Rocker Chrissie Hynde says ”mobile phones are the new cigarettes”
Going to see Chrissie Hynde in concert this month? Best leave your phone in your pocket. The Pretenders’ front woman and rock icon says people filming concerts on their phones proves “cool is dead.”
THINKING of getting your phone out at the Pretenders’ upcoming Australian shows?
Maybe keep it in your pocket.
Chrissie Hynde lashed out an audience in Dubai, calling them “c----s” for filming the band on stage and offered a place to put their phone which wouldn’t see a lot of daylight.
During her first Australian shows on this tour she’s already been asking fans to put their phones away and watch the shows with their eyes.
“People are uncool,” Hynde says. “Cool is dead. When I see someone on their phone at a rock show I think it’s further confirmation that cool is dead. It’s like a compulsion. It’s like smoking. Phones are the new cigarettes.”
Hynde has an eagle-eye when it comes to mobile phones.
“It’s a hideous distraction when you’re trying to do a show and you see people on their phones taking pictures and texting. I’ll stop in the middle of a song and say ‘Lady, put your phone down’. We have announcements not to use your phones before our own shows. I’m really eyeing the audience all the time. If people are on their phones I find it quite demoralising. I’m up there trying to do my thing, I can’t work out why they’re on their phones. It’s a modern conundrum.”
Hynde is also not a fan of the new autograph — a selfie.
“I don’t particularly like my picture being taken. I tell people that and ask them if they like having their picture taken and they say ‘No, not really’ and I say ‘There you go’. It just can be very intrusive.”
The Pretenders are Australia-bound at the personal invitation of Stevie Nicks; they’ll open for Nicks as well playing a handful of their own shows.
The slots opening for Fleetwood Mac icon Nicks are literally an hour of power — shoehorning in hits including Brass in Pocket, Message of Love, Talk of the Town, Hymn to Her, Don’t Get Me Wrong, Middle of the Road and a handful of songs from latest album Alone.
“We have to really cram it in on that hour we get with Stevie, which is great, we can do it. Personally, I think an hour is long enough for a band to play. I’m not a big fan of bands who play for three hours. I’ve never watched a band play for three hours in life. I think you can get the job done in half that time.
“When we do our own shows we’ve got a larger body of material than we can cram into that hour, so we have to give people what we think they want. If we had more time we could give them what we want. As much as I don’t like a three hour show, we could easily do one.”
Nicks and Hynde had never met before starting their double tour earlier this year.
They’ve become fast friends — Hynde even steps in for the late Tom Petty on the duet Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around — a song that’s become more poignant since his passing.
“Stevie is very sweet, very gracious, she loves her dog,” Hynde says. “She’s got a lot of friends around her, it’s a nice feeling of family on the road. It’s totally different for me, my only entourage is the band, I don’t even have a wardrobe person. I look like one of the road crew and she looks like a queen, but we meet in the middle somewhere and have a lot in common.
“I was surprised at how compatible the two bands are. Audiences like guitar based rock and that’s certainly what they get with us. It works really well. I just have to remember not to talk too much so I can get all the songs in. I can’t go off on one. Stevie talks in-between songs and explains where they came from and people get that with her. On our own shows I have more to say. I think people would rather hear me sing than talk given the choice.”
Hynde recently added Pet Shop Boy Neil Tennant to her long list of musical collaborations — reworking Alone’s Let’s Get Lost as a duet.
She duetted with Michael Hutchence on the title track of INXS’ Full Moon Dirty Hearts (“Michael and I were mates, but we weren’t best friends”) - there’s even a video for the song featuring Ben Mendelsohn. and is an uncredited backing vocalist on U2’s Pride (In the Name of Love).
“I’d met Bono that night, U2 had played in Dublin that night. We went back to the studio, Brian Eno was there and they said ‘Do you want to hear the demo we’re working on?’ I thought it was a demo, Bono said ‘Sing here’ and that was it.”
Next year marks the 40th anniversary of the Pretenders forming after Hynde moved from the US to the UK — she almost married Sex Pistol Sid Vicious for a visa.
She hasn’t planned anything to mark the occasion, similarly she hasn’t planned a second autobiography — her first, Reckless, charted her youth and ended just as the Pretenders had broken through and two members, Pete Farndon and James Honeyman-Scott died.
“I didn’t expect the book to end there but once Pete died I couldn’t write the next chapter, it just felt wrong,” Hynde says. “Since then I haven’t thought about it too much. There’s been 30 years of stuff that’s happened since then. I enjoyed writing it more than I thought, it was good to get it out of my system so I could turn the page and move forward and not have to talk about it so much. The irony is you write a book and you have to talk about it more.”
Hynde is also “bored” about talking about the other major legacy in her life — animal rights.
She became a vegetarian at age 17 (“as soon as I heard the word I knew it was for me”) and supports Ahimsa farming, where dairy cows die of old age.
“None of the animals get killed. If you want to drink milk you can. It’s not about being vegan or vegetarian it’s just about looking after the animals.”
She’s befriended fellow meat-dodgers Paul McCartney and Morrissey but questions how much things have changed in the way of animal rights.
“To be honest, I find the subject kind of tedious because it never goes away. I don’t necessarily find things are changing. 40 or 50 years ago people didn’t think about it very much, so it was important to talk about it. Now all the information is out there, everyone can make their choice.”
The Pretenders, Forum Theatre, November 17. Stevie Nicks and The Pretenders, Rod Laver Arena, November 16, A Day on the Green Rochford Wines November 18.
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