The Pretenders

CHRISSIE HYNDE – Lead vocals, Guitar
ADAM SEYMOUR – Lead Guitar, Backing vocals
MARTIN CHAMBERS – Drums
ANDY HOBSON – Bass

The Pretenders’ 8th studio album, Loose Screw, isn’t a return to form. It’s better than that. It’s a successful attempt at being modern while maintaining the essence of what has made them a great band.

With a confidence borne from 25 years making music, Loose Screw finds Chrissie Hynde and band experimenting with dub and dance rhythms within the framework of bedrock-solid songwriting that’s made all of the groups’ albums riveting listening.

“The beauty of this album, and the reason why it was a lot of fun to make is that the songs were written very, very quickly,” says Hynde. “There was no agonizing over anything. Several of the songs were literally written in one sitting. And for my money, that’s why this album is more upbeat, and I would describe it as ‘easy listening’. It’s not an album that drags you into the psyche of the singer, or demands very much. Or at least I don’t think it does.”

“Complex Person”(the album’s first single) was one of those quickly written tracks. “The woman singing the song is saying, ‘I contradict myself a lot. I have a belief system, but my actions don’t necessarily reflect what I believe in. I’m a hypocrite, I say one thing and do something else. I want you to pay attention to me, I don’t care in what capacity, just as long as you do…’ it’s just an ordinary person trying to express herself.”

The only track not written by the band on Loose Screw is “Walk Like a Panther,” a 1998 UK #1 single by DJ collective All Seeing Eye. “We’ve always loved this song, particularly because were written and sung by one of our favorite English artists, Jarvis Cocker of the band Pulp.” However, most of the songs on the album are collaboarations between Hynde and long time guitarist Adam Seymour.

Says Hynde: “The big change recently in how we work has been that we’re now using modern technology, i.e. tape recorders. Which means I can sit down in a very primitive little studio, the same sort of thing that most people have been using for years, and we can start working on the tracks together.”

“I don’t work any gear. I’m not good with anything mechanical, or certainly anything that has instructions attached to it. I don’t go there at all. But Adam likes that stuff. So, we got a ‘porta-studio’ thing, and he just has his head in the instructions manual while I’m filing my nails.”

Using this technology, Hynde says, “when we were writing the songs on this album, we pulled out some of our old records and the stuff that we really like and I’d say ‘well this is the kind of rhythm I want’. So Adam would program something similar. Next, I’d ask for just 2 chords, ’cause if you only have 2 chords, any melodic line can go over them. Then Adam would put in a bass line, I’d listen to it, and we’d be on on our way.”

Before recording commenced Hynde’s plan was to make an all reggae album. While some of the songs that written for the record didn’t end up in that genre, the tracks at the core of the album did. In British producers Kevin Bacon (not the actor) and Jonathan Quarmby (Finley Quaye, Ziggy Marley) the Pretenders found studio hands who could work with the range of sounds and songs that would end up as Loose Screw.

The album draws a line from the Pretenders’ rock and roll aggression to reggae’s swaying rhythms that few would’ve expected. While not immediately obvious, Hynde explains that the music has exerted a strong pull from the very start of the band’s career. “In the London punk scene in ’76 and ’77, reggae was the only music any of us listened to, and that was a big influence on me, just as much as the influence of English bands was when I was a kid.” Tracking through the group’s work, reggae rhythms have appeared on many tracks including “Private Life” from the group’s first LP, “Waste Not, Want Not”(Pretenders II), “How Do I Miss You”(Packed), and of course, their collaborations with English reggae group UB40, “Breakfast in Bed” and “I Got You Babe”. A mainstay of the aforementioned UK punk scene, Hynde (originally from Akron, OH) formed the Pretenders in 1978, with James Honeyman-Scott, bassist Pete Farndon and drummer Martin Chambers. The band’s hugely successful self-titled debut album was released in 1980, but the drug related deaths of Honeyman-Scott in 1982 and Farndon in 1983 nearly brought the Pretenders career to an end. Hynde and Chambers persevered and remained the only constants in the band, They recorded six more albums between 1981-1999. (The Pretenders’ line-up has remained unchanged since the recording of Last of the Independents.)

Culled from those records, the band’s Greatest Hits documents a rarity in the music business, 20 hit singles (from “Brass in Pocket” and “Back On the Chain Gang” to “Don’t Get Me Wrong” and “I’ll Stand by You”) that are unmistakably the work of a rock and roll auteur that has never compromised her vision.

A longtime member of PETA, Hynde has unconditionally supported all of the group’s causes. Recently, that support saw her spending the night in a New York City jail cell after successfully protesting clothing retailer The Gap’s use of illegal Indian and Chinese leather. The Gap changed its policy, and the audience watching the Pretenders perform at New York’s Roseland ballroom that night were none the wiser.

Another milestone in Hynde’s life happened in September ’02, when the Pretenders opened US dates for the Rolling Stones. “These shows have just been beyond our wildest expectations of what a tour could be like, ’cause these guys have been absolutely phenomenal,” said Hynde. “Mick Jagger has become my hero in the last 2 weeks…and I’ve always worshipped at the altar of Keith Richards.”

Playing with the Stones brought back Hynde’s memories of a meeting with Ron Wood many years earlier that would be a pivotal experience in her young life.

“I met Ronnie Wood when I was 16 years old, when he was playing in the Jeff Beck group. I went to see them in Cleveland with my girlfriend who was older than me, could drive, and had a Corvette. She knew a disc jockey and who had a big bag of weed and he took us back to meet the band. Obviously the DJ’s calling card was that he had these local teenagers with him. But we were so thrilled; I had never actually met anyone who was in an English band or anything like that. It was my first taste really of hotel rooms and bands, and I knew what I wanted to do.”

In her 25th year leading the Pretenders, Hynde has created an equally indelible rock legend, confidently reconfigured on Loose Screw. The Pretenders are the featured act on the Lifetime Network’s annual “Women Rock” benefit concert, with Hynde’s extraordinary vocals paired with Chaka Khan, Michelle Branch and others. The group will begin their North American tour in January 2003.

DISCOGRAPHY

LPS

1980 PRETENDERS
1981 PRETENDERS II
1984 LEARNING TO CRAWL
1986 GET CLOSE
1990 PACKED!
1994 LAST OF THE INDEPENDENTS
1995 THE ISLE OF VIEW (live)
1999 VIVA EL AMOR!