It's a bright, sunny morning after a gig, and Chrissie Hynde is doing what any good rock star would: hanging out in her hotel room, casually flipping the pages of a magazine and eyeballing porn. Not the kind about sex -- the kind about luxury goods.
"I opened this thing while I was waiting," Hynde, 57, says, referring to the high-fashion magazine on the square glass top of the breakfast table where she's seated in West Hollywood, reading photo captions sarcastically.
" 'Why crave crocodile when you can clutch alligator?' By Chanel, no less -- $39,450 so you can clutch alligator! What [moron] would even entertain such a thing? . . . Here's a good one: 'A capricious bag is a must-have' -- of course, we all need one -- 'so why not go bold with Derek Lam's gorgeous navy croc version, Nedra crocodile handbag . . . $29,995.'
"That's pornography," she says, practically spitting out the word. "Sorry. Does no one have any shame anymore?"
Moral outrage surfaces often in any conversation with the firebrand front woman of the Pretenders. For three decades she's been the quintessential female rocker, but she's been a strict vegetarian and ardent animal-rights advocate even longer.
She's angry about mistreatment of animals, the economy and the paving over of small-town America. That last subject inspired the title of the Pretenders' first album in six years, "Break Up the Concrete," which uses a throbbing Bo Diddley beat under Hynde's message advocating the destruction of the substance that's encasing ever more of the planet.
"We like to travel on trains," she says. "That's part of the whole drive: Reinstate public transportation, especially trains. Get out of the cars. Destroy all the streets and roads and bridges and dams. Just get rid of it.
"Obviously," she adds, "that's the best-case scenario. That's not going to happen. But think small. . . . Do the things you can do. Stop paying the slaughter man. Stop paying the factory farmers. Stop supporting the corporations that are destroying everything. And everyone can do that. These are simple things. Make your life more simple."
She and her bandmates also have simplified musically on the new album, which sounds intensely raw and stripped-down. She's joined in the current configuration by guitarist James Walbourne and bassist Nick Wilkinson. In perhaps as big a surprise as the addition of steel guitarist Eric Heywood (ex-Son Volt), Pretenders founding drummer Martin Chambers stepped aside for the recording in favor of superstar session man Jim Keltner.
