Blondie Ambition

You’d have thought that after 36 years, Chris Stein might have lost his grá for this recording and touring malarkey but, nope, he still considers being in a band to be the Rolls Royce of professions.

“I can honestly say I’m as excited about our new record, Panic Of Girls, as I was about Plastic Letters and Parallel Lines when they came out in the ‘70s,” says the Blondie guitarist over a glass of fizzy water in a London hotel. “I’ve seen a lot of bands run out of steam, but put us in the same room and magic still happens.”
Stein is looking fit and relaxed despite a hamster-in-the-wheel promo schedule, which last night found him and Debbie Harry out at BBC Television Centre chinwagging with Jools Holland.
“It was great,” he enthuses. “You had Donovan doing ‘Sunshine Superman’ with the original sitar player Shawn Phillips who’s always been a big influence on me. And the Irish kid who was on…”
James Vincent McMorrow?
“… yeah, the guy with the beard. I liked his second song a lot – very Leonard Cohen. The other band who were on whose records I’ll pick up today were Friendly Fires. I don’t seek things out as actively as I did when I was kid, but I still love discovering new artists.”
Would Chris have known Jools back during the punk wars?
“Yeah, Squeeze opened up for Blondie on one of our very first UK gigs in 1977. I have to say the years have been kinder to Jools than me, which I don’t necessarily think is a result of clean living! The success he’s enjoyed as both a broadcaster and a musician is fantastic.”
Before I can throw another question at him, Chris asks me: “You’re in Dublin, right?”
Yup, sitting approximately a hundred metres away from College Green where a couple of days ago Barack Obama did his Rock Star President thing.
“Yeah, it was a bit of a ‘Greatest Hits’ set, wasn’t it?” the 61 year-old chuckles. “No matter how many times he says it, that ‘Yes we can!’ mantra brings a lump to my throat. He’s the smartest President I’ve known, except for maybe JFK. It’s a shame there’s so much resistance to him in the States, but the fucking racial thing is just crazy. I hope and pray he gets a second term ‘cos that’s when I think he’ll be able to bring about the serious change.”
Any President who sends a ‘thank you’ note to the cast and producers of Mad Men is alright by me.
“The best you could have hoped for in the past was Richard Nixon mentioning Johnny Cash or something like that, but I’ve heard Obama saying how he’s a fan of Jay-Z and Kanye as well as old school stuff like Stevie Wonder and Earth Wind & Fire. That’s the kind of guy I want in the Oval Office!”
Released last month to considerably less fanfare than it deserved – what is wrong with you people? – Panic Of Girls’ numerous standouts include ‘Mother’, a tribute to the decadent NYC nightspot of the same name that Blondie frequented during the ‘80s.
“It was located in one of those wonderfully dark, dangerous parts of the city that used to be populated by hookers, gangsters and artists, but which has now become a characterless version of Beverly Hills,” he rues. “You could rent an apartment there for a few hundred bucks, but now it’s $4,000 a month minimum. Despite those insane amounts of money, there are still a lot of really cool people gravitating towards New York and making things happen.”
Having been an active participant in the real thing, what does Chris make of Lady Gaga’s re-imagining of the Warhol era?
“She’s great!” he concludes. “I’m curious to see where she goes over the next ten years. I can imagine her doing a more stripped down thing after a while. But the Marilyn Manson for the masses thing she’s currently doing is terrific and would, I suspect, be very much to Andy’s liking.”