The Toronto Film Festival Debuts Pretenders, a documentary focusing on Pretenders’ founder, singer/songwriter Chrissie Hynde.
Program notes about the documentary describe it as “Tough, stylish, and effortlessly cool, the Pretenders founder Chrissie Hynde is the real thing. Grounded in extensive interviews with Hynde and archival materials, Pretenders chronicles the evolution of one of rock’s most singular icons. Surveying her five decades of work with the Pretenders, you’d think she came out of the gate a rock star. The truth is more complicated — and more fascinating.”
The documentary is helmed by Joss Crowley, a London-based documentary filmmaker. He has produced the documentaries Freddie Mercury: The Great Pretender, From The Heart: Mark Ronson, and Iggy Pop’s American Valhalla. His directorial credits include the Shania Twain documentary Not Just a Girl and Simple Minds: Everything is Possible.
Born into a middle-class postwar family in Akron, Ohio, Hynde was a rebellious youth with a taste for the unconventional. Her love of rock ’n’ roll arrived in tandem with a predilection for drugs and biker gangs, the latter of which would put her in harm’s way and lead to a move to London. There she worked odd jobs, wrote criticism, befriended musicians, and stayed on the cusp of realizing her potential for years before finally assembling the Pretenders’ original lineup. The band found success almost instantly, but it would not be long before tragedy struck, leading Hynde to adapt her approach to life and art.
Aside from the interviews with Hynde that provide the film with its structure — and the stories behind hits like “Brass in Pocket” and “Back on the Chain Gang” — Crowley’s in-depth profile boasts a spectacular collage of archival material, featuring Paul McCartney, Elvis Costello, Viv Albertine, Nick Lowe, and Johnny Marr, plus thrilling performance footage. With her mixture of fearlessness and craftsmanship, attitude and vulnerability, Hynde has redefined rock longevity. Pretenders is a fitting testament to her ongoing legacy.
The Pretenders’ debut single was a cover of the Kinks’ "Stop Your Sobbing" produced by Nick Lowe. Next came "Kid," another UK Top 40 hit and their first originally written single. Following both singles would come one of Pretenders’ biggest tracks to this day, "Brass In Pocket." Leading with a glorious guitar rhythm embodied by a luscious chorus, "Brass In Pocket" launched Pretenders onto a different level, with the track reaching #1 in the UK, Ireland, Sweden, and South Africa, as well as Top 5 in Australia, Belgium, Canada, France, New Zealand and more. It was also a success in the US, reaching #14 and becoming the 7th music video aired on MTV. The album continues to be highly acclaimed to this day, regularly featuring amongst best of the 1980s lists, as well as being certified Platinum in USA, and Gold in UK, Netherlands, Belgium, and New Zealand.
During the year between Pretenders and Pretenders II, the band continued their momentum, releasing two singles in the UK, "Talk Of The Town" and "Message Of Love," with the former reaching #8 and the latter #11 in the UK singles charts.
The appetite in the US maintained too, with Pretenders releasing an EP simply named Extended Play, containing five tracks that would later be on the Pretenders II album. Pretenders II was issued on August 15, 1981, to great fanfare. The album would end up peaking #7 in the UK and #10 in the US, being certified Silver and Gold respectively in the process. Further highlights of the album include another cover of the Kinks, in the form of "I Go To Sleep."
In 2002, I interviewed Chrissie Hynde over the telephone from New York about her studio work, recording with Jeff Beck, Pretenders’ drummer Martin Chambers, a Gram Parsons tribute album, and her involvement with a Burt Bacharach television salute. She also provided insights into her own vocal recording techniques and commented on Bob Dylan’s Time Out Of Mind and the Rolling Stones’ Exile On Main Street.
After our interview, Chrissie sent me a nice note in the mail after I sent her a Jack Kerouac Box Set Collection I was the Project Coordinator of.
I saw the Pretenders’ debut US tour in 1981, including a stop on September 1, 1981 at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium in Southern California. Their records came to life, although the sound mix in the hall was a little too loud; but she sang well, and I liked the way she danced, too.
Before the show, I was walking down Sunset Blvd. in Hollywood when I veered into a building and surprisingly shared an elevator ride with Chrissie when she and James Honeyman-Scott had departed radio station KWST-FM after an interview.
I was also in attendance at the Pretenders’ September 5, 1981 show at Perkins Palace in Pasadena when Bruce Springsteen joined Chrissie and the band for a raucous version of Jackie Wilson’s “(Your Love Keeps Lifting Me) Higher and Higher.”
Chrissie Hynde has always been a confident rocker, an autobiographical lyricist, and is still blessed with a set of lungs and a voice coated with honey and sprinkled at times with vinegar.
Hynde could sing the US National Anthem, and it would sound great - which she did in the mid-90's when her Cleveland Indians were in the baseball World Series, and she tossed it out in the stadium and on worldwide television.
In the VH-1 Year In Rock 1970 TV episode which just aired, Chrissie had some poignant comments about her short-lived stay in college at Kent State in Ohio.
Hynde attended a Joplin concert at the Blossom Music Center in Richfield, Ohio in 1970.
“The thing about Janis is that she just looked so unique, an ugly duckling dressed as a princess, fearlessly so. Seeing her live was like watching a boxing match. Her performance was so in your face and electrifying that it really put you right there in the moment. There you were living your nice little life in the suburbs, and suddenly there was this train wreck, and it was Janis.”
A very perceptive writer and a real yenta when it comes to opinions and discussion about her life, songs, band, and music favorites, Hynde has also been busy doing benefit work, and recording and appearing on special events and programs.
Chrissie is heard in a duet with Emmylou Harris on the song “She,” about Janis Joplin, on the Gram Parsons Return Of The Grievous Angel: A Tribute to Gram Parsons 1999 album, and in 1998 was part of the New York televised salute to Burt Bacharach, where she sang two of his songs written with Hal David, “Baby, It's You” and “A Message To Michael.”
Chrissie Hynde was also booked on the TBS cable TV show, One Love reggae concert tribute to Bob Marley, rendering a version of “Waiting In Vain.” Hynde appeared with Sheryl Crow at her recent Central Park concert in New York, during which she and Sheryl backed Keith Richard on a live version of “Happy” from the Rolling Stones' Exile On Main Street.
Chrissie Hyde and Harvey Kubernik 2002 Interview
Q: How do you traditionally write songs?
A: There’s no real set formula, but one thing is for sure. Number One, I sit down with a guitar. Number Two, I have a pen and a pad of paper. I don’t use anything else. That’s all I do. If I get an idea I write it down. And then the next time I sit down with a guitar, and if I remember it then, well lucky me. If I don’t, then that was a waste of time. But I don’t have much more structure than that to it.
Q: Drummer Martin Chambers rejoined the Pretenders five years ago. What has it been like to record with him in the studio again and play gigs over the last half decade, after not working with him for a period of time?
A: Martin is playing better than ever because we had some down time. I think the trauma of losing Pete and Jimmy kind of did our heads in a lot. And neither of us was playing any good.
In the Pretenders, no one expects me to play very well, but you know, that's just how I play. But I expect excellence out of all the other players or... I can't have everyone play like me. Martin's timing is impeccable. I think in the early band that was down to the other players, too.
As I said, there were some traumas. He lost his two best friends when Pete and Jimmy died. And I desperately needed some other inspiration to keep myself alive too because I was sinking after that, because that was a big kick in the teeth for us.
So, I played with a couple of other guys, and worked with other producers, went out into the wilderness on my own to kind of re-discover what the fuck it was that I did. Suddenly I had Chris Thomas, the Pretenders, and there was this great formula. And one day it was gone. So I felt I had to go out and find my feet again. But what I missed about Martin, his real forte, is that no one plays those mid-tempo Pretenders songs the way Martin does.
He has a particular "lolloping" feel that also includes a sort of shuffle beat that he's really good at. And these days, he plays on stuff like “One More Time” on this album, the more sort of conversational R&B- based stuff, which at one time I thought he wasn't very good at. Again, when we were going through our traumatic period, we were losing our feel a bit. But he's come back so strong, it's frightening. And he's the most entertaining drummer to watch, which I always thought was probably the funniest part of watching a band, apart from the guitar player, of course. If the guitar player is great, you can't replace that. An entertaining drummer is just a joy to watch.
I don't ever like to turn my back to the audience when I'm playing, but these days I just can't resist watching Martin because he's just such a fuckin' riot. If I watch him, he shows off to me and he's even funnier. We now have Martin play behind a plexiglass screen so there's a lot of separation in the sound. That gives our sound mixer a lot more flexibility, and Martin doesn't have any spillage into the vocal mikes. And also he's not playing right behind my head, which I find a tremendous distraction as a singer. So he can really play out more. Consequently, he has to use headphones otherwise the cymbal sound would be so loud that he'd be deaf.
So, I insist he use headphones at all times, because the sound comes right back at him. But that's also why anyone who goes to see a Pretenders show always walks out and says, 'That's the best sound I've heard in that hall.' And it's down to the fact that we play minimum volume on stage, and we always use the screen, and we're very careful about our on-stage sound to make sure, because that's the most important thing. It's the unseen factor of a show that ordinary people probably wouldn't really notice, but the sound can ruin the whole show. If the sound isn't excellent, it will ruin the show.
Q: When you record, do you wear headphones for the vocal session?
A: I do find that I can really struggle with them and these days I find the most satisfying way to do it and the fastest way is to go into the control room and stand in front of the monitors and just play the track and sing it live. That's an easy way and it's like you're singing along to the track with no headphones or anything.
With headphones, you can use a better mike and stuff. I like using a handheld mike. Like on 'I'll Stand By You' on the last (studio) album, I just sat up on the back of a sofa and I was just struggling so much getting that vocal - we tried all sorts of different arrangements with the headphones and speakers - so I said, 'Fuck it, fuck it'. Went in, sat on the back of the sofa, and said, 'Let me at least get a fuckin' guide vocal on this thing and we'll worry about it later.' No headphones, faced the monitor and just sang along a guide vocal and that's your vocal used on the record. Usually we use one vocal and, if there are some lines that might happen in another take, we'll go for that.
Q Jeff Beck played on “Legalize Me” from your album Viva El Amor!
A: Well, I’ve known Jeff for some years, and he’s someone who is my guitar hero. Meeting him was such a huge thrill for me. We were going to do some charity work over ten years ago, l and since then we’ve remained very friendly. And I sort of introduced him to a guy who has become one of his best friends, so that was always good, and the three of us go out together and do things. We’ve always had different schedules and been working on other projects. But when I heard “Legalize Me”…
I’m just such a fan of his rock guitar playing because he’s the greatest rock guitar player. And in his own stuff he’s done the last 20 years, he certainly has gone on to Planet Beck. Where no other guitar player has ever gone. And he doesn’t use a pick. What I always wanted to do was pull him down to Planet Earth and get him to play rock guitar. For him that might be a little elementary, but for me that’s where my head is at. So, when we did “Legalize Me”, I thought, ‘Maybe I can get Jeff in to play the solo’. So, I called him and told him I had a rock track - 'Do you want to come down?' ‘Yea.' So, I sort of cleared the studio out, ‘cause I didn’t want him to feel in any way any kind of scrutiny by people who were like crying and stuff, because he’s so fuckin’ amazing. I just had Stephen Hague and the engineer, Richard Norris, who works with Stephen.
And Jeff pulls up in his Corvette, in this English studio, RAK studio, where he probably recorded ‘Hi Ho Silver Lining’ (with producer Mickey Most) and he walked into the studio. Everyone was very calm, great, ‘Thanks for coming’. We played the track four times and he had a couple of passes on it and got into it a bit. Once he started playing, I thought, ‘This is great. I’m gonna have him sit right next to me so I can watch him play’. But I couldn’t lift my eyes. I couldn’t look up. I was so in awe. It was so absolutely stupendous when he was playing, I was sort of immobilized.
At one point, I caught Stephen Hague’s glance from across the room and he too had this sort of stunned expression. You know, Jeff did about five takes. We said, ‘I guess we’ve got it' when he finished playing. 'Great. Thanks for coming down’. He said, ‘OK. Talk to you later’. And as soon as the studio door shut, we all yelled, ‘Fuck! Oh My God!’ We were screaming. The engineer had never heard anything like it. We were shaking in disbelief, but when Jeff was there... 'O.K., Jeff. Thanks for coming in… Talk to you later…'
Q: On Viva El Amor, you’ve continued co-writing with songwriters Billy Steinberg and Tom Kelly on some of the tunes. On the last studio album, Last Of The Independents, you teamed up with them for a few tracks, including “Night In My Veins” and “I’ll Stand By You.” Can you discuss working with them on songs, and besides the tunes you write by yourself?
A: Someone that Billy knew, so he says, maybe it was Billy all along (laughs), sent a letter to my manager saying they would be interested in collaborating, or trying to do something. This was probably five or six years ago. hadn’t ever collaborated with anyone, and I really had never thought about it. But I looked at this letter, and thought, ‘Hey, that would be kinda cool just to go to L.A. for a week or so’. I was very much in my sort of ‘domestic schtick’, and it just seemed like fun to go out there on my own for a week or two, and this idea of writing with other people was kinda scary, ‘cause I hadn’t done it. I’m much more of an ‘introverted-girl-with-her-guitar' songwriter. But I thought it sounded interesting, and what appealed to me was that it sounded disciplined - you know, with two other people, we were bound to get something done.
So, I went out there, and I met Tom and Billy, and we started and what, for me, has become one of the most fun parts of everything I do as if I’m gonna go out with Tom and Billy. Because Billy writes a lyric and gives it to Tom, and Tom puts it to music. I don’t understand how it works, how they do it. I couldn’t write just a lyric on its own. And I couldn’t put it to music. That’s what they do. It works beautifully for them.
What I do is that I go right in the middle of it and fuck the whole thing up. Turn it, meld it into my own song. What has happened, they naturally know, if we are going to do something together, Billy writes a lyric, or he’ll pull out a lyric that he thinks is something that I would sing. Or he might even write with me in mind a little bit. And he’s the only lyricist I’ve ever done anything with. And then chances are, he fires me up and I will change the lyric to suit myself. He gets me off the starting block.
I’ll take his lyrics, which sometimes I think are earnest, and I’ll make them sound more irreverent. Also, Tom, like, he’ll write “Night In My Veins” sounded so much like a Pretenders song. And then, once again, I can alter it just enough. I mean, Tom is very musical. That’s why I got him to play on half of the album and go over to England. ‘Cause I wanted him to play on all the songs that we demoed together to keep the original feel.
And Tom grew up with the same musical influences as me, and had the same musical background. He was a bass player, and I think he probably stopped playing in bands maybe in the early ‘70’s. He had exactly the right sensibility of what I like. He kind of had this arrested development and he still plays like one of the guys on the first Moby Grape album. That’s how he plays, you know, like Bob Mosley or something. And he just has that sensibility. And for me, it's just fantastic.
That really fired the band up. I got him in to play on some stuff ‘cause he’s very distinctive. And he plays on “One More Time”, another song on there, which has a very live band sound. He’s a great singer, too. He sings a lot of background vocals, and I like that because it adds a bit of Americana to this otherwise mainly English pop thing, and that is the vital ingredient.
Q: Isle Of View, your last album, was a live, stripped-down effort. Tell me about the endeavor and what you learned from it. You did shows, and an album emerged.
A: That's the best thing. I thought about (Isle Of View) when I was coming home from a gig about fifteen years ago, and the guy had the radio on to a jazz station. I thought, that must be fuckin' great to just be a singer and sing to a piano player, instead of all this fuckin' noise all the time. It was just getting so loud that was one of the problems of the early band it was like a loud band. Since then, I've learned that if you play quiet on stage, they can crank it in the p.a. and get a great sound out front. Instead of distorting the sound and ruining it.
Q: You participated in the tribute to Burt Bacharach, One Amazing Night video and audio compilation and Return Of The Grievous Angel, a various artists homage to Gram Parsons. You did a rendition of "She.” Bacharach and Parsons.
A: I knew Gram Parsons' Grievous Angel album when it came out in 1973 and loved it. And meeting Emmylou Harris has been such a fantastic thing for me, 'cause I think she has one of the greatest voices of all time. I've crossed paths with her a couple of times. Her long-time road manager (and Parsons pal) Phil Kaufman was a biker who had a Harley-Davidson in a garage where I used to have a squat in London, and I used to walk by there and read his Easy Rider magazines - this is way before I was in the Pretenders.
I met Emmylou, we both did something for the Neil Young Bridge Concert one year. And I was enthralled being on the same bill with her. Then we met and had a few conversations on the phone, and she said she was putting together this album. I told her, 'You ask me to do something and I'll do it. I don't even have to know what it is.' So, she came up with the idea to do "She". That was the first song actually that she recorded for this tribute album.
Q: Years ago you covered the Burt Bacharach and Hal David tune, "Windows Of The World", for the film, 1969. In 1998 you sang their medley, "Baby, Its You"/"A Message To Michael," at a Bacharach event. Were you always an admirer of Burt's music and lyrics of songwriting partner Hal David?
A: The Bacharach and David team. I was always a fan ever since I heard them. Dionne Warwick was always one of my favorite singers so, naturally, those were the songs of the late sixties. They were like the great melodic songs: they weren't just records. I got to take my pick of what was available for the show, and I mentioned those two, and they said, 'you could do half of each.'
Q: Is your mindset or approach to "covering" a song different, when you perform it, from a song that you wrote yourself and later sang?
A: Not particularly. In some ways it's fun because it's different and I can interpret one of my favorite songs, which is great. It's like a freebie. There are hundreds of fantastic songs out there and we can do any of them, and we're free to do whatever we want. That's a great thing.
Obviously, singing my own songs, I'm expressing myself, but I would only sing a song that I feel. Anyone who can relate to a song will enjoy singing it. To interpret it my own way - I would never cover a song and do it if I didn't think I could give it a "Pretenders-esque" twist, or lend something to the song.
Q: On an earlier Pretenders album, you did a wonderful version of Bob Dylan's "Forever Young.”
A: It's got such a beautiful lyric. I just love it. He's the pride of our generation. The song is genius. I'll tell you another great Dylan album that was not one of his most popular ones Shot Of Love. The song, "Lenny Bruce.”
Q: You really touted Dylan's Time Out Of Mind. I heard Dylan's office sent you an advance copy of it.
A: It’s one of his best albums. He just sings magnificently, for a start. They're just great songs. Bob always writes impeccable songs, but I suspect is that he's a little impatient in the studio. On this one, he really stuck it out and got gorgeous vocals. The singing is fantastic. The songs are so well crafted, and they just got the great sound for each song. You don't feel like he just got a band in, wheeled them in and played all the songs and left. Each song is very carefully thought out. Obviously that's a lot in the production and I'm sure that's Danny Lanois who masterminded that.
Q: Jim Keltner said some of the same things to me, and he played drums on Time Out Of Mind.
A: Jim Keltner is the perfect drummer for any band, if you ask me. He's great with Bob Dylan. Keltner is a genius drummer. I love that guy. The Booker T. and the MG’s band is the best in the world.
Q: I got Al Green's autograph last night! Drummer Al Jackson Jr. is on Green’s “Let’s Stay Together.”
A: That’s awesome!
Q: You’ve cited the Rolling Stones' Exile On Main Street as "the definitive rock album." Why does it hold up so well?
A: It's just one of those great records and had a great resonance in the time it was made. The band was really hot. I still play it. Another thing about Exile was that it was a double album. And double albums don't digest very easily 'cause there's so much information on them. Nowadays I think people make the mistake of putting too much information on a CD because you can afford to, time-wise. But Exile was a slow, slow thing. It wasn't as immediate as albums characteristically were in those days, 'cause there were two albums. I think another thing with Exile - now that I think about it. - yeah... It was a very 'Keith-spirited-by-Keith' album.
(Harvey Kubernik is the author of 21 books, including 2009’s Canyon Of Dreams: The Magic And The Music Of Laurel Canyon, 2014’s Turn Up The Radio! Rock, Pop and Roll In Los Angeles 1956-1972, 2015's Every Body Knows: Leonard Cohen, 2016's Heart of Gold Neil Young and 2017's 1967: A Complete Rock Music History of the Summer of Love.
Sterling/Barnes and Noble in 2018 published Harvey and Kenneth Kubernik’s The Story Of The Band: From Big Pink To The Last Waltz. In 2021 they wrote Jimi Hendrix: Voodoo Child for Sterling/Barnes and Noble.
Otherworld Cottage Industries in 2020 published Harvey’s Docs That Rock, Music That Matters. His Screen Gems: (Pop Music Documentaries and Rock ‘n’ Roll TV Scenes) was published on February 6, 2026 by BearManor Media.
Harvey spoke at the special hearings in 2006 initiated by the Library of Congress held in Hollywood, California, discussing archiving practices and audiotape preservation.
In 2017, he appeared at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, Ohio, in its Distinguished Speakers Series and as a panelist discussing the forty-fifth anniversary of The Last Waltz at the Grammy Museum in Los Angeles in 2023.
During 2025, Kubernik was interviewed in the Siobhan Logue-written and -directed documentary The Sound of Protest,airing on the Apple TVOD TV broadcasting service. The film also features Smokey Robinson, Hozier, Skin (Skunk Anansie), Two-Tone's Jerry Dammers, Angélique Kidjo, Holly Johnson, David McAlmont, Rhiannon Giddens, and more.
Harvey was an interview subject along with Iggy Pop, the Beach Boys’ Bruce Johnston, Love’s Johnny Echols, the Bangles' Susanna Hoffs, Victoria and Debbi Peterson, and the founding members of the Seeds for director/producer Neil Norman’s documentary The Seeds: Pushin' Too Hard. In fall 2026, GNP Crescendo will release the film on DVD/Blu-ray). Author Miss Pamela Des Barres narrates).
Chrissie Hynde photo by Heather Harris
Pretenders photo courtesy of the Toronto International Film Festival.
