Chrissie Hynde has revealed that she waited until her parents had passed away before publishing her memoirs as she "would have had to leave out the bad language and tell a lot of lies".
Hynde explained in the prologue to her new memoir, Reckless, why she waited until her parents had passed on to publish the story about her sensational life.
Reckless tells of the story of life on the wild side beginning in Akron, Ohio, where she grew up, a child of postwar power and prosperity. In Cleveland, she was entranced by the musicians who performed there, names like Mitch Ryder, David Bowie, Jeff Back, Paul Butterfield and Iggy Pop.
As a young girl, she witnessed the shooting of student anti-war protesters at Kent State university, an event famously commemorated in the song Four Dead in Ohio by Neil Young. She left for London in 1973 and spent a number of years working as a punky reviewer for New Musical Express. The aspirant singer also spent time as a shop girl at the Malcolm McLaren and Vivienne Westwood boutique of the unwieldy name - Craft Must Wear Clothes But The Truth Loves To Go Naked.
Eventually, she met the three musicians who comprised the original line-up of The Pretenders, and the book recalls the making of the band’s first album, simply entitled, The Pretenders, and subsequent hit singles such as Tatooed Love Boys, Brass in Pocket, Talk of the Town and Back on the Chain Gang.
Two of the band members, lead guitarist James Honeyman Scott and bassist Peter Farndon would die in drug-related incidents which was the cause of much trauma, as detailed in the book, but the musician battled on. She returned once again to the fray with a solo album, entitled Stockholm, released last year.
In recent weeks, 64-year old Hynde caused much controversy because of her remarks about rape, recalling the details of an assault she suffered in her early 20s. In the 336-page autobiography, the musician reveals her fondness in the early days for “the heavy bikers” and “the get-down boys.”
