such a thing
Guest:But I thought, well, what if we say that we're auditioning for a guitar player and we ask Phil to help us?
Guest:And then he'll see what we have to offer.
Guest:And then if they do break up, he would have, you know, we'd be able to put a bid in for him.
Guest:Remember us?
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:Anyway, they didn't break up.
Guest:But we had to get a guitar player to do this faux audition.
Guest:So Pete said, well, I know a couple guys in Hereford.
Guest:And I said, OK.
Guest:And he goes, well, there's a local guitar player and then this little brother of this girl I used to go out with.
Guest:And I said, well, get the guy in the place, whichever.
Guest:So he started calling.
Guest:I said, hang on a minute.
Guest:The local guitar hero, he's married and has a kid, doesn't he?
Guest:And he went, yeah.
Guest:I said, put the phone down.
Guest:I said, call the other kid.
Guest:So he called the kid, and that was Jimmy Scott.
Guest:So he came to town, and I don't think we liked each other much.
Guest:I was too angry.
Guest:But we ended up eventually making these demos we needed to make together.
Guest:And as soon as I'd listened to the demos, I knew that I'd found my guitar player.
Marc:Yeah, he's astounding.
Guest:So I had to figure out how to get him to leave his girlfriend and his job and to leave Hereford.
Guest:But he didn't like punk, but he loved Nick Lowe.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And so I knew Nick Lowe.
Guest:So I thought, that's it.
Guest:I'll just get Nick Lowe to say that he'll produce our first single and then Jimmy will have to join us.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So I left this stuff over with Nick.
Right.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It was all songs I had written except for this one cover from an old Kinks album that I remembered.
Guest:And then, of course, Nick didn't really, wasn't into my songs so much because they were too angry, but he loved what he called the Sandy Shaw song.
Guest:So I said, we'll do it, we'll do it.
Guest:So I called Jimmy Scott.
Guest:I said, Nick Lowe's going to produce us.
Guest:But before I, because I knew that would seduce Jimmy.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But before I even got a chance to ask him, he goes, wait, before you say anything, I've been listening to the demos and can I be in the band?
Right.
Guest:So he was already in.
Guest:So he was already in.
Guest:And then Nick did the first Pretenders single, which was Stop Your Sobbin'.
Marc:And that was huge.
Guest:It was pretty big, I think.
Guest:I think it was in the top 20 or something.
Marc:Well, so that was really the evolution out of punk was Nick Lowe was kind of elemental in helping your sound.
Guest:Yes, big time.
Guest:Nick Lowe had a lot to do with my, you know, without Nick, I would have stumbled along.
Guest:I wanted him to do my album.
Guest:He was busy.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But by then, of course, I knew Chris Thomas, who I'd met through Chris Spedding, who I'd met in Paris when I was doing something.
Guest:And I took Chris Spedding to go see the Sex Pistols because he wanted to get in on something.
Guest:And Spedding ended up producing their demos.
Guest:And I'd sung on some of Spedding's solo albums.
Guest:And that's where I met Chris Thomas, who then went on to produce the Sex Pistols' first record.
Guest:And he did the Pretenders.
Guest:We considered him the fifth Pretender for the show.
Marc:First three albums.
Marc:It's a completely different game than this X-Pistols too, right?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I mean, you guys were totally, you know... Yeah, well, we were musical.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:But that was Jimmy Scott, see?
Guest:And then I didn't realize that I had this... I was kind of in denial of my musicality because, you know, I thought, you know, it was all about...
Guest:Not really heavy metal, but, you know, I was more deconstructed and angry.
Guest:And that melodic thing, I kind of had forgot about that.
Guest:But, you know, I mean, I grew up listening to James Brown, you know.
Guest:I was listening to real melodic stuff.
Marc:But you have a beautiful melodic voice.
Marc:And you just were in denial about it?
Guest:I just didn't.
Guest:I didn't know what it was yet because I hadn't really sung yet.
Marc:But the first Pretenders album feels like your voice is fully realized.
Guest:Well...
Guest:Who knows?
Guest:I don't know where that came from.
Guest:And I mean, I had only been in one band back in Ohio, and that was with a guy I met in Cauga Falls.
Guest:And he put a little band together called Sat Sun Matt.
Guest:We did one band.
Guest:One show in a church hall of covers, and I was petrified.
Guest:Anyway, I met him years later.
Guest:Him and his band Devo came to town, and I said, hey, man, what was that band?
Guest:Remember the band we were in?
Guest:What did it mean?
Guest:And he meant Saturday, Sunday matinee.
Guest:And that was Mark Mothersbaugh.
Guest:That's who I had my first band with.
Marc:Really?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:And I was about 16.
Marc:Well, that's the other unmentioned Ohio band, isn't it?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:There was a few.
Yeah.
Marc:And they were, like, they were a whole other thing.
Marc:I mean, outside of punk and outside of whatever happened at the end of the 60s and outside of pop, Devo, like, took, you know, this art rock idea and just elevated it to a level.
Guest:Yeah, they were, yeah.
Guest:They were the acceptable face of quirky.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And I don't like wacky stuff much, you know, but... Not a big residence fan or anything like that.
Guest:I wasn't that, I mean, I liked the Ramones.
Guest:I wasn't that keyed on the New York scene.
Guest:It was a bit arty for me.
Guest:I wouldn't have put it in those terms at the time.
Marc:Even in retrospect, you're not?
Guest:Well, in retrospect, things are always different.
Guest:We rewrite history and bands that didn't seem very important at the time suddenly become... But I would think you'd like television.
Guest:I probably didn't listen to much of that.
Guest:Remember, we were only listening to reggae music.
Guest:When I first heard reggae music, it stopped me in my tracks, and I thought, this is the future.
Guest:I thought I'd seen the future, and I was shocked that it never took off in America.
Guest:I thought everything would change with reggae, but it influenced that punk thing.
Guest:Then disco came, and that fucked everything up.
Marc:It fucked everything up bad.
Marc:But when that was like such a left turn, like, why?
Marc:Why were you?
Marc:Well, that's when I went to high school is like punk.
Marc:It's sort of not really took traction in the States, you know, in the late 70s.
Marc:And it was just fucking disco everywhere.
Marc:And then all of a sudden the knack happened.
Marc:And that was the end of it.
Guest:Well, yeah.
Guest:You know, because reggae had a sort of a spiritual base.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:And I think, you know, black American music started getting a real smash and grab mentality.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And they didn't want the spiritual stuff so much, you know.
Guest:And it's a weird one, the way that all... I mean, it still never really took off, reggae.
Guest:But it certainly influenced...
Guest:And house music in England was always very, very heavily influenced by... Reggae.
Guest:I mean, James Brown was the guy that influenced everything.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Even reggae he influenced.
Guest:He was the man.
Marc:All right.
Marc:So the first album happens, and you're on the map in a big way.
Marc:I mean, I remember everybody.
Marc:You were huge.
Marc:Did you feel it?
Marc:Did you feel it?
Guest:Not really, no.
Guest:I've never felt, I always feel the same.
Guest:I don't feel, first of all, I said to my manager, never call me with chart positions.
Guest:And I never really wanted to look at that or read reviews or read anything.
Guest:That's always been my policy.
Guest:Nothing to do with business, nothing to do with, I never had A&R.
Guest:You know, I just did my thing.
Marc:But you knew getting on stage that the crowds were getting bigger.
Guest:Well, yeah.
Guest:I was getting over my stage fright and being self-conscious.
Guest:I didn't want to be self-conscious, so I just tried to do what I had to do.
Marc:And so the first three albums all had hits on them.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But we weren't catering to anything.
Marc:No, I know.
Marc:It just happened to work that way.
Guest:I mean, eventually we weren't having hits, and I did try to cater.
Guest:But, you know, that was a long time.
Marc:What album did that start on?
Guest:Well, that's when I did I'll Stand By You with Billy and Tom.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Tom Kelly and Billy Steinberg.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And that was when I said, well, hang on a minute.
Guest:I'm not on the radio anymore, you know?
Guest:And I didn't like it.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Because I'm about radio.
Guest:Right.
Guest:That's why it was okay to have my first single be that...
Guest:that kinks cover and all my punk friends were like what are you doing what happened to your songs and i was like yeah but this is a better single right you know i had a radio mentality right you wanted to stay relevant and i wanted nicola to produce it um but um and then like at what point did all the like what time at what point did uh in the in did jimmy scott pass away and the
Guest:well jimmy uh we fired pete in the beginning of 1983 yeah because he got too smacked out yeah and that was that was the worst time obviously because we had to tell him and uh anyway and then jimmy was dead three days later oh my drug overdose and that was in 83 yeah so and you'd already recorded learning to crawl no no
Guest:No, learning to crawl was a reference to that.
Guest:To getting out of there.
Guest:So we had to, to starting over, we had to, and I was pregnant with, then I had a little kid now, so I had to, yeah.
Guest:You say that like, it was like, now I got this.
Guest:Well, you know, I never even held a baby, and I had to deal with all this stuff and keep my band alive, and they just died on me, you know, Pete and Jimmy.
Guest:Then Pete died eight months later, and the last time I saw him was at Jimmy's funeral.
Wow.
Guest:So he wasn't happy.
Guest:Obviously, we had to find... It was all fucked up.
Guest:That's what happens with drugs.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:All fucked up.
Marc:But it wasn't necessarily surprising.
Guest:Well, it's never surprising when someone dies, you know.
Marc:But you knew there were drugs everywhere.
Marc:You know that that's always a... Yeah, yeah.
Marc:And you just have to deal with it.
Marc:You just have to live with the fact.
Marc:Because, I mean, everyone was... You know when you have a band member who's using drugs, there's nothing you can really do, right?
Guest:Yeah, we were all using drugs.
Marc:Right.
Guest:You know, you can't really... And that was the risk.
Guest:That's the deal.
Marc:And when you had the baby, was this a surprise baby?
Marc:No, no, no.
Guest:I was, you know, at that point I was, you know, I wanted this.
Guest:I thought I was going to get married and everything, but anyway.
Marc:To Ray?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And is that, how was that kid?
Guest:Good, thank you.
Guest:Good.
Marc:And so now you got a baby.
Marc:You got a horrible tragedy.
Guest:And all of a sudden, you know, and then Jimmy died.
Guest:And then after we just fired Pete, it wasn't the best of times.
Marc:But the next album you pulled out, you transcended.
Marc:I mean, that was a good record.
Guest:Yeah, I guess, yeah.
Guest:Learning to call, yeah, yeah.
Guest:I mean, what can you do?
Guest:You have to keep living.
Marc:And how do you, now that you're, after you've gone through this period, and I've talked to musicians that have had, where you have this amazing momentum,
Marc:And then this music changes in a way or what domesticity kind of, you know, kills it off.
Guest:That doesn't help on your side.
Guest:Well, on anyone's side.
Marc:Right.
Guest:But I mean, just me being a mother and having to be, you know, like a sort of single parent and stuff.
Guest:You know, obviously, that's your if anything, it's given me a longevity or that's how I like to think of it because I didn't burn myself out too fast and just relentlessly keep making records because I had to really take my time.
Marc:But you eventually did get married.
Marc:Did you see that settling down?
Guest:That never happened.
Marc:It didn't happen?
Marc:No, it never worked.
Guest:Well, I did have a few failed attempts.
Guest:But I kept my...
Guest:the music going.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:They were always putting out records.
Marc:So now how old are your kids?
Marc:They're older now.
Guest:They're like around 30 each of them.
Marc:So now you come up with the Stockholm record I just listened to yesterday and it's great.
Guest:Thank you.
Marc:And you're back in performing mode.
Marc:I don't guess you ever left really though.
Guest:Not so much.
Guest:I've pretty much been out on the road doing a lot of
Guest:touring and you know a lot of yeah i stayed on it pretty much how's this record different i mean it is a solo record which is different well it's called a solo record but it's not that different than anything i've done to be honest i just happened to meet someone and lived in stockholm so i kept going over there and then i worked with some guys over there most of it's done with bjorn yitling and a couple of songs i just got into this collaboration mode where writing with someone that i didn't know became really fun i tried it with
Guest:Tom Kelly and Billy Steinberg.
Guest:And it was great.
Guest:I mean, even when I met Bob Dylan years ago, he said, you know, I got some tunes.
Guest:And, you know, I was like, well, I don't know how to write with someone.
Guest:I didn't know what to say to him.
Guest:You know, I didn't know.
Guest:I wouldn't have known how to sit down and write with someone else.
Marc:He wanted to collaborate.
Guest:Well, I think he was, you know, inviting that.
Marc:Where'd you meet him?
Guest:Backstage.
Guest:Bill Graham set it up.
Guest:Bill Graham called and said, do you want to see, come back and, you know, so you want to see this Dylan show?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I was like, well, yeah.
Guest:What year was that?
Guest:83, 84.
Marc:So you knew Bill?
Marc:Yeah, I knew Bill.
Guest:Yeah, he was a... We had conversations saying, hey, we should get a whole bunch of bands like they used to do with those soul reviews and take them right across the states.
Guest:And I'd have conversations like that with him.
Guest:Yeah, anyway.
Guest:But I didn't really know how to collaborate.
Marc:You wrote all your own songs by yourself?
Guest:At first, yeah, just with the guitar.
Guest:I mean, they weren't very good, but when I brought them to Jimmy Scott and the band, they transformed them into something that sounded great.
Marc:That's collaborating.
Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, but I mean, as far as the initial writing of the song, I did it.
Marc:Like actually playing with hooks or playing with phrasing?
Guest:Yeah, well, they added all that, but I had to come up with the thing.
Guest:Well, the song, and say, here's the song, and then they would make it interesting.
Marc:And how are you collaborating now that's different?
Guest:Well, now I can just go in and say, what do you got?
Guest:And the guy might say, well, I mean, he might whistle something into a phone, and I'll say, all right, leave it with me for a half an hour.
Marc:And you'd work it out vocally?
Guest:Yeah.
Yeah.
Guest:You know, there's all sorts of ways you can do it.
Guest:But I mean, I found it's more fun than sitting alone and doing it.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:You know, and it's just, it's kind of isolating sometimes.
Guest:I mean, it's very rewarding writing songs.
Guest:And I suppose it's the thing I like the most.
Guest:But anyway, so I went to Stockholm with Bjorn.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But they could only, he could only work for two or three days at a time because he was busy.
Guest:So I kept going back and forth.
Guest:And then Jocky Ohund, who is another guy I met there.
Guest:I wrote a couple of tunes with him.
Guest:Adding the Blue is one of them.
Guest:and now i just think oh and they they wouldn't i said come on you guys let's get in a band and like take this on the road yeah and we were going to call i was going to call us the russian icons and then they they wouldn't leave their wives and their bands and their studios huh to be with me so i guess i'm losing my touch
Guest:I couldn't get them to leave their life.
Guest:So I had to go back to London, and that was why it's got just my name on it.
Marc:Right.
Marc:So you spent a lot of time in Stockholm.
Marc:Had you been there before?
Guest:Well, yeah, to play, but I only went there to play.
Marc:Is it amazing?
Marc:Is it relaxing?
Marc:It's gorgeous.
Guest:Yeah, it's amazing.
Guest:But, I mean, I was in a hotel in the studio, hotel and studio, and then, you know, airport, gate, studio, train.
Guest:Right.
Guest:You know, I spent a lot of time on my own.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Probably too much to be healthy, but that's another story.
Guest:And...
Guest:That's what I ended up with at Stockholm.
Guest:And it's kind of, I suppose you could say, a way of rebooting my brand.
Guest:And let's face it, that's what it is these days.
Guest:You have to keep your thing alive.
Guest:And I mean, for example, I did a show at a festival called the Latitude Festival in London, outside of London, actually.
Guest:a few months ago and I was on the same bill as the Black Keys and Chaim and Tame Impala now if I'd gone out as the pretenders I probably wouldn't have got on that bill they probably would have thought it was too old of a band right but you know because it was just me I kind of snuck in there and it was something different so you know in a way that's why I say it's given me some longevity because I haven't really done that much when you think about it I haven't done as much as like Elvis Costello has probably made 40 albums I think he's probably putting out one every few months right
Guest:Yeah, but see, I don't.
Guest:I haven't had the time, and also I goof off a lot more than he does.
Marc:Well, how were you received on that bill?
Marc:Did you feel when you performed?
Guest:I mean, the audience wasn't really there.
Guest:I was on probably around one in the afternoon, so it was maybe an older audience, and then Tame Impala, then more kids came in, and then Chaim.
Guest:Chaim and, notice how I pronounce it the proper way, girls, my valley girl friends.
Guest:Chaim.
Guest:Chaim, they're the little valley girls here from L.A.,
Guest:They're great?
Guest:Yeah, they're great.
Guest:And the reason they're great is because they've been on the road.
Guest:They took their shit on the road for the last two years, so they're really playing.
Guest:They're sisters.
Guest:They're these little girls from the valley, and their dad's Israeli.
Guest:They're awesome because they're playing.
Guest:That's it.
Guest:When a band goes on the road and plays, they get good.
Guest:Get tight.
Guest:And then the Black Keys, what a success story they are because they've been out doing the same thing.
Guest:That doesn't happen very much where people work their way up
Guest:Because they get out and they keep playing.
Guest:But anyway, on this Latitude Festival, I mean, I was with an incarnation of this band, the Will Travel Band.
Marc:Who are those guys?
Guest:Well, I've now got James Walborn, who was the guy who I've been playing with in The Pretenders for a few years.
Guest:And some other guys, a Danish drummer.
Guest:Solid?
Guest:Very solid.
Guest:None of the guys that played on that album.
Guest:See, I had to put a band together to showcase this Talk Home album.
Guest:I really wasn't sure how I was going to do that.
Marc:So what do you do?
Marc:You rehearse for how long to get tight?
Guest:A couple weeks.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And then we showcased that album.
Guest:And then from there, I didn't know what I was going to do because I didn't really have...
Guest:i wasn't sure what i was going to do but it evolved where i got offered a few things so i thought well i guess if i i can do some of my old tunes even though they're pretenders because they're my songs why not why wouldn't you well yeah so i did that and then i got some more offers oh if you're going to do some old stuff then we you can have another gig sure so and you know there's no i mean you feel good playing those songs which ones your pretender songs
Guest:Yeah, as long as the audience is new, of course.
Marc:They love it, don't they?
Marc:They love it.
Guest:That's how people can, I suppose, go on stage in a play for two years and do the same play every night, because every night's a new audience, so it's new.
Marc:It's new again.
Marc:Look at the Rolling Stones.
Guest:Well, yeah.
Guest:I'm not, you know.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I'm there.
Marc:I always wonder, because even somebody like you who has integrity and you have a sensibility around what music is, is that there's no... Well, you don't know that for sure.
Marc:I kind of do.
Marc:Well, I'm not.
Marc:Maybe I'm projecting.
Marc:But what I'm saying is that there's no shame in playing great songs that are your songs.
Marc:Well, no, who's ashamed?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I always wondered that.
Marc:Let me play them already.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:That's it.
Guest:But obviously, if you're doing, I mean, like I said, this is an art form that's pretty dumbed down.
Guest:I mean, you know, you see some people on documentaries and they're playing their tunes to a big audience and think, come on, man.
Guest:It's not even that good.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That happens all the time.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:You know, and it's just like mega huge.
Marc:Sometimes they're not even really playing.
Guest:Well, you know, or you wish they weren't.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But, you know, and then a lot of these now, because it's all been plundered so much, you see documentaries on the greats and they do rewrite their own history where they were the biggest, most important band.
Guest:And a lot of this was just M.O.R.
Guest:stuff, you know.
Guest:I mean, I wish Karen Carpenter was around because she was considered, the Carpenters were considered very saccharine M.O.R.
Guest:They weren't taken very seriously.
Guest:What's M.O.R.
?
Guest:Middle of the Road.
Marc:Okay, got it.
Marc:AOR.
Marc:I don't know what you call it.
Marc:No, it's fine.
Marc:Middle of the Road's good.
Marc:I just didn't know it's different.
Guest:Not very cutting edge.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Not really rock.
Guest:Sure, sure.
Marc:And... And she was alive for what?
Guest:Yeah, to get her due because she was one of the greatest singers who ever lived.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:And people didn't... Of course, she was taken seriously because they sold a lot of records.
Marc:Right.
Guest:And people loved them.
Marc:But they were categorized.
Guest:They were categorized as being... Yeah.
Guest:You know, very much like the Beach Boys.
Guest:We thought that they were too squeaky clean.
Guest:Right.
Right.
Guest:Little did we know that they were not very squeaky clean at all.
Marc:Right.
Guest:But the music was very all-American.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:It's hard for me to listen to some Beach Boys because I can't handle how heavy Brian's heart is sometimes.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But at the time when they came out, I wish they all could be counted.
Guest:We were like, what the fuck?
Guest:Because we were taking... We didn't...
Guest:yeah where's the edge we thought that was nice yeah in fact it wasn't very nice no not at all we know that now it's a little brutal so when you get a bit of hindsight dare i say and you can look over you know with a bit of perspective you see these things in a different light abo great band great tunes yeah not taken seriously at the time because it was a little too nice right but you can't deny a great melody no and you can't deny a good song
Marc:No, I was just listening to, what's his name, Tim Harden?
Guest:Amazing.
Marc:I can't even fucking deal.
Marc:I bought this record out of nowhere.
Guest:Because he was a Vietnam vet and he was a junkie.
Marc:I bought a record just on the cover and I didn't know anything about Tim Harden.
Marc:Now I know he wrote some great songs, but I just bought this record on a fluke and I'm like, what is this?
Marc:And I went down to Tim Harden rabbit hole just last night.
Marc:Oh, amazing.
Marc:To watch him perform at Woodstock.
Marc:He is on the nod heavy.
Guest:But he had one of the... See, the thing is, they could sing.
Guest:He had one of the greatest voices ever, Tim Harden.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And he wrote those beautiful songs.
Guest:But the singing thing has changed a lot.
Guest:It's all changed.
Guest:Because back then, guys who were 25 years old, they wanted to sound like men.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I mean, look at Otis, how authoritative he was.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He was gone by the time he was 27.
Guest:Unbelievable.
Guest:And he had this... All of his music, you felt this manly authority.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Now these guys are like 40 and they're still like little... How do you get behind it?
Marc:So, yeah.
Marc:You're doing what you do.
Marc:Did you ever think to... Because the one thing that I asked myself when I listened to it was on the slower numbers where the melodies are...
Marc:you know kind of very deliberate and and slower sort of grooves to them they're very powerful did you ever think to do like an entire record of of of slower songs or or not ballads but just something yeah i got two girls in akron that would probably come and like lynch me if i did that you know i have been warned for years to stay stay clear of the balance you know keep rocking
Guest:Yeah, I mean, the girls that put the Pretenders archives together, you know.
Marc:So you've got to answer to them.
Marc:At the end of the day.
Guest:They keep a low profile.
Guest:They kept my thing alive for years.
Guest:Before we had websites or any of that, they were the first ones on it.
Guest:But if I start getting a little too ballad heavy, then I hear from them.
Marc:But you thought about it.
Guest:No, I haven't thought about it because, you know, no one wants to hear that shit.
Yeah.
Marc:All right.
Marc:All right.
Guest:This is supposed to be a rock band.
Marc:I get it.
Guest:You sneak them in once in a while and you can get away with it.
Marc:All right.
Marc:Well, it was great talking to you and have fun on the tour.
Guest:That's the plan.
Marc:You feel good?
Marc:You all right?
Marc:Sure.
Marc:All right.
Marc:Thanks for talking, Chrissy.
Marc:How cool is that?
Marc:She's amazing.
Marc:I was so happy to talk to her.
Marc:All right, go to WTFPod.com for all your WTFPod needs.
Marc:You can get the app, you know, and upgrade like I told you about at the beginning.
Marc:I will be at Largo on January 8th.
Marc:You can go to Largo-LA.com for tickets.
Marc:Oh, my God.
Marc:Not even a day off nicotine.
Marc:I'm losing my fucking mind.
Marc:I don't even know if I can play guitar.
Marc:I know you've all been waiting for that.
Huh.
Marc:I just moved a bunch of knobs That was crazy
Marc:Notice how clean I'm keeping it?
Marc:No distortion.
Marc:You know why?
Marc:Because I'm not ashamed.
Marc:I don't need to distort shit.
Marc:I'm so not ashamed I'm just going to hit it and let it repeat itself over and over again.
.
.
Guest:.
Guest:God, just give me a nicotine lozenge.
Guest:God damn it.
Guest:God, no!
Guest:Boomer lives!