I'm kind of a brown-rice hippy. I don't think I'd have much success if I tried a dinner party, but I'm not going to have one, and I've never been invited to one, and that's just fine.
— Chrissie Hynde
I used to think I was ordinary and just like everybody else, and I am, but there is something about being in a band. It's not for everyone.
You're lucky if you find something that makes you feel like yourself; that's the one time that you feel like you know who you are. Most people are struggling to find that out all the time.
I like Madonna a lot. I think she's really good, and I think she's a good singer.
As far as success goes, I've never really got too excited about losing or winning.
My policy is to do the least amount to get by.
I did make a lot of my own clothes. I used to love to sew, so I made my own shirts and bell bottoms and modified my own clothes, which is what we did during the punk period.
The only thing I've ever offered the public is some music. If they like the music, that's great. Turn on the radio. If they don't like it, switch it off.
If you're an artist, you need to work. It doesn't matter how old you are, who you are. It doesn't matter if you're 12: if you draw, you draw. If you're 85 and you paint, you paint.
All these fifty-year-old guys wearing baseball caps and shorts and acting like children. It winds me up. Men don't have to take responsibility anymore. Most of the guys I know would punch me on the nose for saying this, but maybe we do have to bring back conscription.
I don't know any guitar player, any of the real greats, who don't rate Joni Mitchell up there with the best of them.
Yeah, the industry has always been both the enemy and the best friend of the artist. They need each other. That's the bottom line.
I don't think it's good to be sentimental, so I try not to be.
I'm nothing without a band. I always feel like I'm part of the road crew until I'm on stage.
I don't know if I feel like an outsider or an insider; I just feel like I always did. I don't have one of those stories where I felt like no one understood me.
My heroes would never let me down; they never have. I've never been disappointed by any of them.
Music reflects the time that it's being made in, and so certainly, the music that's being made in 1986 by a 14-year-old kid will reflect some magic of 1986 for him if he's an inspired and creative musician.
For 35 years, I've said, 'I'll never go solo.' But after a period of time - and this isn't just for an artist, but for anybody - all the things you never wanted to do eventually become the only things left that you haven't done. So they start looking pretty interesting.
I bought a Stella McCartney jacket in Salt Lake City. It's nice. It looks like a pea coat. I love Stella's stuff, so wherever I go in the world, I will always go in and buy her stuff.
All I can really remember doing was listening to the radio and listening to records when I was at school. I wasn't very academic, and I certainly wasn't a very good student.
I am very grateful to punk because I was a girl, and I felt like if I got in a band, I'd be kind of a novelty act, but punk was all about non-discrimination. No one cared because it was punk, so, you know, anyone could do anything they wanted.
In my experience lust only ever leads to misery. All that suspicion and jealousy and anguish it unleashes. I don't want those things in my life.
I'm not a figurehead for anything. I was a single mom with two kids. What else was I going to do? It was either be in a band or be a waitress.
Look, as long as we can make records and sell enough so we can do some shows, that's all I want. You know what? I just want to play guitar and be in a band. Same as I always did.
The so-called feminist writers were disgusted with me. I did my thing, and so I guess by feminist standards I'm a feminist. That suits me fine.
A ballad once in a while doesn't go amiss.
I'm mindful not to get too self-pitying or too revealing of my own pain.
I can't force myself to do anything I don't wanna do, really. I never have.
I'm not a complete moron like most musicians whom I've met.
In this business, things go in waves, and I might make a record every three years. That's enough for me; that satisfies me. And it satisfies the so-called public, because they don't really need a record every year. They don't even want one.
I never want to bore the public.
I don't think that Michael Jackson died. He's probably dead now, but I don't think he died when they said he did. I think he wanted out of the game anyway, so he just disappeared.
I just liked music, and I really liked rock guitar. I didn't think I was going to be a rock guitar player, because I was a girl. I would've been too shy to play with guys.
I'll make music as long as I can sing and stand up and hold a guitar and I feel like doing this.
Remember those black-and-white films with Frank Sinatra? Those guys looked like men and they were only 27! Listen to Otis Redding singing 'Try A Little Tenderness'. That was a man who understood what a man has to know in the world. Show me a real man now! Where are they?
When I hear myself singing, I hear Iggy Pop and Jimi Hendrix. There's a conversational thing going on. I suppose it depends on which The Pretenders song you're listening to.
I've done lots of songs for film soundtracks and things like that - stuff I'm not ashamed of, but that doesn't represent my legacy with the Pretenders.
I have no sense of patriotism, but I do have a sense of community.
