Chrissie Hynde: From Outsider to Leader of The Pretenders

When Chrissie Hynde arrived in London in Nineteen Seventy-Three, she had little money, no record deal and no obvious route into the music industry.

She had left Akron, Ohio, convinced that the life she wanted existed somewhere else. What followed was years of rejection, failed bands and uncertainty before she finally assembled The Pretenders. Success came quickly — but within a few years, tragedy would destroy half of the original line-up and leave Hynde facing the possibility that the band was already finished.

Escaping Akron

Hynde grew up in an industrial Ohio city dominated by its enormous rubber industry. But instead of following the conventional path expected of her, she became obsessed with British rock.

The Kinks, the Rolling Stones and The Who offered a glimpse of another world. She learned guitar and increasingly looked towards Britain as the place where she belonged.

She later attended Kent State University and was on campus during the shootings of the fourth of May Nineteen Seventy, when four students were killed and nine wounded by the Ohio National Guard.

Three years later, Hynde left America for London.

Finding London’s Punk Underground

Britain was struggling economically when Hynde arrived, but beneath the surface a new musical movement was developing.

She found work writing for the New Musical Express before becoming involved with Malcolm McLaren and Vivienne Westwood’s King’s Road boutique, Sex. The shop became an important gathering place for musicians and figures associated with Britain’s emerging punk scene.

Hynde was suddenly surrounded by the revolution she had crossed the Atlantic to find.

But becoming a musician herself proved much harder.

For several years she moved through unsuccessful projects and rehearsed with musicians who would eventually become members of bands including the Clash and the Damned. By Nineteen Seventy-Seven, immigration problems were also threatening her ability to remain in Britain.

She still didn’t have a successful band of her own.

Hynde spent years on the fringes of London’s music scene before finally assembling The Pretenders.

The Pretenders Finally Arrive

Everything changed in Nineteen Seventy-Eight.

Hynde found guitarist James Honeyman-Scott, whose melodic playing provided the perfect contrast to her harder rhythmic style. Bassist Pete Farndon and drummer Martin Chambers completed the original Pretenders line-up.

The chemistry worked.

In January Nineteen Eighty, Brass in Pocket reached Number One in Britain. The band’s self-titled debut album followed it to the top of the charts.

After years of struggling to establish herself, Hynde had suddenly become the leader of one of Britain’s most successful new bands.

But the original Pretenders would barely survive another two years.

Two Deaths That Changed Everything

By Nineteen Eighty-Two, Pete Farndon’s heroin addiction was seriously affecting the band. Hynde, Honeyman-Scott and Chambers eventually decided that he had to leave.

Within days, something far worse happened.

On the sixteenth of June, James Honeyman-Scott died from heart failure associated with cocaine use. He was just twenty-five.

The guitarist who had played such an important role in creating The Pretenders’ distinctive sound was gone almost overnight.

Then, less than a year later, Farndon was found dead after a heroin overdose.

Half of the original Pretenders line-up had died.

Pete Farndon, Martin Chambers, Chrissie Hynde and James Honeyman-Scott formed the original Pretenders.

Rebuilding The Pretenders

Hynde could have allowed the band to end.

Instead, she rebuilt it.

Back on the Chain Gang emerged from this period and became a major American hit, while Learning to Crawl followed in Nineteen Eighty-Four with a new version of The Pretenders surrounding Hynde and returning drummer Martin Chambers.

From that point onwards, the band’s personnel would change repeatedly, but Hynde remained the constant.

A decade later, I’ll Stand by You gave The Pretenders another major hit and introduced her voice to a generation far removed from the London punk clubs where her career had begun.

In Two Thousand and Five, The Pretenders were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

By then, the young American who had arrived in Britain with almost nothing had survived rejection, immigration problems, the deaths of two original bandmates and decades of upheaval within the music industry.

The musicians around her changed.

Chrissie Hynde kept The Pretenders alive.