Rock Chicks

by Alison Stieven-Taylor

  adapting to rock took a good two years, finding out ‘how I could scratch up my voice, rough it up, and still not rip my throat out’

  Crimes of Passion positioned Pat firmly on the female rock’n’roll throne from where she would rule unchallenged for four years. The songs on the album were hard-hitting in their messages. Pat was keen to use her music to make statements: ‘to sing a worthless lyric is like jerking the public off and jerking myself off.’

  Managing the balance in her relationship with Giraldo—she was his employer as well as his lover—was difficult at times. By the time they were in the studio recording the next album both were feeling the strain. Precious Time was Pat’s first album to reach number one. Its single ‘Fire & Ice’, written by Pat, guitarist Sheets and Tom Kelly, hit the number two spot on the Billboard chart. The album launched four top forty hits—‘Fire & Ice’, ‘Just Like Me’, ‘Promises in the Dark’ and ‘Take It Anyway You Want’—and delivered Pat her second Grammy.

  In 1981 Pat and Giraldo decided to end their relationship but continue to work together. Pat put on a brave face, telling journalists, ‘it came down to having a career or being Mrs Giraldo. We both love our careers too much to give them up. We could either be lovers or work together.’ In August, when MTV went to air for the first time, Pat’s ‘You Better Run’ video was the second to be aired. Music videos became just another thing an artist had to do, and pay for, to support their records. Chrysalis wanted their star property to be a video star too. She became one of the stars of MTV, although she wasn’t convinced the audience needed such literal translations of songs. She preferred they used their own imaginations.

  The Benatar–Giraldo separation didn’t last long. By the time her fourth album, Get Nervous, was released in 1982 they were married. Giraldo had popped the question while he was producing John Waite’s solo album in New York. They were married in Hawaii on the beach, without any paparazzi, family or friends—just two strangers who acted as witnesses. Determined to work at their relationship and not let the music suffer, the pair made a series of compromises, such as making sure each had a room on tour, so they weren’t in each other’s pockets. Whatever they did worked because they’re still married.

  Get Nervous was another triumph, delivering four top forty hits, two of which made the top five—‘Shadows of the Night’ and ‘Looking for a Stranger’. Get Nervous rocked hard, but it also included more pop-oriented tunes. Pat wasn’t happy with the album, feeling the record company had interfered too much, which had resulted in a manufactured feel. And they were still controlling her image.

  The first line-up changes to the Pat Benatar band happened around this time with Scott St Clair Sheets leaving and Charlie Giordano coming in on keyboards, but the nucleus remained and the on-stage dynamics were clearly part of her success.

  In 1982 Pat and Giraldo moved to LA with their animals, to suburban Tarzana in the San Fernando Valley. Pat was determined she could be a rock star and be married, and make both work. ‘I don’t want to be fried and I don’t want to be dead.’

  Money and fame didn’t bring her any closer to the respect she wanted, respect she felt was automatic for her male counterparts. ‘The attitudes never really changed. We’d be at board meetings with the president and vice president of the label and we’re generating billions of dollars. But when I’d leave the meeting somebody would go, “hey, nice pants!”’

  Pat’s contract demanded she deliver an album every nine months, as well as perform and do promotional tours. And it seemed the more money she made Chrysalis, the tighter their grip on creativity. They didn’t want to alter a winning formula, but Pat was feeling stifled. She wanted a change, even if that meant risking her chart domination.

  she became one of the stars of MTV, although she wasn’t convinced the audience needed such literal translations of songs

  The next album was recorded during the 1982–83 world tour when Pat and the band performed across Europe and the USA to massive audiences. Live from Earth captured Pat’s energy and vibrancy on stage and gave her one of her biggest hits and one of her most enduring songs. ‘Love is a Battlefield’ made it to the top ten and delivered her a fourth Grammy.

  On her next record Tropico, Pat began to soften her sound and there were less hard rocking tracks. The album reached fourteen on the Billboard chart and delivered a top five hit with ‘We Belong’.

  Pat gave birth to her first daughter Haley in 1985. Twelve months later she was back on tour with hubby and baby in tow promoting her seventh album, Seven the Hard Way. The Benatar entourage travelled in luxury on a private plane. Pat approached motherhood in her usual pragmatic fashion and got on with the job.

  Seven the Hard Way was Giraldo’s first solo stint as producer for his wife. The album reached twenty-six on the Billboard chart and launched two singles, ‘Invincible’ and ‘Sex as a Weapon’. It is her least favourite album. During its recording the record execs showed their true colours. ‘I’d just had a baby ... they didn’t care ... They wanted the record immediately ... we had the contract from hell.’ Her relationship with Chrysalis went into a downward spiral. Caught up in a contract that allowed the company to put an artist on suspension—which ‘meant no royalties, no money’—she ended up in court, but couldn’t break free from the label until 1993.

  Her wry sense of humour and her ability to be self-deprecating were Pat’s weapons against the overwhelming status of rock star. When they were not on stage or in the studio, Pat and Giraldo were at home in LA watching movies and playing board games or working out.

  One thing she isn’t fanatical about is songwriting. Self-conscious about her ability as a writer, Pat would often give Giraldo one of her songs with the caveat that he read it when she wasn’t around. She may have reached mega-star status, but her ego certainly hasn’t.

  It was nearly three years before the next Pat Benatar album was released, in 1988. Pat had insisted on some downtime. Wide Awake in Dreamland benefited from the hiatus. ‘All Fired Up’, the first single released, promptly went to number two on the mainstream rock tracks chart, and nineteen on the top 100. Giraldo and Grombacher, the only two of the original band line-up, were joined by Kevin Savigar on keyboards and bassist Fernando Saunders.

  we’d be at the record company and we’re generating billions of dollars. But when I’d leave somebody would go, “hey, nice pants!”

  In 1991 Pat took a new musical direction, singing the blues on the album True Love. From a vocal perspective the material gave her no trouble. But she got considerable grief from those around her who said she was going to kill her career. Pat and Giraldo, both huge blues fans, pressed on regardless. True Love got a mixed reception. Some thought her segue into blues was a perfect fit, others labelled the effort atrocious. One rock reviewer even described her as a ‘whitebread fluff peddler’. Pat shrugged off the bad press. It wasn’t like she hadn’t heard it before.

  True Love featured a number of BB King songs, including ‘Payin’ the Cost to be the Boss’, which made it into the top twenty. Giraldo called in Roomful of Blues, a band that had been around since 1967, to add the horns to his guitar work.

  Pat and Giraldo took True Love on the road, performing in intimate theatres around the USA. Gone were the 1980s trademark tights, short wraps and clinging tops. On this tour she wore a dress, stockings and pumps and there wasn’t a ‘You Better Run’ or ‘Love is a Battlefield’ in sight.

  Getting back to her rock’n’roll roots, Gravity’s Rainbow, released in 1993, was classic guitar rock with anthems, ballads and hard-hitting rock songs along with a touch of quieter moments that were almost R&B. The album was universally praised. Rolling Stone welcomed back ‘Benatar the rock diva ... Benatar sounds genuine once again.’ The album’s best performing single was the Benatar/Giraldo penned ‘Everybody Lay Down’.

  Gravity’s Rainbow—named after Thoma
s Pynchon’s novel, which Pat described as ‘the most bizarre book ... about man’s inevitable race to destroy himself ’—was the last album she did under the Chrysalis label. Released in the year she turned forty, the album allowed Pat and Giraldo to focus on social issues that were close to their hearts. It wasn’t the first time they had tackled tough subjects. Way back in 1981 ‘Hell is for Children’, a song written by Pat after reading a newspaper article, had powerful lyrics that dealt with child abuse.

  Gravity’s Rainbow was classic guitar rock with anthems, ballads and hard-hitting rock songs along with quieter moments that were almost R&B

  Pat’s second daughter Hana was born in 1994. The next year she embarked on a major US arena tour, Can’t Stop Rockin’, along with Fleetwood Mac and REO Speedwagon. It were as if time had stood still and she was back rocking her heart out like she was still in her twenties. The onstage garb had changed though—there were no zebra jumpsuits or lurex tights.

  In between ferrying her kids to sports matches and keeping house, Pat has continued to tour and record. She released an acoustic oriented album, Innamorata in 1997, her first independent release: ‘there was no way ... I was going to stand there and let a twenty-five year old tell me what do to.’ Any notion that not being signed to a major label was a hindrance was quashed as quickly as it was raised. The album may not have reached the lofty heights that she enjoyed in the 1980s, but it did get positive reviews and, most importantly, Pat and Giraldo were happy with the work.

  Pat Benatar still sells lots of records and she still pulls a good crowd after nearly thirty years of hard rocking. ‘I don’t know what the hell I thought I would be doing but I didn’t think it would be this ... I feel grateful as shit that I still get to do it.’

  ‘I don’t want to be fried and I don’t want to be dead’

  CHRISSIE HYNDE

  Not A Pretender

  A wandering soul in search of the next adventure, Chrissie, an American, opted for England. She landed there in the early 1970s and immediately immersed herself in the music scene. Being in her own band was her primary motive for getting off her ass every day, shrugging off the booze hangover and peddling her dream, but it took her nearly six years to form the Pretenders.

  Born in 1951, Chrissie grew up in the Cleveland district of Akron, Ohio, the supposed tyre capital of America, a culturally barren landscape in the Mid West. The only daughter of a working-class family, Chrissie spent much of her time on her own, wandering in the woodlands, reading and listening to the birds sing. She enjoyed her own company and the quiet gave her time to think.

  When she was fourteen she began to teach herself guitar. ‘I was more like a guy, locked away in a room, practising obsessively,’ she said. She also began to read Jack Kerouac and other Beat Generation writers.

  After graduating from Firestone High School, she took an arts major at Kent State University where she spent most of the time ‘doing a lot of drugs and having a good time’, like the rest of her peer group. It was a time for freedom of expression, for self-exploration and for protest.

  Chrissie was on campus the day of the Kent State massacre in 1970 when four students were shot by Ohio national guardsmen during a protest against US involvement in Cambodia. Chrissie was eighteen. It was one of her country’s lowest moments. It didn’t fill her with any great desire to stay in her homeland.

  From childhood, Chrissie had been enamoured with England. She loved the accents, the strange British coolness that seemed far more attractive than brash, uncultured America. And the awesome music of the Beatles and the Rolling Stones captured the rocker within. When she heard Iggy Pop and the Stooges, Iggy became her idol. Jimi Hendrix was another musician who inspired her. Chrissie’s musical education wasn’t just confined to rock. She watched her older brother Terry play saxophone in jazz bands and she got into R&B, particularly Candi Staton. But deep down, she knew her destiny lay in rock music.

  Chrissie was on campus the day of the Kent State massacre when four students were shot during a protest against US involvement in Cambodia

  While at university, Chrissie sang briefly in garage band Sat. Sun. Mat., (Saturday, Sunday, Matinee) with Mark Mothersbaugh, later in Devo. Chrissie was terminally shy in those days and when the band rehearsed she would sit around the corner on her own to sing.

  In 1973 Chrissie bought a one-way ticket to London. She had no plans, nowhere to live and no friends there, but it didn’t stop the loud Yank, as she has described herself, from taking a gamble.

  Chrissie had no problem fronting up to clubs and gigs on her own or heading down to the pub for a drink. Booze was her drug of choice. She got drunk a lot in those days.

  she bought a one-way ticket to London. She had no plans, nowhere to live and no friends there

  She worked at whatever gigs she could get—live modelling for art classes, cocktail waitressing and a stint as a handbag seller. She moved from one opportunity to another, sucking up as much of the atmosphere around her as was possible.

  Much of her time she was penniless, living off the charity of strangers, many of whom became friends, in damp, decrepit squats, or cheap, vermin-infested hotels. But Chrissie had her bed roll, guitar and a few possessions—an Iggy Pop record was one of her most precious items although she didn’t have a means of playing it.

  The punk movement was in its infancy, Ian Dury and Elvis Costello were making music, Suzi Quatro was rocking up the charts and the glam-rock bands were dominating popular music. Musical experimentation was de rigueur.

  Chrissie met Nick Kent, a journalist with rock bible New Musical Express (NME) at a party. He was her entrée into the London music scene, giving her the opportunity to live out her fantasy—to be part of the world of rock’n’roll.

  Chrissie’s relationship with Kent—their affair lasted about a year—led her to write for the paper too. But she soon grew weary of having to meet deadlines. It was an unwelcome contrast to the organic creation involved in songwriting. She had begun writing lyrics at the age of sixteen, jotting down thoughts as they came to her, often awakening in the middle of the night inspired by dreams.

  One of the benefits of writing for NME, aside from the free entry to gigs and the opportunity to interview some of the legendary rockers of the 1970s, including Brian Eno, were the review copies of records she received. They were currency. She sold them—she didn’t have a stereo so there wasn’t much point keeping them and the money was useful.

  During this time Chrissie became friends with Malcolm McLaren and Vivienne Westwood whose shop SEX was a mecca for the new wave of punks littering the King’s Road in Chelsea. Chrissie was drawn to the buzz around the pair and was briefly employed at SEX. But she didn’t want to work in a fashion store anymore than she wanted to be a journalist.

  McLaren was putting the Sex Pistols together. Chrissie began to teach Johnny Rotten how to play guitar while she attempted to find the right mix of musicians to form a band with. It was harder than she imagined.

  ‘I went into SEX and she just told me to fuck off.’ Chrissie suspected that Westwood felt she’d gotten too close to the boys in the Sex Pistols

  Then in early 1975 a Frenchman she’d met at SEX invited her to Paris to sing in a new band. Modelled on the New York Dolls, the Frenchies just didn’t work for Chrissie. Unable to speak the language and on a tour that was hopelessly organised—the band opened as the support act for Flamin’ Groovies—she quickly became disenchanted and on the spur of the moment headed back to Cleveland.

  She mooched around her old stomping ground for a few weeks and played in an R&B outfit, Jack Rabbit. But Cleveland didn’t have what she was looking for. She took off to Paris. Before long she had moved back to London, and was living in a squat in Clapham.

  The musicians she hung around with were getting their acts together—Mick Jones with whom she’d shared rehearsal sp
ace was in the Clash, and the boys from Malcolm McLaren’s Masters of the Backside, who she’d sung with briefly, had formed the Damned. Chrissie was getting frustrated.

  Tony Secunda, then manager of Steeleye Span, agreed to listen to some of her songs. Chrissie played a few tunes from her songbook for him with just her guitar and amp, her earlier shyness long forgotten. He liked what he heard and for a time she went on his payroll while she tried to get a band together. But Secunda was busy with his own deals and after a few months Chrissie was back to square one.

  And she was cast out of the Westwood–McLaren circle, Westwood moving on to her next new best friend. ‘I went into SEX and she just told me to fuck off.’ Chrissie suspected that Westwood felt she’d gotten too close to the boys in the Sex Pistols—a social experiment that McLaren and Westwood wanted to keep under close control. In retrospect, Chrissie was the least of the Pistols problems.

  Despite her inability to find musicians she clicked with, she continually seemed to connect with the right people. A chance meeting with Anchor Records A&R man Dave Hill led her to bassist Pete Farndon. At last she had found a musician she felt she could play with.

  seven years after arriving in London, Chrissie was living her dream. But ‘Anything we get we deserve,’ she said

  Farndon was from Hereford on the border of England and Wales, where there was a thriving local music scene. He enlisted the talents of two other Hereford men—guitarist Jim Honeyman-Scott and drummer Gerry Mackleduff.

  Hill became the band’s manager and negotiated a deal with one of Warner’s labels, Real through Sire Records. Once they had signed, the music machine went into full gear pushing the band at a pace Chrissie wasn’t prepared for. She had hoped for rehearsal time and the opportunity to hone their live performance skills. But the record company had different ideas and they were in the studio before they even had found a name for the band.