Chrissie Hynde Hates Cameras and Talking About Herself. She Made a Pretenders Doc Anyway
Photo Credit: TIFF
by Jake Coyle Sep 16
5 MIN READ
Chrissie Hynde is not one for looking back. She detests self-mythologizing. She doesn’t even like cameras. She’s just about the most reluctant documentary subject there is.
Yet filmmaker Joss Crowley, after years of persuading, finally managed to get Hynde to go along with the first authorized documentary on her seminal rock band, the Pretenders. There were ground rules. Hynde would only sit for one on-camera interview. She wanted few talking heads, hers included.
The result has just premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival, where it’s for sale. “Pretenders,” a long overdue portrait, stands out in a world of glossy, heavily authorized bio docs, telling the band's story with Hynde's no-nonsense punk attitude.
When Hynde and Crowley met a reporter at a nearby hotel shortly after Sunday’s premiere, she seemed somewhat mystified that after granting interviews for the documentary, she had been coaxed into talking about herself yet again.
“You won’t go in my bathroom and see gold records on the wall,” she said. “I find it depressing looking back. I don’t revel in it at all.”
Hynde, 75, won’t bring herself to watch the documentary. But if the story must be told, she’d rather do the telling than someone else. This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.
HYNDE: No.
HYNDE: That’s why there’s, hopefully, no gushing, no “women in rock,” no face-to-face interviews. Just talking about the band. I think I made it very clear, so hopefully that’s what happened. Is that what happened?
HYNDE: We did one interview and I thought, OK. Then Joss wanted me to come back again. He wanted more about my past. And I called my manager Ian and I said, “I can’t talk to that guy anymore. I just talked to him for two hours. I’m not going to talk about Akron anymore.” Then he made a 10-minute trailer and it was just archive footage. I said, “Oh, OK. I’ll do it.” The thing in this game is you do something so you don’t have to talk about it anymore, and then you have to keep (expletive) talking about it. It’s unbelievable.
HYNDE: Yeah, well I grew up in the ’60s. I was born in the ’50s, grew up in the ’60s, so I had the best music. I guess time has shown that I took it a little more seriously than everyone else. But that’s the past. I still love seeing a good band. But I’m not driven like I was in my 20s to see a band. Should I be? I’m not driven to go to a stadium and watch a heritage act for three hours.
HYNDE: I thought bands were a kind of anti-establishment living outside the law. Now everyone says, “Oh, we love an outlaw.” You don’t (expletive) know that an outlaw is. You don’t know real outlaws. It’s not a glamorous life if you meet real outlaws. But I still think that rock ’n’ roll was anti-establishment. I say I don’t want to see a heritage act in a stadium because now it’s like everyone in the family can go. Nothing wrong with that. I get it. But it’s not why I got in the game. The thing in this rock ’n’ roll game is there’s no rules but there’s rules. That’s how I’ve always seen it.
HYNDE: Well, like the bass player should never smile. And don’t bring your girlfriend on the road. I hear all the time, “It must be great when you’re on the road. It must be like one big family.” And I’m like, we got in bands to get away from our families. Everyone thinks it’s something that it isn’t.
HYNDE: Absolutely. It’s changed so much. I have the experience now — we all do it — where I look at kids and they’re all on their phones. I just step back and I say, “It’s their world. Sorry, you’re inheriting this.” But it’s their world and they’ll have to figure it out. Just like it was our world and we had to figure it out. What was anti-establishment in the ’60s or ’70s, it doesn’t exist anymore. Everyone’s doing a Gucci ad. The idea of selling out doesn’t exist. Once “Revolution” went into a Nike ad, the floodgates opened.
CROWLEY: I wanted to respect the music in the documentary. I wanted to treat it like the most special part of the film, but let it play. I didn’t want to try to break it down too much. I didn’t want to dissect it. I didn’t want to get in the studio with Chris Thomas and start pushing faders up and down.
HYNDE: What’s the series they have now? “Classic Albums.” You’re like: Ah, (expletive) it. You love a song and then you get some nerd in the studio going, “Listen to the background.” Well, you’ve ruined that one for me.
HYNDE: Yeah, unfortunately. In that whole generation, that whole genre of music that’s what it was about. With perspective you go, “Well that was a waste of time.” But things were born of it that otherwise wouldn’t have been. Those were those times. Everyone took drugs. Either you were a straight or a head. There wasn’t anything else. We’ve definitely gone backwards and that has more to do with the media and social media. There’s so much emphasis on gender. Why? That’s particularly what I wanted not to focus on. I didn’t want it to be a “women in rock” piece.
CROWLEY: Because you’re not sentimental, you don’t talk in cliches, it forced me to hopefully make a kind of anti-cliche, anti-gushing film about Chrissie and the band. There are so many docs out there that are the opposite of what I tried to make.
HYNDE: I’ve met a lot of people in this game, and a lot of them, they believe the myth. And I never believed the myth. It’s rock ’n’ roll. It’s three chords. It’s a personality. It’s an expression. Yeah, great, it’s fun. But come on. In America, they think of “rock royalty.” Hey, I live in England. We never liked the royalty in England. Get over yourselves. It’s not that important. It’s a rock band.
The result has just premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival, where it’s for sale. “Pretenders,” a long overdue portrait, stands out in a world of glossy, heavily authorized bio docs, telling the band's story with Hynde's no-nonsense punk attitude.
When Hynde and Crowley met a reporter at a nearby hotel shortly after Sunday’s premiere, she seemed somewhat mystified that after granting interviews for the documentary, she had been coaxed into talking about herself yet again.
“You won’t go in my bathroom and see gold records on the wall,” she said. “I find it depressing looking back. I don’t revel in it at all.”
Hynde, 75, won’t bring herself to watch the documentary. But if the story must be told, she’d rather do the telling than someone else. This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.
AP: Were you at all tempted to watch the film, Chrissie?
HYNDE: No.
AP: But you felt that if a documentary was going to be made, you’d rather have some say in it.
HYNDE: That’s why there’s, hopefully, no gushing, no “women in rock,” no face-to-face interviews. Just talking about the band. I think I made it very clear, so hopefully that’s what happened. Is that what happened?
AP: That’s what happened. How reluctant were you to participate in the film?
HYNDE: We did one interview and I thought, OK. Then Joss wanted me to come back again. He wanted more about my past. And I called my manager Ian and I said, “I can’t talk to that guy anymore. I just talked to him for two hours. I’m not going to talk about Akron anymore.” Then he made a 10-minute trailer and it was just archive footage. I said, “Oh, OK. I’ll do it.” The thing in this game is you do something so you don’t have to talk about it anymore, and then you have to keep (expletive) talking about it. It’s unbelievable.
AP: Part of the film is about how, ultimately, you just wanted to be in a band. Your belief in rock ’n’ roll seems total.
HYNDE: Yeah, well I grew up in the ’60s. I was born in the ’50s, grew up in the ’60s, so I had the best music. I guess time has shown that I took it a little more seriously than everyone else. But that’s the past. I still love seeing a good band. But I’m not driven like I was in my 20s to see a band. Should I be? I’m not driven to go to a stadium and watch a heritage act for three hours.
AP: But did rock ’n’ roll mean something more to you than the music?
HYNDE: I thought bands were a kind of anti-establishment living outside the law. Now everyone says, “Oh, we love an outlaw.” You don’t (expletive) know that an outlaw is. You don’t know real outlaws. It’s not a glamorous life if you meet real outlaws. But I still think that rock ’n’ roll was anti-establishment. I say I don’t want to see a heritage act in a stadium because now it’s like everyone in the family can go. Nothing wrong with that. I get it. But it’s not why I got in the game. The thing in this rock ’n’ roll game is there’s no rules but there’s rules. That’s how I’ve always seen it.
AP: Like what?
HYNDE: Well, like the bass player should never smile. And don’t bring your girlfriend on the road. I hear all the time, “It must be great when you’re on the road. It must be like one big family.” And I’m like, we got in bands to get away from our families. Everyone thinks it’s something that it isn’t.
AP: Do you find that that anti-establishment attitude is fading? “Selling out” is no longer much of a concern. Everyone has to self-promote.
HYNDE: Absolutely. It’s changed so much. I have the experience now — we all do it — where I look at kids and they’re all on their phones. I just step back and I say, “It’s their world. Sorry, you’re inheriting this.” But it’s their world and they’ll have to figure it out. Just like it was our world and we had to figure it out. What was anti-establishment in the ’60s or ’70s, it doesn’t exist anymore. Everyone’s doing a Gucci ad. The idea of selling out doesn’t exist. Once “Revolution” went into a Nike ad, the floodgates opened.
AP: Joss, what’s your connection to the Pretenders music?
CROWLEY: I wanted to respect the music in the documentary. I wanted to treat it like the most special part of the film, but let it play. I didn’t want to try to break it down too much. I didn’t want to dissect it. I didn’t want to get in the studio with Chris Thomas and start pushing faders up and down.
HYNDE: What’s the series they have now? “Classic Albums.” You’re like: Ah, (expletive) it. You love a song and then you get some nerd in the studio going, “Listen to the background.” Well, you’ve ruined that one for me.
AP: Guitarist James Honeyman-Scott and bassist Pete Farndon both died due to drugs. In your 2015 book “Reckless: My Life as a Pretender,” you write that, “in the end, this story is a story of drug abuse.”
HYNDE: Yeah, unfortunately. In that whole generation, that whole genre of music that’s what it was about. With perspective you go, “Well that was a waste of time.” But things were born of it that otherwise wouldn’t have been. Those were those times. Everyone took drugs. Either you were a straight or a head. There wasn’t anything else. We’ve definitely gone backwards and that has more to do with the media and social media. There’s so much emphasis on gender. Why? That’s particularly what I wanted not to focus on. I didn’t want it to be a “women in rock” piece.
CROWLEY: Because you’re not sentimental, you don’t talk in cliches, it forced me to hopefully make a kind of anti-cliche, anti-gushing film about Chrissie and the band. There are so many docs out there that are the opposite of what I tried to make.
AP: Chrissie, in the film you say, “I like playing in a band. I just don’t like being observed. It’s a real problem.” Have you never had any use for celebrity?
HYNDE: I’ve met a lot of people in this game, and a lot of them, they believe the myth. And I never believed the myth. It’s rock ’n’ roll. It’s three chords. It’s a personality. It’s an expression. Yeah, great, it’s fun. But come on. In America, they think of “rock royalty.” Hey, I live in England. We never liked the royalty in England. Get over yourselves. It’s not that important. It’s a rock band.
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