No Stein Like The Present - Chris Stein Interview

“I really like the modern pop music scene,” declares Blondie guitarist Chris Stein. “I really enjoy it. I hear people all the time going, ‘Oh, there’s nothing going on’. I hear stuff as good as anything from the ‘60s. There’s some terrific songs coming out now.”

Given that Stein first formed new wave act Blondie with his then-girlfriend Debbie Harry in 1974, he’s obviously seen a lot of changes in the industry.
“Everything’s changed,” he observes. “It’s a new paradigm, and now everybody’s trying to figure out how to operate in this digital era. It’s interesting to be in the middle of all this change, actually.”
Now aged 64, Stein has seen his fair share of losses, too. Most recently with the deaths of his friends and fellow New York legends Lou Reed and Tommy Ramone.
“Lou... I saw him a handful of times right before he died,” he recalls. “It was sad, you know? Tommy, then, I didn’t really know he had any problems going on so it came as a shock. He had the same partner, Claudia, for 40 years so I wrote to her a little bit. It’s a ironic that he got more attention in the two weeks after he died than he did in his last 20 years.”
Ramone is one of the subjects featured in Stein’s forthcoming book of photographs. Published to mark Blondie’s 40th anniversary, Negative will be a collection of his iconic, mostly unpublished portraits of Debbie Harry and the various rock ‘n’ roll creatures of the ‘70s and ‘80s New York scene.
“I’m excited about that. It’s about the early days, and there’s people in it who are less well-known, as well as people who are more well known. I hope people like it. I really enjoyed the process of putting it together.”
Despite the retrospective, Blondie – who reformed in 1997 following a lengthy hiatus - are still very much a going concern. Their tenth studio album, Ghosts Of Download, was released earlier this year. As its title suggests, the collection was largely programmed and recorded online.
“The last record was very different. Everybody’s in different places so there was a lot of programming. I hear people saying, ‘Which record is better, the first Blondie record or this current one?’. Really if I’d had computers and programming in 1976 I probably would have been dealing with it then, too.”
The album features a cameo by Gossip’s Beth Ditto on the track ‘A Rose By Any Other Name’. How did that come about?
“That was Matt’s [Katz-Bohen] idea, he’s our keyboard guy. It was his song and he just said, ‘Let’s try to get Beth’. We’d met her a bunch of times. Debbie knew her from touring. Everybody has a lot of respect... so it just worked out.”
They’ve been touring the new album fairly heavily, with an Electric Picnic headliner fast approaching.
Do they still enjoy gigging?
“It’s okay,” he says. “I fucking hate airports, man. If I never see another airplane it’ll be too soon. Airlines used to be glamorous. Now it’s like going on the subway. I enjoy doing the shows; if I wasn’t doing that I’d certainly miss it. The more enthusiastic the crowd, the more fun it is. We’re looking forward to Electric Picnic. Irish audiences are very physically enthusiastic. That always helps.”
After 40 years making music together, give or take the odd split, how do the band get on?
“Everybody gets on good,” he maintains. “When everyone gets together, there’s a kind of supportive feeling that we get from being in a group. There’s a lot of sarcasm. I enjoy hanging out with them. There are certain dynamic at play, always.”
What is the greatest lesson he's learned from 40 years in the music industry?
“That’s tough, I don’t know,” he laughs. “What I tell younger people is that enthusiasm isn’t enough, you have to work hard also. There are too many little things here and there. I’m tempted to say ‘don’t trust anybody!’, but then that’s not really valid… so I don’t know.”