![]() "I haven't listened to any of that stuff since we used to play it," Hynde told Stiletto magazine in 1984. One day during the sessions, someone brought in an earlier Pretenders album – just for musical comparison's sake. As halting work on the album that would become 1984's platinum-selling Learning to Crawl continued for nearly a year, a new lineup coalesced around McIntosh and bassist Malcolm Foster. 17, 1982, "Back on the Chain Gang" was paired as a single with "My City Was Gone," which in turn became a rock-radio staple. "It was sort of like Ken Kesey: Either you're on the bus or you're off the bus, and I felt like Martin and I were still on the bus – even if the other guys had gotten off." To me, 'Back on the Chain Gang' sounded like a Pretenders song," Hynde told Rolling Stone. "I finally thought it still was the Pretenders more than it wasn't. In fact, Hynde briefly considered changing the band's name. There was a real feeling of hopelessness, really like ‘Can we do this?’ Not that it crossed our minds that we couldn't – but you really question yourself." With 'Chain Gang,' we thought ourselves into it to a point. "But we just shook our fists to the heavens and got on with it. "It was a very strange time, very tough for Chrissie and me, with no Jimmy or Pete," he told Creem. "Stay at home and be miserable, or go into the studio and do what we dig and be miserable?" Pressed, she finally admitted: "Well, it wasn't exactly a barrel of monkeys."Ĭhambers was typically more forthcoming. ![]() "What else were we going to do?" Hynde asked Rolling Stone. On some level, this quick return to work served as a coping mechanism. Watch Pretenders Perform 'Back on the Chain Gang' at Live Aid They all went upstairs and played pool, and nobody was allowed to come back down until we'd got them." "When it came to her vocals, Chrissie was great so long as nobody else was in the room," Pretenders engineer Steve Churchyard later told Sound on Sound. Hynde stole away, as was her habit, to record the lyrics all alone. "I had my little tunes and my little guitar parts," she added, "but Jimmy Scott made them sound a whole lot better, and he invented the Pretenders sound with very simple effects he had and the way he played." ![]() I mean, I loved Martin and Pete too - and they were absolutely integral to the sound of the band – but frankly, a band is about electric guitar. "So we offered each other what we both needed. "He made whatever I had sound good, and I got him out of Hereford and out of the music store where he was working and put him onstage and in the studio," Hynde told Curve magazine in 2020. The lyrics – " I found a picture of you," Hynde sings, " well, it hijacked my world at night, to a place in the past we've been cast out" – became a personal remembrance, something more emotional than anything she could perhaps say out loud about Honeyman-Scott. They spent a week rehearsing with Bremner and Butler before recording began, and eventually brought in Honeyman-Scott's friend Robbie McIntosh for some additional guitar. We decided to get some people to work with us for the time being." "So after his funeral and everything was sorted out, we thought: 'Let's get on with it.' There was never any real thought of packing it in or anything. "We had rehearsed it a lot with Jimmy, and thought it would make a pretty good single," Chambers told Creem in 1983. A basic outline for "Back on the Chain Gang" awaited them. People die - that's part of life." They were back in the studio a month later, after quickly adding Rockpile guitarist Billy Bremner and Big Country bassist Tony Butler. "I don't look back at those events as being a hardship," she told Rolling Stone in 1984.
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