Pretenders’ Chrissie Hynde is still rocking out at age 71, and while some artists may dread getting older, she seems to be embracing it.
“I don’t mind getting older. I do mind getting uglier,” she shares in a new feature in The Guardian. “Come on, there’s only one thing we know of that is definitely going to happen to us. That’s all the information we have in this life.”
She adds, “You know, a lot of my friends didn’t get old,” referring to people like her late Pretenders bandmate James Honeyman-Scott, who died in 1982 at 25 years old.
Hynde believes “there are so many great things about getting older,” noting, “For example, I don’t think there’s very many things that I know now that I didn’t know when I was 16 – but there’s a big difference between knowing something and realizing it. Realizing something takes 50 years.”
Hynde, who turns 72 on September 7, says, “I’m more relaxed now, if you can believe it,” sharing, “This is the real mellow version of me. Ageing is like being a pothead again. Though that’s not to say there are not things that wind me up daily.”
And age isn’t slowing Chrissie down. Pretenders are set to release the new album, Relentless, on September 15. They are slated to open for Guns N’ Roses on their North American tour, which kicks off August 11, in Hershey, Pennsylvania, and they’ll be headlining a short club tour, which starts August 16, at New York’s Bowery Ballroom. A complete list of all Pretenders dates can be found at thepretenders.com.
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