Debbie Harry

I've been lucky enough in my career to interview some of my favourite artists and producers, but interviewing Debbie Harry was one of the coolest things I've done.

DEBBIE HARRY


They were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame two years ago, and now, thirty years after the release of their breakthrough album Parallel Lines, Blondie have announced a world tour to celebrate the milestone. No Magazine speaks to singer Debbie Harry whose image stands as legacy to the band, perhaps even more so than the music they created.


Hearing Debbie Harry’s iconic voice casually flow down the phone lines from her home in New York begins to erase many of her 62 years as my mind creates a slide show of stock images of Harry in her prime. The platinum blonde forged herself as a totemic figure of empowered sexuality as the 1970‘s drew to a close, a punk/pop princess whose style would go on to grace the covers of fashion magazines and stand as a beacon to all female singers to come thereafter. She has just returned from Barcelona where her and “a couple of the guys” were doing a Blondie show. It is a pre-emptor of what will soon turn into the full band touring America and then Europe as they mark another chapter in the bands history, the 30th anniversary of their third album, Parallel Lines.
Quizzing Debbie about the tour, she seems almost nonchalant, but then this is a woman who helped nurse back her long time collaborator and lover Chris Stein from an often fatal rare skin disease, endured the vitriol of jealous band mates, watched as many of her friends died from the rigours of the rock and roll lifestyle, and has been braving the music industry mainly as a solo artist for the past twenty five years. Unlike many other musicians from her generation who recently toured or are tipped to do so, Harry is not stepping back into the world of mic checks and tour buses, it’s a world she never left. From her solo albums through to indulging in a love of acting, to joining avant-garde jazz ensemble The Jazz Passengers and a string of other musical projects, the most important thing to Harry has been to keep exploring her creative side.
“You know even back when we were in the early days of Blondie I had this love of acting,” purrs the voice on the telephone. “There was always a world outside of Blondie for me that I was never afraid to step outside of. Whether it’s been through acting or working on my own projects there is a huge pleasure I derive from being creative. It’s very much a cathartic process for me.”
Debbie Harry though has always been the lead singer of Blondie. It has been hard yoke for her to wear at times, especially after the break up of the band in the early eighties and as she tried to establish herself in a male oriented industry where there only seemed to be room for one female sex symbol at a time. No matter how much she tried to shake off the Blondie image it was synonymous with her name, many people seeing the band name and her as one and the same. David Bowie was able to kill off his Ziggy Stardust persona, Madonna easily put paid to any notions of virginity and even De la Soul announced the death of the daisy age, but Debbie Harry is Blondie is Debbie Harry and that seems an inescapable truth. It’s an image that may have frustrated Harry at times and has seen her try her hand both as a raven haired temptress and flame-tressed seductress but inevitably she has come back to her signature platinum do and remains both Blondie the person and singer in a band with the same name.

The seventies couldn’t have happened like they did without the jaunty swagger of snake hipped stars and wild eyed rocker stares. David Bowie, Lou Reed, Jim Morrison, Mick Jagger, Iggy Pop; they helped define the era of successful excess and mapped out a blueprint for future generations of aspiring rock ‘n’ rollers. Towards the end of the decade another icon arose who possessed more sex appeal than most of her male counterparts combined. Debbie Harry became the first true female rock ‘n’ roll sex symbol, which often overshadowed the music of Blondie and was in part responsible for the bands break up in the early eighties. She formed Blondie in the mid seventies with Chris Stein, boyfriend and fellow band member of her then group The Stilettos. Initially calling themselves Angel and the Snake, they settled on the name Blondie after the truckers who would yell out to Harry, addressing her as “Blondie”. The band quickly became regulars on the New York new wave circuit, playing at places like Max’s Kansas City where Harry once waitressed and the infamous CBGB’s, playing shows with The Ramones among others. Adopting degrees of influence from 60’s girl groups, which had been apparent in The Stilettos too, Blondie sent it up with a raw aggression that belied the sweetheart looks of their lead singer. Although they weren’t as hard as their more punk rock based contemporaries, Blondie’s trashy sound and distinct sounding vocalist made them stand out and the band weren’t afraid to try out new sounds, which lead them to increasing success as they embraced their pop elements further.
Their first self titled album was never afforded the attention it deserved, partly due to being released on a small independent label, but tracks like ‘Rip Her to Shreds’ and ‘X Offender’ laid the groundwork for securing a dedicated fan base in America, while ‘In the Flesh’ helped establish the bands popularity in Australia.
Their second album Plastic Letters may not have seen the band reach the creative heights of the first, but with the Private Stock label being bought out by major label Chysalis they were assured of reaching a wider audience at least. Their live show was nonetheless incredible, and highlights the true strength of the group as Clem Burke’s drumming and new member Frank Infante’s bass work keep the rhythm locked down tight.
Around this time Blondie were asked to open for Iggy Pop, who had been living in Berlin with David Bowie and had just recorded the Bowie produced album, The Idiot. Bowie and Pop were inseparable at the time and although Bowie was a huge star, he toured as Iggy’s keyboard player for this tour. The pair were aware of Blondie from Max’s and CBGB’s but more than anything they wanted to hang out with the beautiful lead singer of the band. Harry has talked before about being in the presence of the very flirtatious men, and reportedly would play down their advances with cool lines like “maybe next time when Chris isn’t around.”
The tour marked the beginning of a long lasting friendship between Iggy and Debbie. The pair would eventually duet together for the Cole Porter song ‘Well Did You Evah!’ for the 1990 HIV/AIDS benefit album Red, Hot + Blue. Having been friends with Iggy for several decades I wonder if it was hard for her to see him go through some particularly rough patches when his drug use threatened to completely derail his life and career. Her answer surprised me, though it is easy to forget that Harry’s own lifestyle was not too far removed from that of her friend at times.
“I think the thing is that he never saw it that way, that he was down and out. You know Iggy’s kind of misunderstood because it is very hard to be the first to do something and that’s something he’s never really had the recognition for, that he was leading the way for so many others. So a lot of people looked at him and thought that he was a mess but that was just him doing his thing, and that’s how he needed to live in order to do it.”
That fateful 1977 tour with Pop was also another step on the way to the big time for the band, though they knew they had a few creases to iron out if they were to cross over from cult status to radio hit artists. It was to be album number three that would tip the scales for the band and see them reach superstardom. The success of Parallel Lines, the album that contained the hits ‘Hanging on the Telephone’, ‘One Way or Another’ and ‘Heart of Glass’ is due in part to the producer Mike Chapman, who Chris Stein says “was our George Martin”. He licked the band into shape, getting them to hone their skills and drop the rough edge of new wave to abandon themselves to unmitigated pop. The album hit number one in Britain, with single ‘Heart of Glass’ taking the number one spot in six different countries, showcasing the brilliance of Harry and Stein’s writing partnership. But for all the success the song gave the band, it earned them the derision of their peers and the New York music scene. Many felt Chapman’s decision to turn ‘Heart of Glass‘, which was an old tour staple (albeit much slower and rockier) into a disco number marked the selling out of Blondie. This didn’t phase Blondie who said they were always open to experimentation and trying out new things.
“A lot of people were so against us doing disco but we never called ourselves a new wave band or anything like that,” remarks a defiant sounding Harry. “We just wanted to make music, we never really thought about how we should sound or how other people would take us. I think to say that a band should only sound one way is ridiculous, you have to grow and you can’t do that if you just keep repeating yourself.”
Parallel Lines marked not only the start of the big time for Blondie but it also cemented Debbie Harry’s status as a full blown sex symbol. The gorgeous blonde was no stranger to her sex appeal; she had appeared in the pages of Hugh Hefner’s Playboy magazine long before she was famous and openly flaunted her physical attributes on stage, playing up to her sexuality for all it was worth. Early marketing of the band also made the most of her image, running such provocative copy as ‘Wouldn’t you like to rip her to shreds?’ above a photo of Harry as a teaser for Blondie single ‘Rip Her to Shreds’. But unlike today’s intense PR circus used to hype a singer, who will have a stylist to make their important clothing choices, Harry did it all on her own, buying clothes from second hand stores and adapting them to suit her look. She has said in the past that she was aware that the success of Blondie was 50% due to her looks, which also helps to explain her decision to go under the knife if more recent times for a face lift. What is interesting though is that by the time Parallel Lines broke the band commercially and saw Harry held aloft as the sexiest woman in rock, she was already 33 years old, something almost unheard of in today’s entertainment climate.
Her friendship with New York’s social elite like Andy Warhol and other Studio 54 regulars saw her become a fully fledged style icon, which was reflected in her being the first rock star on the cover of a fashion magazine. That may be commonplace these days but like so many other aspects of her career, Debbie did it first.
The band’s success continued on their next album Eat to the Beat with the disco stormer ‘Atomic’. The band released the album on vinyl and video at the same time; the first full length album with a corresponding music video for each track, a move that pre-dated MTV by several years but would stand the band in good stead when the channel did launch.
Eat to the Beat also marked the bands first foray into reggae, with ’Die Young, Stay Pretty’. The song almost sounds out of place on the album but they would have another one of their all time hits with the formula on their next album Autoamerican when they tried again with ’Tide is High’. The song was originally sung by John Holt and his band The Paragons in 1967 but was made into a worldwide hit after being appropriated by Blondie.
“It was through Chris that we came to do ‘Tide is High’,” notes Harry, “because he had been over to England in the early seventies and he’d come back with all these records. I think they were like Virgin compilations of reggae songs, and so I think that was when I heard ‘Tide is High’ and we decided to use that. But you know reggae was also getting some airplay on some of the radio stations in New York at that time so it wasn’t a totally inaccessible sound to us. But those records that Chris brought back really got us thinking about doing it for ourselves.”
Of course the other big hit from Autoamerican was ‘Rapture’. The video release coincided with the launch of MTV and was played within the first 24 hours of transmission. It was also the first commercial hit record to feature a full blown rap, and the video documented aspects of the hip hop world by featuring Fab Five Freddy and noted graffiti artists Lee Quinones and Jean-Michel Basquiat. Although some saw this as another sell out moment for Blondie the truth is that the later crossover success of hip hop had a lot to do with ‘Rapture’.
If it seemed like the band were riding high on the wave of success, the internal relationships between the members were starting to crack. Frank Infante felt he wasn’t being used enough on the albums and decided to sue the band. They managed to settle and Infante stayed in the line up, but tensions were strained, heightened by the fact that any press the band received focussed on Harry and her sex appeal. Lifestyles were also taking their toll as the whole band had succumbed to one of the occupational hazards of being in a rock band; heroin. Their increasing reliance on the opiate compounded their squabbles and at the same time prevented them from being able to see that financially they were being taken for a ride by their management. At a time when they should have been making a small fortune from their catalogue of hits, the end result was inordinately high tax bills for decades that they struggled to pay off. Stein notes that they were “completely fucked over” by people they trusted, while Harry takes responsibility for their naivety, claiming they should have known better.
“A lot of people ask me how we made it through that time without submitting to the perils of drugs but the truth is that I only made it through by the skin of my teeth. Chris and I had each other and to a degree that’s what saved us, being in a very loving relationship. Because we didn’t feel like we always had to party all the time, we kind of had this cocooned little world of our own and that was quite different to what was going on around us.”
Growing tired of her own image as Blondie the person, Harry set out to make her own mark. She appeared in David Cronenberg’s 1981 soft porn horror movie, Videodrome as a red haired temptress and the same year released her first solo album KooKoo as a brunette, while Jimmy Destri also went solo that year with Heart on a Wall.
“I mean I always had my own ideas and had wanted to make my own solo stuff that was quite separate from what we were doing as the band,” Harry quantifies. “There were things that I wanted to try out that I didn’t feel would suit the band.”
Contractually Blondie still owed Chrysalis an album and 1982’s The Hunter felt very much like an album made under those conditions. Producer Mike Chapman who had produced the past three Blondie albums sensed that the intense chemistry that had bolstered the band previously was gone, and he noted at the time that he knew “this would be the last Blondie album.”
Apart from the mounting animosity within the band, the drugs were also taking their toll in other ways. Stein was diagnosed with a rare genetic skin disease called pemphigus which was exacerbated by his drug use. It proved to be the straw that broke the camels back and Blondie disbanded in late 1982. Harry took many years off to care for Stein. Career wise it proved a tough time for Harry, who know had competition in the form of Pat Benetar and an artist that shamelessly created herself in Harry’s image, Madonna. Whilst it can be said that Madonna always had a greater hunger for fame, stylistically she borrowed heavily from Harry, from the trashed wedding dress look of her virgin years to the pre-empting of trends that Harry started with ‘Rapture’ and Madonna appropriated time and again throughout the years with various songs and videos.
Signed to the same label as Madonna, Harry found herself relegated to second best and the mid eighties proved to be lean ones (though not physically - Harry dubbed them the ‘ice cream years’). Harry nursed Stein back to a full recovery and though their romantic relationship didn’t survive they remain the best of friends to his day and continued their writing partnership unabated. Although Harry’s solo albums seemed to be hit and miss at times, she says that there is nothing she regrets about them.
“I always pushed myself to try out different things and explore other sides of my music and that’s really kept me happy. I mean the industry has changed a lot and how it all works has changed. Nowadays you’ve got the people at record labels only really looking after a select group of bands and not really caring about the rest of them so I think the motivation is very different in that sense. But I’ve always enjoyed making my music, which is why I continue to make solo records. My Necessary Evil album I released last year was not a record I had to make for any other reason but than because I felt like doing it. I was inspired and had some ideas that I wanted to get out.”
Harry has always had her solo career but the other members of Blondie hadn’t been afforded the same exposure as their singer during the height of their fame, although most found work as session musicians and producers. However, in the late nineties Stein started to make inroads into reassembling the band. Years seemed to have smoothed out most of the resentment between the band members, though for the reincarnation of Blondie former members Frank Infante and Nigel Harrison were not invited back into the fold, indicating that not all of the bad blood had been forgotten from the break up days.
“It was hard in some ways to start again but then we knew each other so well and we still wanted to make music together so it wasn’t like it was a real pain for us to do it,” states Harry. “There were certain things we had to get over and some times we had to put behind us but it wasn’t too hard to find that friendship that had been there at the beginning. But you know Blondie has always wanted to remain current and not become one of those oldies bands, so it was important for us to keep making stuff if we were going to do anything.”
The result was 1999’s No Exit album which contained the hit song ‘Maria’. The single reached number one in the UK earning Debbie Harry a place in the record books as the oldest female to have a number one song - she was 53 at the time. The album didn’t exactly set the charts alight but it was a return for the band and showed that they had lost none of their fire. Their 2003 follow up The Curse of Blondie fared better but it is telling to the testament of ex-producer Mike Chapman that it seemed like not all of the pieces were there. Debbie agrees when I ask her about the prospect of future material:
“There always needs to be power behind what we do. You know we keep in mind what we’ve done and go from there. There is a certain type of music that works with Blondie records and then for what I do on my solo records. They can be quite different, even though I’ll often have some of the guys play on my albums, and Chris has always written some of the songs with me. But for us to make a new album together it will have to have a very clear direction. I have to say that the right producer would be required and Mike Chapman I think is such an amazing producer. I realise just how big a part he played in our records - they just wouldn’t have sounded the way they did without Mike.”
Debbie it seems is reconciled with the past and perfectly happy with where she is again. She no longer feels the need to buck against the prevailing image of her and Blondie being the same force, and that is evidenced even by her name. For years she would tell journalists to call her Deborah but invited me to take my pick when I asked her at the start of our interview. She is also aware of just how much her legacy and that of Blondie has influenced modern artists. Everyone from Madonna to Kylie Minogue to Shirley Manson to Gwen Stefani owes a debt to Miss Harry and even newer artists like Lily Allen are lining up to pay homage to her. Lily has included a cover of ‘Heart of Glass in her live set for a while now and last year was given the honour of sharing a stage with Debbie herself on the American Today Show. The audience lapped up the duet, though Harry’s memories of the moment are somewhat different.
“We did that last year for the Today Show. It was, ah, interesting I have to say,” says Harry somewhat diplomatically. Though when I quiz her further to find out how she rates the young singer she is more frank with a humorous admission:
“Well I wouldn’t say that I’d actually rate her…”
So as one of the longest serving and surviving women in rock music I wonder if there are any regrets over the years, anything she wishes she had a second shot at?
“I wish I had made more movies, and travelled more. Not just for music, but I would love to have seen more of Asia. But I think looking back on things one of the most important things you can have if you want some longevity in your career is having good management. That is more important than a good record label. If you have someone who just wants to see you do well rather than just wants to see your record sell then they’re going to make the best decisions for you with your whole career in mind and your future in mind. Not just getting out the latest record.”
It is in this note that we decide to wrap things up, but we before we say goodbye there is one nagging question I need answered. Over the years I have been aware of an emblematic image of Harry. She is standing on stage wearing one of Chris Stein’s tee shirts depicting the wrestler Doctor X on the front. The striking thing about the photo is that it appears that the singer seems to have forgotten to dress her lower half at all, and the short tee leaves nothing to the imagination.
“You know it may be, it’s hard to say,” responds a coy Harry with the smile evident in her voice. “I don’t really remember, but it’s certainly possible. I mean I do like underwear, but not all the time. Sometimes you got to let the girl go free.”



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