An Unharried Harry

“I don’t know what comeback means,” says Deborah Harry, who next week makes her first local appearances since her band, Blondie, one of the most successful groups from the punk/new wave revolution of the late ‘70s, broke up in 1982.

“Isn’t a comeback when somebody has retired and comes back?” the New York-based singer said. “I guess you could say that this is sort of like Groundhog Day--a re-emergence. The hibernation is over. I’m shedding my skin.”

Cool, with a slightly self-mocking sense sense of street-wise irony, the tough yet vulnerable Harry was an instant pop archetype: the bottle-blonde bridge between Monroe and Madonna.

Harry’s sporadic solo career has included two albums of little impact, as well as some acting endeavors. Now she has returned with “Def, Dumb and Blonde,” an album that captures the strengths of prime Blondie while placing them in a modern context.

“It’s hard for me to say what the difference is between me and Blondie,” said Harry, who plays the Country Club on Monday, the Roxy on Tuesday through Thursday and the Coach House on Oct. 29.

“I’m Blondie, Blondie is me. . . . I think that girlish character that Blondie was, the kind of spirit she had, and the kind of time period that she was representative of, is still a part of me. That’s why I’m happy to perform old songs.

“And now I think there’s a re-emergence of that blond tradition, which is definitely a part of me. I think that perhaps I can go further, I can do a lot more. I’m older, I look at things differently, I’m not forced to curtail certain feminine aspects of my personality because I represent four or five guys. I have women in the band now. That’s great. It’s more of a balance, it’s like music now, it’s not so much an attitude situation.”