POPPIN' FRESH

Yesterday, up-and-coming electronic pop princess George Pringle layered on the kohl, swallowed her excitement, and told us what Debbie Harry meant to her. Today she meets the "living relic" herself...

Debbie Harry is sitting on her hotel bed. Her white hotel bed in her white hotel room. She sits neatly but part of me feels she really just wants to lie back on the pillows with a heavy sigh. There’s a kind of weariness to her. Her face is made up impeccably. She looks like the portrait Warhol did of her, silvery blue lines around her eyes and red lips floating two dimensionally somewhere near the surface. More like Marilyn than anything. This, it transpires is what we talk about. Film stars, cinematic feelings with music and that’s what Debbie Harry is to me – she’s all top ranking New York “Superstar” of the highest class. When she speaks her voice is high and she holds long pauses at times. The shrill is weighted with the growl of age sitting somewhere in that voice box and her dirty dry laughter litters every other sentence.

The night before the interview I was reading Victor Bockris’s book on Warhol and there she was pressed like a monochrome flower pressed between pages. Debbie Harry, Andy Warhol and Truman Capote just standing there laughing at a party. Debbie Harry is a relic. A living relic. Where the “great” have fallen, there’s Debbie sitting in a white hotel room like an art instillation and yes, she is still breathing. No pool of vomit or barbiturate overdose would suffice for this one. She is our archetypal cool customer. So tentatively I start asking questions, concerned not to ask about Blondie too much, I am after all here to ask her about her solo record. In fact, Harry offers up a lot about Blondie herself. Tense and watchful at first I have to restrain my shaking hands and fish about for the questions. I manage to look her in her grey eyes which soften and I just sit there getting lost in the greens and the browns feeling as though if I fished about enough I’d see everything. I’d see CBGBs and Patti and Johnny and Joey and Chris and Studio 54 and everything…I stare harder and harder at her eyes until they seem wistful. There’s certain sadness here.

Debbie and Blondie play CBGB's in 1975

G: So how much has the media changed since you first started putting records out with Blondie?

D: Oh! Well, I guess it's become a lot more organized and sophisticated really. Everything's sort of ordained in a way. The way it's sort of... presented. I think the music media has sort of almost taken a back seat in a way. The sort of thing that's only really disappeared is the fanzines. You know, there used to be a lot of fanzines and those were so much fun. It was all like really young kids doing it.

G: Like DIY.

D: Yeah! Exactly.

G: It's kind of all moved to the Internet. It's become a different quality.

D: It used to have to be pretty decent but I think on the Internet, a lot of the time anyway, you can get away with absolute murder.

G: I used to write for fanzines but they kind of collapse. There's still a couple of good ones. Is it intimidating doing interviews without a band?

D: (laughs and motions towards cupboard) Okay, come on out! (cackles) You know,I used to do most of the promo and press for Blondie anyway by myself.

G: Did you find that a strain, that is was very focused on you? Was it difficult with the rest of the band?

D: It's just sort of hard to have four or five people talking. You know, at the same time. We did a lot of interviews or some interviews like that, you know, where all of us would be there. It was hell for the interviewers, to have four or five people answering a question or fighting amongst themselves. "Rah raaah rah", you know. Free for all. It's not that unusual for me, no.

G: Do you feel comfortable being interviewed alone? Do you like it? Or do you get sick of interviews?

D: (cackles) You shouldn't be asking me that!

G: You can say whatever you want!

D: I think, you know, by the end of the day, you know, my brains are a little bit scrambled. I'm sort of…"Was it all worth it? Who am I and why am I such a this or that?" Or "That was great!" You know, I don't know, it's just the memory bank gets sort of overcharged and you know…It's sort of like... (makes sound akin to a bluebottle frustratingly slamming against the lid of a jam jar) everything's buzzing. It gets a little too much but you know that's just me. I think that after a nice cocktail at the end of the day (laughs) it doesn't matter.

G: You feel like you've really earned it then. You're like "yeah! I can have a cocktail!"

D: "Great, I'll have a drink!"

G: Or three…

D: You know how it is, you know it's probably the same thing as cramming, you know, for a test or something. You have to really think. You think, god, I've got to get this straight. I don't know. (pause) You make sure that you keep the same lies going. (general cackles)

G: Keep the myth!

G: What do you enjoy most about making solo records? Other than the obvious coordination issues?

D: It's such a big deal actually, you know, all that coordination. Well, I guess I don't really have to think about representing anyone but myself. I think in Blondie we try to sort of make things almost asexual or, you know, bisexual or unisexual or something and somehow I got to be sort of, you know, just be whoever I am and not worry about that. Not representing any men. Just representing myself.

G: Do you think you're quite boyish in general?

D: Yeah, sometimes I am. I think it's just after all these years. I mean, imagine travelling on a tour bus for thirty years with just men. I mean…hahahahaha. (adopts comedic nagging voice) Put yourself in my place! (cackles) I live in a man's world in many ways. It's not so much anymore but, you know, for a long time it really was just guys in the industry.

G: Did you find it difficult getting into music as a girl, initially?

D: Yeah, yeah! It was…(pauses)

G: Because I think it can still be quite hard.

D: Yeah!

G: Did you get really negative attitudes from people at all?

D: Oh yeah. Down right ferocious - "Get out of town! Go do something else! Move back to new suburbia. You know, leave us alone!" That kind of stuff. The very nervous guys. I guess men are very nervous about their manhood for some reason. They seem to be very fragile in a lot of ways that women aren't. Now that women have more presence in their work, they're guarding that even more. I don't know… all I can think of is that I go with what's in my head and think that I am very fortunate that my partner and old lover Chris was such a complete person. He wasn't really like that. He never really wanted to hold me back in any way. He was just…(pauses)

G: Supportive?

D: Completely! Completely! Yeah, and very sympathetic. A very sensitive, sweet guy. A very generous person. (cackles) The rest of you have got to get with it guys!

Part three of the interview appears tomorrow. 'Til then, you can hear George Pringle here.