10 QUESTIONS : Chrissie Hynde

H ailed as rock’s premier female performer, Chrissie Hynde leaves it to others to praise and dissect her music. Speaking shortly after the release of the Pretenders’ new album , “Packed,” she wasn’t interested in discussing the record and tended to dismiss her musical skills as merely adequate. “I’m capable of giving a song a credible rock ‘n’ roll delivery,” was about all the credit she would give herself.

While disarmingly meek discussing herself, she roars like a lion on a variety of other subjects. Hynde sniffs suspiciously at the trappings of success and has little use for the celebrity that stalks popular musicians like a doppelganger. The mother of two young girls (one by the Kinks’ Ray Davies, one by ex-husband Jim Kerr), the 38-year-old, Akron-born performer came of age during the ‘60s, and as evidenced in the following comments, her ‘60s idealism continues to be central to her world view.

Q: Why have pop musicians been elevated to such a lofty position in the culture? In many ways they’re regarded as gods.

A: That’s true and that’s a mistake--although I was certainly guilty of thinking my heroes were gods when I was growing up. They’re treated as gods because we live in a sick society and they represent things that push everybody’s buttons.

It’s primarily sex appeal--when you become famous you’re automatically endowed with sex appeal. They get to wear the coolest clothes and seem to have the freedom to do what they want, and because they’re so privileged, people seem to look up to them--as if privilege were a virtue. This relates to a phenomenon I find very peculiar: People who manage to make and multiply money successfully are regarded with great respect right now. Personally, I find nothing interesting or admirable about the multiplication of money, because if you market something properly you can sell almost anything. Yet the people who do the selling are considered very worthy people. I find that odd.

Q: Feeling ambivalent about commerce as you obviously do, how do you feel about being part of it? Your records put plenty of coins in corporate coffers.

A: It’s never been a moral dilemma for me that I live in a world with a moral dilemma. I think money will lose its value in about 10 years and that’s going to be a very interesting period in history. I have no idea what will replace it either, but it seems like all systems are going to break down because there’s an incredible escalation on at the moment.

Q: You say you used to perceive your heroes as gods; how did you get over seeing them in that light?

A: I met them. Superficial charisma comes with fame, but real charisma comes from intelligence, and I discovered you don’t have to be deeply intelligent to be famous. All it requires are drive and ambition. Lots of successful people are actually quite dull when you meet them. They’ve learned how to work the system to get to the top, but that isn’t necessarily connected to artistic talent.

But basically the thing that changed my attitude was getting older. I’ve been around a bit and I know now that rock ‘n’ roll is not a religion. That doesn’t mean I like it any less--I’m still a great fan. But I’ve learned to separate my feelings of appreciation for someone’s artistry from my own personal life.

Q: Do pop culture and mass media shape the culture or merely reflect it as it already exists?

A: (The media) shape the culture in a very negative way. Most people are permanently plugged into their TV sets and their consciousness is constantly being fed with information, most of which is worthless. The media confuse people and distract them and make all issues--some of which are very important--seem equally disposable because there’s just too much information all the time. Instead of informing people about things that are relevant to their lives, the media draw them into a false reality of movie stars and meaningless scandals.

Q: Why is pop music obsessed with the theme of romantic love?

A: It’s not just popular music--literature and theater have been obsessed with it for centuries. It’s always been that way because romantic love revolves around sex which is the strongest drive we have.

Q: What gave you the drive to invent a life for yourself so drastically different from the one you were born into?

A: The fact that I read was probably the biggest factor. I was into Kerouac and all those writers who romanticized the idea of the nomadic life, plus there was a freight train that passed by my school and that put ideas in my head. I was also deeply affected by the music of the ‘60s, and freedom was the central theme in the music of that period.

Q: You once decribed yourself as being “mired in the ‘60s”; are the ideals of that period still a guiding thing in your life?

A: Yes they are. The ‘60s were a period of introspection and self-realization, but by the time we got to the ‘80s the culture had degenerated into “me generation” thinking--which is a peculiarly American thing. I thought that really sucked, this self-involved, “you have to satisfy yourself” nonsense, and now that the ‘90s are here, the bill for that thinking has arrived. We have to look at the global picture now and there’s no time left to be concerned with personal gratification because we’re on the threshold of an environmental crisis like nothing we’ve ever imagined. The ideals of the ‘60s are more relevant than ever now.

Q: You’ve always been critical of America, and in fact emigrated to London in 1973; do you feel any bond with this country at all?

A: I do still feel like an American, but it’s not something I’m proud of, nor am I proud of being an English resident. I’m not a proud person and I have an aversion to patriotism. It’s wonderful to love your place of birth, but this idea of “We’re the best country in the world”--well, that’s clearly not the case with America.

We’re living in a media dictatorship, and this is particularly true of America, where the media is completely all-encompassing. And this oppression by media is very much in keeping with the history of the country. America was built on a foundation of genocide and you can’t expect a whole lot out of that. The karmic reaction to murder is always murder. We killed the people who lived in North America and stole their land and we’ve got a lot to answer for taking more than we deserved or needed. Obviously, I still find much about the country deeply troubling.

Q: You’ve always perceived yourself as an outsider and taken pride in that identity, but you’re now a highly successful woman; how have you reconciled those two things?

A: But I am still an outsider. You’re an outsider when you’re concerned with philosophy and religion--that automatically puts you in a different bag, because most people are happy to get by on self-gratification. I wasn’t one of the popular kids in high school and I’ve always been on the side of the misfits, and that’s where I want to have a place.

Q: In order to maintain a sense of yourself as an outsider, have you made a conscious effort to keep your career from getting too big?

A: Definitely. I don’t want to be a huge star playing mega-arenas. I don’t want to put my audience through that experience because I hate going to those places myself. All I can think is, “Where’s the toilets? Am I gonna get in a traffic jam? And why am I standing in billows of hamburger smoke?”

Plus, I hate the fuss that surrounds extreme fame and don’t ever want bodyguards or any of that nonsense. Before I started making records, I hated the feeling of being an invisible face in the crowd, so I wanted to carve out some kind of identity--I think everyone wants that--but as far as being a recognizable celebrity, that’s an uncomfortable feeling.

I’m an adequate musician, but I’m certainly not in a league with the people I really admire--people like Bob Dylan, Van Morrison or Lou Reed. They’re real artists and I don’t put myself in their league because I’m not too productive. But that doesn’t make me lose sleep, because I don’t think the world needs another Pretenders album--it’s no great shakes if I have a record out or not. But I do enjoy making them, so thank you for letting me carry on and do my thing. I’m just a hayseed from Ohio who got lucky.