Chrissie Hynde, the iconic frontwoman of the Pretenders, recently shared an intriguing story about a moment during a live gig when she decided to stop playing her electric guitar mid-performance, much to the surprise—and frustration—of her bandmate, Jimmy Scott.
In a new interview with Guitarist magazine, Hynde opened up about how she often downplays her role as a guitarist, emphasizing that she sees her primary responsibility as “shining a light on the guitar player.” However, she acknowledged that playing the guitar was a crucial part of her singing process in the early days of her career. “When I first started playing, I was too shy to go with the guys in the art room and play, so I just had this foresight, like most people who end up writing songs, just to be on my own and write,” she recalled. “I could only really sing if I was playing. For years, I needed that.”
Yet, on one particular occasion, Hynde decided to shake up her usual stage routine and let go of her guitar to focus fully on her vocals. During a gig with the Pretenders, she spontaneously put her instrument down and embraced the handheld microphone for the first time. “There was one time with Jimmy Scott where we did a show somewhere, I don’t know where it was and, for some reason, I kind of stopped playing and got more handheld [with the vocal mic],” Hynde explained. “I had never done that before. I really enjoyed that show and I thought, ‘This is fucking great.’ I remember really being pleased and I never felt like that after shows. I always felt that I wasn’t really very good. I just felt more in the pocket and everything.”
What Hynde thought was a successful change to the set didn’t sit well with her bandmate Jimmy Scott, the Pretenders’ original lead guitarist. After the performance, instead of praising her spontaneous decision, Scott expressed his disapproval. “So when we came off, I thought Jimmy was going to go, ‘Nice one,’ and he looks at me and he goes, ‘Don’t you ever fucking do that again.’ I don’t think I’d ever seen him really angry at me before. It was the only time I remember him really pissed off at me.”
James Walbourne, the current guitarist for the Pretenders who joined the band in 2008, has since defended Hynde’s approach, highlighting the importance of her contributions to the band’s distinctive sound. “Well, that goes to show how important your parts are!” Walbourne said. “Chrissie’s playing really shapes the sounds of a record, especially the early ones. It was Chrissie and James Honeyman Scott, that was the sound. It wasn’t just one, it was two. It was definitely a shared thing.”
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