by Dick Porter
The show, which officially opened in London on November 15, 2007, was directed by Angus Jackson based upon a concept by writer Peter Michael Marino. “He is a great, great nut. He loves Broadway and he loves musical theatre,” said Debbie. “One night he was at home watching Desperately Seeking Susan, and he turned the sound off and started playing Blondie songs in different spots and thought, ‘Wow, this could really work.’ So, he wrote it all up and they got the rights to do it.”
Unfortunately, neither the critics – who mauled the production – nor the public shared Marino’s vision and the show closed in mid-December, losing an estimated $3.5 million in the process. The following year Blondie’s past was represented in a more conventional manner, as the band embarked upon a tour celebrating the 30th anniversary of Parallel Lines.
With new member Matt Katz-Bohen on keyboards, recruited from the house band at gay/transvestite hotspot Squeezebox, Blondie played an extended run of summer dates in the US and Europe. In order to properly represent the album, they adjusted their set to the order that it first appeared in on vinyl. “We were doing the same show for like several years now anyway, so we wanted to change it around, just the order of stuff,” Chris explained. “You know, we’ve been opening with the same things, closing with the same things, so at least that enabled to us change. It’s also the 25th anniversary of Thriller and I’m wondering why he got to fucking cash in at 25 when we had to wait to 30. That’s my big question. Because all the radio’s going, ‘Hey! It’s the 25th anniversary of Thriller.’ I’ve been hearing that for the last few weeks. But it’s partially financial and all that other stuff because the money isn’t there for recording for us.”
Among the shows on the European leg of the Parallel Lines anniversary tour was the Guilfest at Guildford on July 5, 2008. Among the crowd was Debbie’s old friend Chris Charlesworth, now the editor at Omnibus Press, who lived nearby. “They got me on some backstage list but it wasn’t sufficiently VIP for me to be able to actually have a close encounter with them,” he says. “It didn’t matter. I had a great time watching from the crowd. They loved them – ‘heritage rock’ now, I suppose. They could have been a bit more organised. There was a delay when they came on and they were standing around doing nothing, which was a bit of an anticlimax, and delays between numbers spoilt the flow of the set, but it didn’t really matter.”
Charlesworth was told by someone who knew the organisers that Blondie were paid £25,000 plus expenses. “Nice to see them making some decent money at last,” he adds.
Debbie and Chris’ next project would be an homage to their biggest fan, the late Jeffrey Lee Pierce, who had died of a brain haemorrhage on March 31, 1996. Although Pierce made some enemies in his short, chaotic life, he had many friends who loved the sensitive side of his personality and the wildly creative beast within. “He was a very sensitive guy, and really loved music,” Debbie remembers. “Kind of a manic depressive, I guess. But good sense of humour and very smart. I think we got him when he was pretty much in his original state. Sort of an angst-filled teenager. People seemed to understand his angst [in Europe], and they didn’t feel personally threatened by him. But they could relate to the poetry and to his achiness. I think in the United States, there were people that really loved him here. But I think they felt more threatened by him.”
The Jeffrey Lee Pierce Project was instigated by Cypress Grove, the blues guitarist who collaborated with Jeff in his later days. In 2008, he started embarking on a tortuously realised labour of love which started when he unearthed a dusty old cassette of early nineties bedroom rehearsals, containing several unreleased songs. These skeletal sketches were fleshed out by Jeff’s old friends and acolytes, often using Jeffrey’s guitar tracks.
The lavishly presented set, entitled We Are Only Riders after an old essay by Jeffrey, was released in January 2010. It boasted a line-up including Lydia Lunch, Mark Lanegan, The Raveonettes, Crippled Black Phoenix, Nick Cave and former Bad Seeds Kid Congo Powers, Mick Harvey and Barry Adamson. Cave duets with Debbie on haunting country ballad ‘Free To Walk’, also adding gentle piano to her astonishing performance of ‘Lucky Jim’, a desolate ballad from the last Gun Club album in 1993. Underpinned by Chris’ Moog guitar, Debbie’s voice has rarely been as unadorned and soulful, conveying a genuine sense of grief as she sings words written by her former fan club president, so enamoured with Debbie that he copied her sloppily bleached hairstyle.
“I was surprised about that but, of course, sort of flattered,” she recalls. “He just really felt a need to communicate, and his intentions were good. I guess he felt some kind of kinship. And it’s kind of really special, that kind of thing. I don’t know whether I want to encourage people to hang out in front of my apartment, but that was a long time ago, and I guess it was some kind of real visible link between us.”
The vinyl’s gatefold sleeve includes a photo of Chris and Debbie, sporting her Gun Club T-shirt. “It’s a great project,” enthuses Chris. “Jeffrey would have been great to have around now. His legacy has gradually been building up over the years. It’s a shame. I was always annoyed that a lot of his followers encouraged his drinking and self-destructive behaviour. The people who were with him should have fucking helped him, put him away or some shit. He came to my house. People I never even knew brought him back to my house because he’d passed out in the street somewhere.”
We Are Only Riders went down sufficiently well to merit a further set, The Journey Is Long, due to appear in April 2012 after three years in the making, over three continents. It’s another unique labour of love, featuring Cave, Harvey, Lunch, Barry Adamson, Youth’s Vertical Smile, The Jim Jones Revue, Steve Wynn, Mark Lanegan & Isobel Campbell, Tav Falco – and even Kris Needs, paying homage with his missus, Michelle. Cave and Debbie duet again, this time on a sweeping version of ‘The Breaking Hands’ (the album’s only previously released song, originally appearing on 1987’s Mother Juno), with accompanists including Chris. After Blondie’s punishing summer touring schedule, Debbie’s contribution was the last thing recorded for the set, to honour their old friend’s memory.
As the first decade of the 21st century entered its final years, the fragmented recording industry was struggling to adapt to the way in which technological developments had changed how people obtained and listened to music. It played a part in ensuring it would not be until three years after the Parallel Lines anniversary tour that any new Blondie album emerged. However, although the group were regulars on the summer festival circuits both at home and in Europe, their personal commitments were also now pitched against the demands of playing live and recording new material.
“I took time out to be with my family,” says Chris Stein. “I had two kids who are now six and seven, so I sort of stumbled into a full-time dad situation, and that’s taken a while. Also, it can be difficult for us because of our age. Touring can be physically exhausting compared to how it used to be. When we started out we were in our twenties and no one our age now was doing anything, but now Bob Dylan’s just turned 70 and is still out there doing stuff, and we’re still here.”
Consistent with their newly sensible work/life balance, Blondie’s ninth studio album, Panic Of Girls, was recorded at a more measured pace than had previously been the case. Sessions took place in two parts – first at the end of 2009 and then in May the following year. “We recorded in upstate New York, where Chris lives, as well as recording in New York and Hoboken,” recalls Debbie. “We tried to make a classic Blondie album. We’ve always been concerned about producing good songs, and Chris and Matt are prolific songwriters. Our lyrics have sociological things in them, mixed up with romantic ideas and New York City hipness.”
“We recorded up here, upstate near Woodstock; a local studio called Applehead because it’s easier and cheaper than going to the city,” explains Chris. “It’s a nice room. We worked with this guy Jeff Saltzman, who did The Killers and Fischer-Spooner and different things. Jeff really worked hard. For him it was a real big p
roject and he really wanted to make it great. He’s our age and a big fan. The understanding of the band that he brings adds a whole new dimension.”
The bulk of the album was produced by Saltzman, who had initially been contacted by Matt Katz-Bohen. “Chris and I talked about production style and the songs. Debbie was always involved,” he explained. “We sent songs back and forth for about six months before going in the studio. There, the room was set up so the band could go in and play live, and they finished working on the songs that way. Instead of going into a rehearsal space to do pre-production, we got everything mic’ed up in the studio, recorded the rehearsals and used pieces of them to build on.”
“I wasn’t really in full-on writing and production mode when I was working on No Exit and The Curse,” says Chris. “It took me a while to get back in a real fluid mode, because I had the kids and they were still stabilising themselves. For the last two years, I’ve felt a lot more able to plough ahead and feel really productive now. I worked much harder on this album. The last two years I’ve really been listening to stuff much more than I had been. There was a period prior to that where I was completely out of all kinds of music. Lately, I’ve been in more like an avid fan place as far as listening to music goes.”
Unusually, Stein only co-wrote three tracks, all of which bore testament to his eclecticism. The sultry ‘Wipe Off My Sweat’ has Debbie giving her Spanish an airing, while the Latino-infused backing indicated Chris’ latest avenue of discovery. “I’ve been listening to tons of stuff, all different styles. There’s so many great Latin things coming out of South America,” he observes. “Latinos make up one sixth of the population here now, so it’s only natural that Latino music is heard more. There are still a lot of great bands coming out of urban areas, but it’s hard for them to sustain things compared to when we were starting out now because the rents are so high. But in terms of listening, I get much more turned on these days listening to Spanish language radio stations.”
Written by Chris and Gilles Riberolles and featuring Debbie’s vocal in crystalline French, ‘Le Bleu’ evokes the sound of a Parisian boulevard. “It’s aiming for a Gainsbourg feel,” Stein explained. “Gilles Riberolles is a friend and I produced a record for his band Casino Music, all in French, back in the eighties, for ZE Records. I sent him this and asked him to write lyrics.”
Chris and Debbie’s emotive closer ‘China Shoes’ veers surprisingly toward alt-country, while lyrically conflating its themes of loss, regret and the Chinese practice of foot binding. Chris’ lifelong love of reggae is referenced by the band’s restrained covers of Sophia George’s 1985 hit ‘Girlie Girlie’ and indie-folk combo Beirut’s ‘Sunday Smile’. “We did a bunch of cover songs that people will know,” he acknowledges. “We were always talking about doing a covers record. We started working on a cover of [Suicide’s] ‘Ghost Rider’, which was going to have a sample of them in but we never finished it.”
A further nod to reggae is provided by the rolling pop shuffle of ‘The End The End’. “That was a collaborative effort with this guy Ben Phillips and he had this idea about finding someone that you wanted to be with until the very end,” Deborah recounted. “So I guess that is a very romantic idea. He gave me this idea of what it was about and then we fleshed out the lyrics.”
Phillips’ writing partner, Kato Khandwala, contributed to the song, which he also produced. “I was involved with ‘Mother’ and ‘The End The End’,” said Khandwala. “Both were recorded in the same sessions, and the band was great to work with. I had no idea what to expect when we entered the studio, but from the moment music started coming out of the speakers, everything else went away; the presentation of the songs and the performance were the only focus.”
Released a week before its parent album was available to download, ‘Mother’ was the first single from Panic Of Girls. An up-tempo, multilayered rocker with an uplifting chorus, the song’s title and reflective lyrics owe their provenance to one of Debbie’s favourite New York nightspots.
“Mother was a club in the Meatpacking District where you could go and explore your fetishes and freaky side,” she enthused. “It was awesome and I truly really miss it. People think that as you get older you are going to be content sitting in bed with your rollers in your hair. But I was a child of the sixties, and once you have unlocked your wild side it is very hard to get that genie back in the bottle. Mother was hetero, it was gay, it was bi – it was crazy. [The song ‘Mother’] has underlying feelings about searching for motherhood, but I don’t necessarily apply it to me.”
Like The Curse Of Blondie, Panic Of Girls opens with a bang. The frantic beats and processed vocals of ‘D-Day’ expand into a richly textured chorus that sets the tone for tracks such as Matt and Lauren Katz-Bohen’s twin contributions: ‘What I Heard’ – the album’s second single – and ‘Love Doesn’t Frighten Me’, both of which possess an immediacy and accessibility that conforms to the group’s pop canon.
“I think it’s a very strong album,” asserted Debbie. “It keeps the spirit of Blondie. I’m happy with it. It’s taken us quite a while to get it out – there were moments when we wondered if we would – so I’m glad we’re getting good reactions to it.”
“I think this record is a little more pointed than the last one,” says Chris. “I think it’ll do some damage out there. It’s less chaotic and crazy in the studio now. In fact, it was very musician-like this time. We just want to get on with stuff. There wasn’t any fighting or anything going on! Debbie’s lyrics are fucking terrific. I think she keeps getting better with that shit. I’m always amazed at the stuff she’s coming up with. She’s writing about everything: time, love, romance, this, that, all the usual stuff! This record is more straightforward and hard-edged than the last one: pop-rock with some electronica thrown in. There’s still some weird stuff on there. Some of it’s really great, the best we’ve done. I hate to say that, but it really might be. We were just further along with a lot of aspects of what we’re doing. I really think this is the most solid album of this period. It’s way superior [to] the last record.”
Rather than being issued in the established manner, Panic Of Girls seeped into public view in stages. After being put back from its original 2010 release date, it was made available as a UK download through Eleven Seven on May 30, 2011. In June, it received a physical British release as a limited edition collector’s pack that included a 132-page magazine tribute to Blondie alongside the disc, with a regular version appearing a month later. In Germany, both standard and deluxe double CD editions came out through EMI in July, while the same label made Panic Of Girls available in the US on September 13.
Those who opted to buy the album digitally missed out on the full impact of Dutch artist Chris Berens’ impressionistic sleeve illustration. “Chris Berens is a wonderful artist,” declared Deborah. “He works with fantasies. It has to do with the environment, it’s about getting involved with saving all those creatures. I know they’re fantastical creatures but they’re evocative of real animals. Everybody in the band is concerned about environmental issues, saving these species. In one of the songs I have a line equating the human race with an endangered species. So ultimately that’s where we’re going with that.”
The release of Blondie’s first album in five years, and the European and North American tours that followed in its wake, generated considerable interest in the band – particularly in Britain, where Debbie and the group were featured across a wide range of television and radio programmes and in the printed media. As part of her promotional duties, Deborah appeared on the long-running BBC radio show Desert Island Discs – which has featured such notable guests as Ivor Novello, Alfred Hitchcock, Louis Armstrong, Margaret Thatcher, James Stewart and Tony Blair during its 69-year history. The programme works in an interview format that requires guests to nominate their favourite songs and a book, as well as a luxury item, to provide consolation in their imagined desert-island solitude.
Despite the heavyweight ros
ter of guests that had appeared on the show, host Kirsty Young seemed genuinely awestruck by Debbie. “It’s a strange feeling to be sitting opposite an icon,” admitted the forty-something blonde. “When I was younger, I wasted 10 years wanting to be Debbie Harry.” Deborah chose music from such diverse artists as The Gossip and Nina Simone, selecting an endless supply of paper and paint as her luxury. During the interview, Debbie was asked for her thoughts on getting older: “As far as ageing goes, it’s rough. I’m trying my best now. I’m healthy and I exercise like a fiend and do all that stuff that recovered drug addicts do.”
By the time Panic Of Girls became available, both Deborah and Chris were in their sixties. Blondie had now existed across five decades. The band’s fractious history is such that Debbie is often asked whether she has any regrets. “Of course I have regrets,” she confessed. “But I don’t wander around moaning about them. Or live in my ‘regret area’! I just go, ‘Aw, shit,’ and then go on, y’know? Of course we regret that we had business problems back then. And also I regret not buying a lot of ATT stock or whatever. Regrets are silly stuff when you get right down to it. Chris and I have talked about this – was it about making money or was it about making art and expressing ourselves? And it was never about just one thing. As humans, and artists, we have a lot of different needs to satisfy.”
It’s hard to contradict Debbie’s assertion that she has “had a fucking interesting life so far”. Everything she has personally and professionally experienced has afforded her no shortage of insight and, ultimately, has enabled her to enjoy a balanced existence. “I am happier today than I was 40 years ago,” she observed. “I know who I am and I’m more in control. I love what I do and I love how I live. I mix with amazing people, I get to play music on tour, I perform at festivals and my life is never boring. Getting older is hard on your looks, but on stage people sometimes see you as you were, which is nice.”