Chrissie Hynde went out on a limb if not completely on her own for her first song cycle released under her own name, without any Pretenders. Hynde collaborated with Björn Yttling of Peter, Bjorn and John for the album Stockholm, a shimmering, groove-driven excursion that feels both fresh and naturally progressive. She’s performing new material and Pretenders’ songs for “A Night With Chrissie Hynde,” with a little help from some friends old and new. Las Vegas Magazine’s Matt Kelemen caught up with her recently.
What was it like playing the first shows with a new band?
I just put a band together to showcase the new record, because the guys I made it with were in Sweden. And now I’ve got a different lineup that I’ll take to the States, with a couple of guys I’ve worked with before.
Where did you find them?
They’re all London-based. It’s James Walbourne on guitar, who made the last Pretenders album with me; (bassist) Nick Wilkinson, who was also on the last Pretenders album, Break Up the Concrete. A guy named Sean Read is going to play keyboards. He’s done the last few shows with me, and a drummer called Kris Sonne, who I’ve also been working with. We haven’t really done a tour yet. We only did ... bits and pieces because we didn’t know where we were going to go with it.
Do you think you still would have went to Sweden if anyone from the Pretenders was available? Would the album have sounded different?
I had invited James Walbourne to play on a few tunes but he was busy. But if he had come over to Sweden to play on a few things I don’t think it would have changed it much, no. But, I mean, it’s not a heavily guitar-based album.
Stockholm has some of your best material since the classic Pretenders lineup. It sounds fresh and inspired.
I like it, too. It’s got grooves on it, and that’s what I dig about it. … I think the songwriting went really fast, and that’s always fun when stuff tumbles out quickly. It was actually put together relatively quickly, which is good. That keeps it fresh. It just took a long time because I had to keep going back and forth from London to Sweden over a period of two years because the guys were busy doing other things.
What brought you together with Björn Yttling?
Publishers are always trying to put you together with people. It’s done very commonly these days, but it’s an old-fashioned way of doing it. All of the writers of the Motown songs would go to the office every day to write. As long as you get a good song out of it, it doesn’t really matter how you do it. So I met Björn very much in that vein, where someone said, “Hey, do you fancy writing with someone?” And then we tried a few things and liked it, and just kept doing it.
