The Sun

Friday 9th May 2014

EXCLUSIVE DEBBIE HARRY & CHRIS STEIN INTERVIEW

Something for the Weekend

BLONDIE 40 YEARS

THIS week, SFTW meets pop’s ultimate platinum blonde, Debbie Harry of Blondie.
With former partner and bandmate Chris Stein, she discusses the music, clothes, hair, highs and lows of their 40 years together.

When Blondie split, my solo career kept me off the streets – DEBBIE HARRY

EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW

By SIMON COSYNS

THERE’S an elegant stillness about Debbie Harry.
If you’re one of the many millions who watched Blondie’s Heart Of Glass video, you’ll know what I mean.
With her messed-up peroxide blonde hair, her high-gloss red lipstick and her skimpy silver-grey asymmetric Stephen Sprouse dress, she seemed the epitome of sexy cool.
She moved minimally but fixed you with those seductive, almond-shaped, faraway eyes.
No need for energetic dance steps because she possessed the most goose bump-inducing stare in pop history.
That was 1979. Wind forward to 2014 and I’m sitting in a pale yellow room at London’s Mandarin Oriental hotel, transfixed by those same eyes. At 68, Deborah Ann Harry looks sharp in a cream blouse and black pants (well, that’s how the American would describe her designer trousers). Her hair, you guessed it, is dyed bleach blonde but I can see the dark roots she’s never been afraid of showing.
After necessary handshakes. she sits upright in a formal armchair beside a coffee table bearing a bowl of scented white roses. The stillness remains.
“I’m happy carrying on doing Blondie,” she decides, her New Jersey accent cutting the air. “I think there is a limit but I don’t see us stopping for a while.
“There is a preposterous element of doing it for ever and yet, after all, it’s only music.”
Stretched out on the hotel suite’s sofa is the singer’s former partner and Blondie co-founder, Chris Stein, her key creative foil in shaping the iconic music and image.

‘She’s worried about brain rot’
The guitarist and songwriter chips in: “We’ll wait to see if Mick Jagger’s still doing it when he’s 75. We’ll use him as a model.”
Harry: ‘And Charles Aznavour is making a comeback.”
Stein: “Yes, he’s like 90 or something and Leonard Cohen’s out playing.” (A youngster in comparison at 79).
I’m enjoying how these old sparring partners riff off each other as we discuss Blondie’s 40th anniversary… from their roots in New York’s punk and new wave scene through to dancefloor domination, car crash break-up years and on to harmonious reunion.
The event is being marked by a new album, Ghosts Of Download, a slinky contemporary synth-pop confection, which comes packaged with a disc of newly re-recorded hits under the title Blondie 4(0)-Ever.
But let’s take a trip back to 1974 when former Playboy bunny Harry took one of the most pivotal decisions of her life.
Already feeling her way in various bands with Stein, she bleached her hair.
Stein recalls: “When I met her, she had brown hair but then she came home one day with it blonde and very short like Twiggy.”
Harry smiles (serenely, naturally) and picks up the story: “I knew immediately I’d discovered my image. In the US, we had comic strip blondes and I’m sure even over here little girls were called Blondie as an affectionate name.”
Was there a Marilyn Monroe thing going on as well? I venture. “Oh, sure, absolutely,” she replies.
“That was a given.”
And how did the name Blondie come about? Stein looks across to Harry before jumping in: She really did the name. She started calling it that after being yelled at in the street, ‘Hey, Blondie!'”
I can’t help talking about the gallons of hair dye she must have used in 40 years and Stein reveals: “She has always kept the back dark because she’s worried about brain rot.”
Harry (quick as you like): “At least I would have the back section of my brain. I can’t really see the back so it has probably never really existed for me.”
Today, her hair is regarded as an essential element of brand Blondie, just like Elton John’s flamboyant specs.
“I tried to convince the boys to bleach theirs,” she says, warming to the interview. “But they would have non of it. I thought that would have been great.
“Later on, we were fans of wrestling and there’s a lot of bleached blonde in wrestling. It could have been interesting… coulda, woulda!”
So Blondie, one artificial blonde front woman and four dark-haired blokes, forged their way in New York’s underground scene, fixtures at the fabled haunts, CBGB and Max’s Kansas City.
They rubbed shoulders with The Ramones, Television, The Dead Boys, Talking Heads, Patti Smith, Richard Hell and all the other acts defining a fiercely independent uncompromising new musical world.
Harry remembers non-album track, Platinum Blonde and Little Girl Lies from the self-titled first LP as the first Blondie songs written.
Efforts like the punky pair Rip Her To Shreds and X Offender were raw, guitar driven and fast, giving little clue to the disco-primed, mainstream radio smash hits that came a few years later.
I ask Harry if she sensed she was emerging as a style icon as Blondie gained recognition. “A lot of that had to do with (the late fashion designer) Steve Sprouse and the changing times,” she says.
“We got in at the beginning of a new era of fashion. Breaking from the hippie/glam rock thing, we did something a little more edgy or ripped up. Somehow, I became associated with that.”
Then with a nice bit of self-deprecation (rare in a pop star), she adds: “I mean I love clothes but I don’t necessarily think of myself as a chic woman.
“A lot of things I did, I did instinctively without thinking. People noticed and copied. But what I love about bands and artists is that they’re distinctive.”
Was there a particular outfit that she remembers most fondly? “Well, there were plenty. I love the little Sprouse dresses,” she says.
“I had very pegged black pants… I loved those. I loved the black trench coat and the black beret. Oh, and the thigh-high boots.”
Of course there was a while lot more to Blondie than the clothes. Harry was a feisty, string female lead and she empowered other women to follow suit. “Our little era had a lot of insight into the future without realising it. Especially in Britain, a lot of girls started doing rock and pop.

‘I never rejected different sounds’
“Poly Styrene (X-Ray Spex) was around and The Slits and Chrissie Hynde (The Pretenders), of course Pauline Black of The Selecter. Oh and who did the one about the novel?”
Stein interjects that it was Kate Bush singing Wuthering Heights. “Kate Bush, yeah! She was so wonderful,” cries Harry.
Bringing the discussion into the here and now, Stein adds: “And now Miley Cyrus has a picture of you on her Instagram.”
Musically, the song that connected punk underground Blondie to chart superstars Blondie was gender-swapping ditty Denis, a gorgeous re-imagining of a 1963 hit for Randy & The Rainbows called Denise.
It failed to grab hold in the States but reached No 2 in Britain and No 1 in Holland and Belgium and paved the way for Blondie’s ventures into pop (Sunday Girl), disco (Heart Of Glass), reggae (The Tide Is High) and even early rap (Rapture).
Harry gives Stein a lot of credit for the explorations of different sounds: “Chris has truly earned our (NME Godlike) Genius award because he’s the one that got us doing Heart Of Glass and the rap thing, to bring all these influences and incorporate them.
“I don’t think it’s ever been Blondie’s position to live in the past and rest on our laurels. That was one of the concepts behind getting the band back together in the Nineties. And I have never rejected different sounds. I was always saying, ‘Let’s go out and record this sound or that sound’.”
The new album, Ghosts Of Download, finds Stein exploring Latino influences, for instance using a Colombian collective on vibrant opener Sugar On The Side.
He also employs the latest computer techniques in his song composition and another strong frontwoman, Beth Ditto of The Gossip, appears on standout track, dancefloor-primed A Rose By Any Name.
Harry says: “Beth is a real talent and a great crazy woman. She’s an instrument, not just singing along but taking her stand in the music.”
With plenty of touring coming up, including festival dates at Glastonbury and V as well as a headline show at London’d Shepherd’s Bush Empire on June 30, it feels as if life is rosy for Blondie these days.
But it’s also important to remember that Blondie imploded in 1982 after a toxic combination of declining sales, financial mismanagement, poor tour ticket sales and drug use by members of the band.
Another factor was Stein’s diagnosis with the debilitating autoimmune disease pemphigus which causes severe blistering of the skin. For Harry at the time, the only option was a solo career. “We didn’t resolve the Blondie issues and I think the solo thing was a device to keep me off the streets,” she says of the dark times.
“We had a lot of dimensions of problems from the bottom to the top so, in the Eighties, I hooked up with Gary Kurfirst who managed Talking Heads, The Ramones and Big Audio Dynamite. I was very fortunate that I started working with him.”
As our interview draws to a close, I’m left thinking how revealing Harry and Stein have been about the 40 years of Blondie.
Harry has been noted for her coolness in the past but I can’t say I noticed, particularly when she gets up, plucks a beautiful rose from the bowl in front of her and hands it to me.
The rose, the eyes, the songs, the woman. What’s not to like?

40 GREAT BLONDIE FACTS

1. DEBORAH ANN HARRY was born in Miami and adopted by Catherine and Richard Harry.

2. She graduated from a college in New Jersey in 1965 with an associate arts degree.

3. In the Sixties, Debbie Harry was backing singer in folk rock outfit The Wind In The Willows.

4. She worked in the BBC radio office in New York. Also as a Playboy bunny, waitress and go-go dancer.

5. Blondie were originally called The Angel & The Snake.

6. The band supported Television on their first tour of the UK.

7. Rip Her To Shreds was inspired by gossip columns.

8. Their first big chart success was Denis, which hit No 2 in the UK in 1978.

9. There have been six No 1 Blondie singles in the UK.

10. The first single from Parallel Lines was a cover of Buddy Holly’s I’m Gonna Love You.

11. Power pop trio The Nerves were first to perform Hanging On The Telephone.

12. There is a French language version of Sunday Girl.

13. Britpop pioneers Blur posed for a spoof cover of Parallel Lines (see picture).

14. Parallel Lines ranks 140 in Rolling Stone magazine’s top 500 albums of all time.

15. Eat To The Beat album featured pop, punk, reggae, funk and a lullaby.

16. Rapper Diddy remixed Union City Blue.

17. The Tide Is High is a John Holt song originally recorded by The Paragons.

18. Rapture featured in Nip/Tuck.

19. The Hunter album flopped in the UK, peaking at No 9.

20. English Boys is a sad tribute to The Beatles after John Lennon’s death.

21. Giorgio Moroder wrote the Blondie hit Call Me with Harry…

22. …after Stevie Nicks of Fleetwood Mac declined a chance to work with him.

23. In the 90s, Debbie Harry performed with The Jazz Passengers.

24. The album No Exit took its title from a Jean-Paul Sartre play.

25. Blondie made it back to UK No 1 with Maria in 1997 – 20 years after the first.

26. Debbie Harry has had more than 30 film roles, including Hairspray.

27. She was the original choice to play Pris in Blade Runner.

28. There have been five Debbie Harry solo albums.

29. The first was KooKoo (1981) and the most recent was Necessary Evil (2007)

30. Blondie were inducted into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame in 2006.

31. They have sold an estimated 40 million albums.

32. The Panic Of Girls album first came with a 132-page magazine.

33. Ghosts Of Download is Blondie’s tenth studio album.

34. Chris Stein is an acclaimed photographer.

35. He lives with wife Barbara and two young daughters.

36. Drummer Clem Burke has played with Iggy Pop and Joan Jett.

37. First bassist Gary Valentine wrote (I’m Always Touched By Your) Presence Dear.

38. Original keyboard player Jimmy Destri co-wrote Picture This, Atomic and Maria.

39. Debbie Harry has never married.

40. She remains the coolest woman in rock.