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Pretenders
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Miami Vice Performer
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Members (1980)
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Chrissie Hynde (born 1951, vocals)
Pete Farndon (1952-1983, bass) James Honeyman-Scott (1956-1982, guitar/keyboards) Martin Chambers (born 1951, drums) |
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Active
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1978-present
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The Pretenders are an English-American rock band whose songs "Space Invader" (in "Trust Fund Pirates") and "How Much Did You Get for Your Soul" (in "The Good Collar") appeared in the series Miami Vice.
Career[]
The Pretenders were formed in 1978, releasing their self-titled debut album in 1979, which featured "Space Invader" and their first Billboard Top 40 single, "Brass In Pocket", the video of which was the seventh played on MTV's launch day. 1981's follow-up, Pretenders II, did not produce any hit singles, and would be the final album with the original Pretenders. Guitarist James Honeyman-Scott died in 1982 of a heart attack related to drug abuse, and bassist Pete Farndon died the following year by drowning in his bathtub after passing out from using heroin. Hynde gathered two temporary replacements, Billy Bremner (from Rockpile) and Tony Butler (from Big Country) and recorded what would be the band's first Top 10 single, "Back On The Chain Gang" (the opening riff of the B-side of this single, "My City Was Gone", has been used by The Rush Limbaugh Show radio program since 1988). The band's next album Learning To Crawl, included "Chain Gang" and another Top 10 single, "Middle of the Road", included the replacements for Bremner and Butler--Robbie McIntosh (guitar) and Malcolm Foster (bass), all of whom performed at Live Aid. Before working on their 1986 album Get Close (featuring "How Much Did You Get for Your Soul"), Chambers (replaced by Blair Cunningham on drums) and Foster (replaced by T.M. Stevens on bass) were removed from the band. Get Close featured their final Top 10 single, "Don't Get Me Wrong". 1990's Packed! was basically Hynde with studio musicians. The band released three more albums between 1994-2008, and their lineup has changed much over the years; when the band was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2005, only Hynde and Chambers attended. The Pretenders went into "hiatus" in 2012 and Hynde released a solo album, Stockholm, in 2014 and in 2016 another Hynde album with studio musicians, Alone, but then the band reunited with Hynde, Chambers, Eric Haywood, Carwyn Ellis, James Walbourne and Nick Wilkinson on a tour with Stevie Nicks, then joined Phil Collins on a South American tour in 2018.