The Story of Blondie: image masters and sound innovators

INTRODUCTION

[00:00:14] Dave Anthony: Welcome to Garage to Stadiums. Today's episode is the story of Blondie

The New York Scene birthed a new movement

[00:00:20] Dave Anthony: From a crumbling New York of the mid-'70s, in a tiny downtown club on the edge of collapse, a sound began to cut through the noise and redefine what popular music could be.

[00:00:31] Dave Anthony: One of those bands, Blondie, fronted by a punk-era Marilyn Monroe, fused art, New York street cool, visual invention, and razor-sharp pop songwriting, fearlessly moving between punk, new wave, rock, disco, reggae, and rap -- to climb from the underground to the top of the charts in the late 1970s and early '80s, with a slew of number one hits and over forty million albums [00:01:00] sold.

[00:01:00] Dave Anthony: . In this episode, you'll discover how a collapsing New York City birthed a new how the lead singer, Debbie Harry, rose as punk's most magnetic icon, how Debbie and Chris Stein, a guitarist for the band, created a creative and romantic partnership, how Blondie brought rap into mainstream pop culture, and how the sudden collapse of the band ended their first golden era

Our guest is Fred Schruers, former Rolling Stone staffer and Blondie biographer

[00:01:26] Dave Anthony: Joining us today to discuss Blondie is Fred Schruers. Fred is a former Rolling Stone magazine staff writer who has contributed to The Washington Post, the LA Times, and he appeared on our story of Billy Joel episode.

[00:01:42] Dave Anthony: He's here today to discuss Blondie, a band he profiled in Rolling Stone in the '70s and '80s time period, and the subject of a biography he wrote about hanging out with the band in that seminal period. Welcome back to Garage to Stadiums, Fred

[00:01:57] Fred Schruers: Nice to be back. I'm happy to be [00:02:00] here

The scene in downtown New York City in mid 1970s 

The CBGB experience 

[00:02:00] Dave Anthony: You were at Rolling Stone, , when Blondie was up and coming. What do you recall about that era, [00:02:07] certainly so. You know, they were, there was all that punk energy, right? We're talking '76 to '78 was really an explosion down at CBGBs. I mean, not to go into Patti Smith land all of a sudden, but where you could stand outside CBGBs and Patti was about to perform as a trio, and you would offer a hit of a hash pipe.

[00:02:29] Fred Schruers: And she, she would say then, "Gee, I like hash, but it might numb my throat a little bit, so I better not."

[00:02:38] Dave Anthony: Were you offering her the

[00:02:39] Fred Schruers: Offering her, myself, and another little preppy-looking idiot from the suburbs, you know. She must have thought, "Where are my punks?" You know, "Who are these kids?" But we did have the hash, which we proceeded to enjoy the concert beyond.

[00:02:53] Fred Schruers: Anyhow, kids, don't do what we did. Just stay straight. I had seen Blondie [00:03:00]maybe once or twice. They were a coming phenomenon. . They still weren't that big a noise. They... I think it was a 1,400-word feature in Rolling Stone, at tops, that I was, was assigned to me.

Fred was assigned by Rolling Stone to cover Blondie 

[00:03:11] Fred Schruers: I was just a sprout around the office. I hadn't done cover stories yet or anything like that. So send him over there. And we meet at, , Trader Vic's, which of course is, uh, in New York. I consider it a dark, subterranean place. It's in the floor, bottom floor of the Plaza Hotel. And we commenced to drinking, I think, Samoan fog cutters.

[00:03:31] Fred Schruers: And we realized we were all gonna get along about two fog cutters in. And I did the interview, which made the fuel for the Rolling Stone feature that would soon appear. And they said, "Ah, come on by."

[00:03:44] Fred Schruers: "Maybe we'll smoke one in our apartment." So we walk across 57th Street and up to the penthouse of a building at 58th Street. It happened to be the building where oh, Kate Simon, the great photographer of the era, who took all those great Bob Marley [00:04:00] pictures, she lived in that building. So David Johansen would always be there visiting people.

[00:04:05] Fred Schruers: The Clash , crashed on Kate's floor in that building, things like that. So stupidly enough, I proceeded to wall walk a little bit on the edge of the, you know, eight stories. And then we sat and we had a good time, and it became, I don't wanna call it a friendship, I'd probably be exaggerating, but a professional association w- with friendly benefits.

BLONDIE BAND CHILDHOOD AND UPBRINGING 

Debbie Harry was adopted and grew up in New Jersey 

[00:04:30] Blondie lead singer, Debbie Harry was born Angela Trimble on July 1st, 1945 in Miami, Florida. At three months old, she was adopted by Richard and Catherine Harry, who renamed her Deborah Ann Harry and raised her in small town , in New Jersey. She learned she was adopted at age four. Her birth parents were of Scottish ancestry, carrying the surnames Trimble and Mackenzie.

[00:04:59] Fred Schruers: , She [00:05:00]grew up in Fair Lawn, New Jersey, that's in the northwest, uh, Bergen County. It's a very sedate-- These are bedroom communities. Fair Lawn was a fairly high median income.

[00:05:11] Fred Schruers: her family were working middle class. She didn't really talk much about her own origin story going back that far. A cheerleader, majorette, that sort of person. The people spotted her right away as the focus in any room, just the cheekbones, the, the blonde hair, though at the time it was often magenta.

[00:05:34] Dave Anthony: As a teenager growing up in New Jersey, Debbie Harry was pulled toward the energy and danger of nearby New York City and its evolving music scene. She fell in love with the smoky, melancholy tunes of Miles Davis and Billie Holiday, [00:06:00]while also absorbing the edgy counterculture sounds of the Velvet Underground and early rock vocal groups that foreshadowed the downtown punk explosion.

[00:06:19] Dave Anthony: But Harry's biggest obsession wasn't a musician at all. It was Marilyn Monroe. In her autobiography entitled Face It, Debbie admits to a fascination with Monroe's image and mythology.

[00:06:32] Dave Anthony: She even fantasized that the Hollywood icon might be her biological mother. That fixation helped shape the unforgettable Blondie persona she later created. Bleach blonde glamour fused with toughness, sexuality, and punk aggression

Blondie guitarist Chris Stein grew up in a Jewish family in Brooklyn and loved rock and folk music 

[00:06:49] Dave Anthony: Blondie Guitarist Chris Stein grew up in Brooklyn in a secular communist Jewish household where religion was rejected, though he retained a cultural link to his grandfather's [00:07:00] Yiddish-speaking roots. And in a Jewish Chronicle interview, he noted his parents even named him Chris to help soften anti-Semitic assumptions of his surname, Stein.

[00:07:12] Dave Anthony: Seeing the Velvet Underground live in 1967 left a lasting imprint on his sense of music as art, noise, and attitude. From there, he immersed himself in the Greenwich Village folk scene, regularly taking the subway into Washington Square Park and the surrounding streets to hear performers like Richie Havens playing live in public spaces. As a young rock and roll fan, he even attended Woodstock in 1969.

[00:07:47] Dave Anthony: He was fascinated by the explosive raw power of Jimi Hendrix and the Rolling Stones. [00:08:00] And that collision of art rock, folk authenticity, and electric stadium rock became the foundation of Blondie's sound and attitude.

How did Debbie Harry and Chris Stein come together?

[00:08:18] Dave Anthony: So how did Debbie and Chris come together? Well, before Blondie existed, Debbie Harry and Chris Stein first crossed paths in a group called The Stilettos, a wildly theatrical downtown act built on 1960s girl group harmonies, retro fashion, drag show energy, and offbeat pop culture camp.

[00:08:37] Dave Anthony: It was glamorous, stylized, and deliberately artificial. But Stein, when he joined, brought the darker influence of the Velvet Underground and the gritty New sound, pushing for louder guitars and more danger in the music.

[00:08:50] Dave Anthony: And Debbie immediately connected with that harder edge. When Stein was fired over growing creative tension, Debbie walked out with him. Within months, the [00:09:00]pair transformed that collision of glamour, irony, and downtown grit into Blondie, a band that would help redefine pop and punk style.

[00:09:09] Dave Anthony: Let's go to Chris Stein and Debbie Harry's relationship, because I think that's interesting.

[00:09:14] Fred Schruers: Yeah

[00:09:14] Dave Anthony: the, she's of that earlier era of rock.

[00:09:17] Dave Anthony: She's several years older than Chris. , How did they sort of come together and form sort of this, I guess it would be a partnership on many levels?

[00:09:25] Fred Schruers: Yeah. Well, the Goethe word, the Goethe phrase is elective affinity because the affinity was there. He's a good-looking, bushy-haired guy, lean guitar player hero. Uh, offbeat Brooklyn-esque hero, but still, so he's an attractive dude. She's obviously the prettiest girl downtown, or maybe all the way up to 57th Street, and I think it was just honest animal attraction

The sexual assault of Debbie Harry 

[00:09:50] Dave Anthony: Next, Debbie Harry is the victim of a violent sexual assault in New York City

[00:10:02] Dave Anthony: Mid-1970s New York was a city teetering on the edge of bankruptcy, crime rising, infrastructure failing, and whole stretches of Manhattan feeling increasingly abandoned.

[00:10:13] Dave Anthony: The dangerous city vibe hit particularly hard for Debbie Harry and Chris Stein prior to getting Blondie off the ground

[00:10:19] Dave Anthony: During this period, they were victims of a violent home invasion in New York. . Both were restrained, and Debbie was sexually assaulted. She later reflected on the experience and said not only was the assault traumatic, but equally challenged was the devastating loss of their instruments and equipment at a time when they were struggling to survive as working musicians in the downtown scene, and these were the only assets they owned.

EARLY GIGS AND MUSICAL INFLUENCES

New York birthed protopunk, the precursor of punk music 

[00:10:44] Dave Anthony: And out of that mid-1970s New York pressure cooker came a raw, harder-edged music scene that would later be coined proto-punk. Loud, stripped-down rock where guitars drove the sound, vocals turned abrasive, . And the lyrics often reflected street life, violence, and urban despair. The term proto in proto-punk comes from the Greek word protos, meaning first or original.

[00:11:10] Dave Anthony: The idea being that these bands were the blueprint for what punk would soon become. At CBGB, that sound took shape through bands like the New York Dolls and the Ramones. The Dolls, briefly managed by Malcolm McLaren, who would later apply their aesthetic blueprint to the Sex Pistols, , helped define the look and attitude.

The role of Ramones influencing the evolution of British punk 

[00:11:55] Dave Anthony: Then in July 1976, the Ramones played in London, a pivotal moment witnessed [00:12:00]by future members of The Clash, Chrissie Hynde, who would go on to form The Pretenders, and members of the British punk group The Damned.

[00:12:08] Dave Anthony: Within weeks, the British punk explosion followed, ignited in part by what they had seen and heard that night. Joining the Ramones as regulars at CBGB in New York were Talking Heads, Television, Patti Smith, and Blondie

A bankrupt New York birthed a new music culture at CBGBs club

[00:12:42] Dave Anthony: In the Talking Heads episode, uh, Fred, New York City of this 1976, '77. , This is a city that's, , bankrupt. We talked about how the actual loss of industry,, how that opened up a whole art scene because these people could live cheaply in these warehouses in, [00:13:00] Lower Manhattan, that spawned a lot of these groups, obviously CBGB.

[00:13:05] Dave Anthony: , What was it like to go down there in that era?

[00:13:08] Fred Schruers: it was great..

What was CBCG's like? 

[00:13:10] Fred Schruers: If you took, uh, a regular 7-Eleven store, it was not much bigger than that, and the bathroom was in the back like in the 7-Eleven. And they didn't have a magnetometer to see if you were bringing a gun into the place. Nobody was bringing a gun into CBGB. Uh, there wasn't a velvet rope where some guy, some idiot was gonna tell you you're okay to go into CBGB.

[00:13:33] Fred Schruers: , It's a, a dark, noisy, sticky floors with beer room. If you go in the backstage, they really didn't want you there. Second of all, there's not enough seating. Third of all, your brain is completely fogged by the amount of stickers and graffiti on the wall. It's just a dense environment. Cram yourself in there.

[00:13:57] Fred Schruers: But then , maybe you're brave enough to get where [00:14:00] there might be a little spit flying and actually get down in a squat right in front of the stage, and Richard Hell is swinging his bass around, right? And you might get clocked, and it couldn't be more fun. You know? Joey Ramone is there. You know that stance? . But Joey Ramone is there belting it out , three feet from your head, and , Dee Dee is gonna fall over. You know, every band was excitement, There was a sense of belonging, , How did I get in this mood? You know?

What was it like to witness Blondie playing in the CBGB scene? 

[00:14:36] Dave Anthony: Tell us , , where Blondie sat in that, I'll call it the food chain of CBGB groupings of bands that included the Ramones, Talking Heads, uh, Television, Patti Smith. Where, what would sort of the position of Blondie be among all

[00:14:52] Fred Schruers: Well, that's, that's the right question because they are a little bit to the side.With the girl front person. So as [00:15:00] charismatic as Tom Verlaine might be, you know, in, in television, , if you wanna, , add a category. They were pop-ish. So I'd say they were, occupied the respected middle, you know?

[00:15:14] Dave Anthony: what was it like to see Blondie in that environment at CBGBs?

[00:15:18] Fred Schruers: Yeah. Well, first of all, you're not more than 30 feet from the band, and they're a little bit crowded in, which only makes her project more, 'cause in a way it's very democratizing. You don't have the drummer buried. He's five feet away, too. I thought .... i was hoping, "God, don't let her make eye contact with me," 'cause I'm a little bit afraid of her. I'm afraid that my eyes are bugged out, not at the sheer attractiveness.[00:15:56] I'm afraid that she's gonna zap me with her magic [00:16:00]charisma.

[00:16:00] Fred Schruers: That's how I think she made everyone in the room feel that way, and that still would work in an arena. So that's Debbie's secret, I think, and Chris knew enough to find that and bring it forward , Warhol was a huge influence, , he loved the punks, you know? He would be at Max's Kansas City all the time. Chris was saying to me as early on as that Rolling Stone piece, "We don't wanna go out and beat ourselves to death on the road. We're gonna use the media. The media is there begging to be used." So you had many little islands that formed a pretty interesting archipelago of we're still punks, and Blondie definitely still got all the respect.

[00:16:38] Fred Schruers: They got the Punk magazine and the Trouser Press coverage, just like any respectable, so to speak, punk band

Blondie leveraged film and cultural images to build a brand

[00:16:46] Dave Anthony: something that's very interesting there because Blondie is just as much a, phenomena as a musical one. How did the downtown art and film scene, you mentioned Warhol, you know, it shaped their band's aesthetic.

[00:16:58] Fred Schruers: Oh, sure. Platinum blonde [00:17:00] hair, you know, you're gonna go to an extreme. It doesn't hurt to have Marlene Dietrich cheekbones, , , she dressed for, for, you know, the punk scene rather tastefully, and I don't know if you wanna use the word discreetly, but she wasn't selling the body, so to speak, you know?

[00:17:17] Fred Schruers: .. It was choreographed to her, and Chris had style, And Jimmy Destri is pretty good-looking keyboardist who has a ton of skills and can already start to produce."

Blondie had excellent musicianship in its midst

[00:17:27] Fred Schruers: Jimmy would play synthesizer and pretty much give you what sound you wanted to replicate. So, , if you wanted a little bit of cheesy, almost Farfisa style organ, wanted something Dave Clark Five-y, he could do that on the synthesizer.[00:17:46] And they said, "This gives us a lot of room, elbow room sonically," because they always made pretty well layered records.

[00:17:55] Fred Schruers: and of course Clem was just a steady center. Clem, you to, to [00:18:00] say you can't talk about Blondie, it's like talking about The Who without Keith Moon, without talking about Clem.

[00:18:06] Fred Schruers: 'Cause obviously Keith Moon, Keith hit a lot of skin, right? He played a lot of notes. He played busily, but he played with power, and played with a heavy bottom sometimes, and great on the snare. Not exactly a guy riding the cymbals too delicately, but ultimately Clem a great powerful drummer.They were in the hands of very seasoned musicianly producers.

The first Blondie album in 1976 gets good reviews 

[00:18:43] Dave Anthony: Blondie December '76, their first album had Ex-Offender, the Flesh, . . [00:19:00]Rip Her to Shreds. The first release, got good reviews in the Rolling Stone magazine. And In the Flesh went to number two in Australia, their first commercial success, which kind of reinforces, uh, something we'll talk about later, , is how they were accepted overseas almost , , adopted by other countries even more so than the U.S.

What was Debbie Harry's image on-stage? 

[00:19:48] Dave Anthony What was Debbie Harry's on stage persona? Was Marilyn Monroe an influence, do you think?

[00:19:54] Fred Schruers: Yeah, I'm a little remote. I'm a little troubled. - She had an aura that [00:20:00]was unmistakable, and mystery was definitely a component, but she was also had kinda crafty little , funny one-liners, you know? So, , she could chatter just enough with the audience, and she would be flirty.. And in one-on-one personal interactions, she would've been embarrassed to be flirty, and part of it was the reserve. So just, she knew how to deploy her, her presence.

FAME STAGE FOR BLONDIE 

The second album features a #1 hit 

[00:20:35] Dave Anthony: The second album February 1978, Plastic Letters.I'm Always Touched by Your Presence, Dear, and Kidnapper. [00:21:00] why do you think they covered song, Denis? I mean, that's a 1963 song

[00:21:24] Fred Schruers: I, it makes me think of Claudine Longet, the French balladeer they had a liking for French pop. Uh, why? You know, I-

[00:21:43] Dave Anthony: wave, uh, film kinda like

[00:21:46] Fred Schruers: Yeah. Yeah, that was part of it, Chris was a little bit of an intellectual.

Debbie Harry and Chris Stein were sophisticated and intellectual

[00:21:49] Dave Anthony: . So they were pretty intellectual. I mean, we don't think of them in the same light as the Talking Heads, , who were the, , Rhode Island School of Design , but Blondie, I mean, you [00:22:00] talked about the depth of the, the thinking on these people. Like Chris was, was a smart dude. Debbie was smart no pushover. They were , how should I call it? Savvy as well.

[00:22:11] Fred Schruers: They were that. And if you think about Life During Wartime by the Talking Heads, you know, that's kind of why we're afraid to walk in the street. But if you think about Blondie making songs around that time, it was more no, no, come into the little boite, come into the little nightclub and watch Marlene Dietrich lay some tunes on you, you know?

[00:22:39] Fred Schruers: It was more an inner circle feeling to Blondie. So they were sort of everyone had them close to their chest as, uh, it's a little different than any other punkish band

The third album produces chart topping hits

[00:22:51] Speaker 2: Next, the band's hard work pays off as they release a chart-topping album and [00:23:00]singles

[00:23:03] Dave Anthony: the Parallel Lines album 1978, contained "Heart of Glass," " One Way or Another," " Hanging on the Telephone," " It was a massive breakthrough in the US and internationally. The album went to number one in the UK, number six in the US. "Heart of Glass" hits number one in both countries. "One [00:24:00] Way or Another" peaks at number one in the UK and number six in the US. , , UK seemed to be ahead of the US in terms of accepting this band and, and loving it?

Why did other countries discover and love Blondie before the US? 

[00:24:09] Fred Schruers: Yeah, they really were. Again, they're attuned to show business in a way I don't think we are. They're used to getting their music from America. Okay, they beat us to the, the glorification of the blues players who so deserved it,.

[00:24:23] Fred Schruers: They were quick to discover things first. And, uh, I think the band was now playing slightly roomier, uh, greater population halls over in England. So instead of playing to 75 people crammed into CBGB's, they could go do some larger venues. Here's the pretty girl, here's the band.

[00:24:44] Fred Schruers: Those songs you just named, which one of those is not a banger, right, of some sort? They are hugely appealing pop records. And here's a girl who sometimes she's Marlene Dietrich and sometimes she's Cherrelle's influence. And I remember [00:25:00] riding downtown in a limo to go to some photo shoot they were going to, and we passed a Broadway theater, and it's Ain't Misbehavin'.

[00:25:08] Fred Schruers: And she just rocks out Ain't Misbehavin' like, I don't know, uh, like a 75-year-old large, powerful, beautiful Black woman would sing Ain't Misbehavin', you know? I said, "Wow." ,

Was Debbie Harry's on-stage persona different from her offstage personality? 

[00:25:23] Dave Anthony: Did you get a sense when you hung out with them that Debbie was different on stage than she was in person? Like, was it a different person, different character?

[00:25:32] Fred Schruers: Not so much. I think she was authentically that thing. She'd already put her toe in the water as a commercial entity of some sort, and she was an also-ran. She's gonna be stage front, you

Debbie Harry pioneered an on-stage image followed by future female stars

[00:25:47] Dave Anthony: Debbie Harry didn't just create a look, she created one of the first fully self-aware pop identities of the modern music era. Emerging from the downtown New York scene around CBGBs in the mid-1970s, Debbie fused [00:26:00] together old Hollywood glamour, punk rebellion, pop art, thrift art fashion, underground film culture, and comic book exaggeration into something entirely new.

[00:26:11] Dave Anthony: The biggest visual influence was, as we said, Marilyn Monroe. The platinum blonde hair, the bombshell image, the idea of celebrity itself as performance. But Debbie added irony, danger, and New York street toughness. She wasn't trying to look natural. She was trying to look iconic. Her new blonde hairdo even inspired the name of her band.

[00:26:32] Dave Anthony: Truck drivers would routinely yell, "Hey, blondie," to her in the street. She took the term and empowering herself and her bandmates with it, suggesting it as the name of a fearless band that could conquer the charts. .

[00:26:45] Dave Anthony: Her band and romantic partner, Blondie guitarist Chris Stein, played a major role with her in shaping the band's visual identity through photography, art direction, and deep connections to underground art culture. Around them was the lingering influence of Andy Warhol and the factory scene, where image fame and artificiality were treated as art forms themselves. What made Debbie revolutionary was that she embraced glamour at a time when punk often rejected it. She took the language of celebrity, exaggerated it, and turned it into something both seductive and subversive.

[00:27:19] Dave Anthony: In many ways, Debbie Harry helped invent the modern blueprint for the female pop star, influencing artists from Madonna to Gwen Stefani to Lady Gaga, proving that image itself could be a form of artistic expression.

[00:27:34] Fred Schruers: To your point, um, yeah, they brought an era where if Joan Jett isn't 1,000 yards away from, from Debbie on stage, you know, uh, she was just a little more, "I'm gonna do this in a macho or macho way." Debbie was, "I'm gonna do this in a feminine way, but I will step on your hands if you get too close to my monitor," kind of way, yeah.

1979 album Eat to the Beat produced more chart topping hits

[00:27:59] Dave Anthony: the [00:28:00]1979, album, Eat to the Beat was where we talk about the Dreaming song. I mean, that song, like you said, was their early vision. It comes to life in this album, and, uh, that album hit number one in the UK, number 17 in the US. Single Dreaming hits number two in the UK. So this was kind of a key album, -- That song was huge

[00:28:36] Fred Schruers: Absolutely. Uh, and again, you feel the story, you feel a narrative, you know, perking underneath it pretty straightforwardly.

[00:28:45] Fred Schruers: So again, they meet, and they're both dreaming of something, which would be tour America, or don't tour America. Just use what we have going in the studio and in our image and do some crucial gigs and put [00:29:00] some videos out, She , knew how to be a front person, and the band was happy to yield that part of the stage to her. They're not gonna tuck her away.

Blondie puts out a disco-inpired hit Call Me in 1980 

[00:29:09] Dave Anthony: , Let's talk about February 1980. I mean, talk about, , putting out a hit. With the help of Giorgio Moroder, Moroder was the so-called father of disco. His work with analog synthesizers and drum machines on tracks like Donna Summer's '77 hit "I Feel Love" laid the foundational blueprint for modern house techno, synth pop, .

[00:29:38] Dave Anthony: And, , was asked to compose and produce the entire musical score for the 1980 film American Gigolo starring Richard Gere. And initially they went to Stevie Nicks to do the song "Call Me," she apparently didn't like the, the lyrics at the time. They were very sexual. And they approached Debbie, and she [00:30:00]said, "We'll do it," and away they went, and she actually contributed to the lyrics of that.: That's the unknown story that I did some research on

[00:30:07] Fred Schruers: I'm interested to hear all that, yeah.

[00:30:09] Dave Anthony: it was not a finished song. Like, Moroder had other lyrics, and Debbie said, "These are too literal. Like, we can make them better

[00:30:16] Fred Schruers: That's a really smart call on her part and absolutely fits into the sort of portrait we're building of her, which is, I know enough to show some attraction, but I'm not gonna sell it to you cheaply. You figure me out. I'll be a little bit of a mystery. Call Me and that movie summed up an era of, I don't know, self-glorification, but, uh, also a sort of deadliness lurking in the urban elites.

[00:30:59] Fred Schruers: , It was just the right time at the right place, and of course, by then they'd been to all the fancy discos. They saw the response of the people in the disco.

[00:31:07] Dave Anthony: Next, Blondie. proves its experimental side and introduces the first incidences of rap music to mainstream audiences-

Blondie brings hip-hop to a mass audience

[00:31:28] Dave Anthony: it's interesting how, this band Blondie Using , the November 80 album, where they start to do The Tide Is High, Rapture, , , [00:32:00] The Tide Is High, which is obviously a rock steady cover from a Jamaican group,

[00:32:15] Fred Schruers: Yeah

[00:32:16] Dave Anthony: The Paragons that did it in 1967.

[00:32:29] Dave Anthony: Blondie was so open to other styles. They didn't stick in the power pop world. They didn't stick in one genre, and they were pioneers in that sense, and I'm sure you probably saw it firsthand. I mean, they put out the first rap song to a mass audience, , But what I was gonna say was, and ask you, who was the architect of that thinking?Was it Chris? Was it Debbie? Who sort of said, "We're open to incorporating all these other reggae, hip-hop..."

[00:32:55] Fred Schruers: R- rap, sure. Yeah. The, it's amazing, but the [00:33:00] mainstream radio, FM or AM certainly,, it was alien to them, and, uh, middle class America was really afraid of that, and mass American culture was afraid of that. So here you, they just slid that in. And, , it showed the verbal facility. But Debbie knew. . She, they just had a sense, we can get under people's skins with this. and Chris was smart enough to go with that. Jimmy, he had an adaptability, at that stage, for sure, there was never a ton of jealousy in the band. They realized they could bootstrap each other i- in a really helpful way. And then it's just bewitching to hear coming out of your car radio, like, "Listen to her. She talks like an auctioneer."

[00:33:59] is

[00:33:59] Dave Anthony: been the [00:34:00] first

[00:34:00] Fred Schruers: common.

[00:34:00] Dave Anthony: white audiences would've heard that.

[00:34:02] Fred Schruers: I really think so. Yeah.

PERSONALITIES OF BLONDIE 

A description of Chris Stein's personality

[00:34:05] Dave Anthony: Give us five words to describe Debbie Harry and Chris Stein,

[00:34:08] Fred Schruers: Okay. Chris. Brooding, intelligent, plainspoken. In place of plainspoken, I'd say frank perhaps. Breezy, and nobody's fool. . 

A description of Debbie Harry's personality

Debbie. Nobody's fool. Conveys an intimacy that's not about you, but about how observant she is. I would say observant. She reads the room. She reads whoever she's talking to.

[00:34:41] Fred Schruers: So I would say there's something like canny in there. Pleasant. I have to say pleasant. ... You could ask her a pretty dumb question and she goes, "Oh, I don't know about that." You know? But then she would give you some sort of an answer. So maybe cordial is the word. I said [00:35:00]magnetic, so charismatic is 

sort of gilding the lily, and I would also say gifted.

[00:35:04] Fred Schruers: She, she was born for this, and she had the sense to realize it. So that's a gift.

THE DECLINE OF BLONDIE BEGINS 

1982 Album Hunter was poorly received 

[00:35:10] Dave Anthony: The Blondie album that was poorly received, 1982's The Hunter. It has a couple songs, "Warchild," " and Island of Lost Souls."

Blondie's financial troubles emerge as a major challenge 

[00:35:37] Dave Anthony: Next, the world of Blondie comes crashing down with a series of incidences related to economics and a mysterious disease that strikes a key member of the band [00:36:01] By the early 1980s, Blondie were financially strained despite global success.

[00:36:06] Dave Anthony: Much of this came down to the way the music industry worked at the time. Record labels would advance money for recording, touring, and promotion, but then recoup those costs from the band's earnings before the artist saw significant profit. So even hit records didn't always translate into immediate personal income. Blondie were at their commercial peak, but Debbie Harry and Chris Stein have both described the pressures of fame, touring, and burnout in the New York scene.

[00:36:32] Dave Anthony: for example, in the 1978 to '82 stretch, they released five albums in five years. On the road, that output translated into multiple near-continuous touring cycles, effectively a major tour tied to each album, including extensive U.S.,

[00:36:48] Dave Anthony: UK, European, and global runs during their peak years, especially 1979-80 after Heart of Glass and Parallel Lines broke them worldwide. So in practical terms, it was [00:37:00] roughly five albums and four to five major touring pushes in about four years, which is why Burnout became such a defining part of the band's story by the early 1980s.

Drug addictions of Debbie and Chris plague Blondie 

[00:37:11] Dave Anthony: Debbie Harry and Chris Stein described periods of heavy heroin use tied to the burnout . Chris has described the pair at this point as functioning addicts. They eventually entered treatment in the mid-1980s and got clean. at the height of Blondie's success, , 

Chris has a life threatening infection that affects the band's continuity

[00:37:46] Dave Anthony: The early '80s, Chris hospitalized for three months with something called pemphigus vulgaris, a rare, potentially fatal autoimmune disease that causes severe blistering. And the illness forced the band to go on extended hiatus while his partner Debbie put her own career on hold .

Debbie had to nurse Chris back to health

[00:37:46] Dave Anthony: . i couldn't believe it, like how much she had to nurse him back to health.... And then they had to deal with bankruptcy. I mean, do you have any insights on all that?

[00:37:54] Fred Schruers: Just to this extent. , First I have to say, you gotta admire the loyalty, right?, That was [00:38:00] stand-up performance by her. And, you know, you see the love. So first of all, kudos to Debbie.

[00:38:06] Fred Schruers: Without Chris, you know, Debbie was a little rootless because he was the one who would go say to the, say, "No, we're gonna stay till midnight and we're gonna get this," right? "And we're gonna pay three times union rate for the engineers to hang around because we're gonna make this happen."

[00:38:23] Fred Schruers: He was the make it happen guy.

[00:38:26] Fred Schruers: So my insight is just, it makes their story so human, uh, that she would give up her time.

[00:38:34] Fred Schruers: So it's a story. What became his not so raw ambition, but, you know, a convincing desire to make it, lasted, and it lasted out of plain old human love.

Debbie and Chris are bankrupted by lack of royalties and medical bills

[00:38:47] Dave Anthony: And then basically they went through bankruptcy. They couldn't afford medical bills. She's nursing him. They didn't have any money. I mean, the whole thing just crashed down on them. and yet you're right, she [00:39:00] showed that loyalty in nursing him back to health. Just an incredible story. I mean, that should be a movie

[00:39:04] Fred Schruers: It really should because, , her story is a pretty cool story.

The Blondie comeback of 1999

[00:39:09] Dave Anthony: . It's interesting that this group comes back with a reunion album with four original members, Chris Stein, Jimmy Destri, Clem Burke.

[00:39:21] Fred Schruers: Yeah

[00:39:22] Dave Anthony: in February '99, they come out with No Exit, and "Maria" becomes a hit for them, number one in the UK, , their sixth number one in the UK.

[00:39:31] Dave Anthony: My goodness, they've had one in three different decades. , That was a huge hit

[00:39:54] Fred Schruers: I'm really glad you, you bring that up because it'd been 20 years, just about [00:40:00]20 years since they were effectively in the marketplace or had been in the studio in a really productive way. I was just listening to, uh, that song again this morning. It's so layered. It's so smartly engineered and produced. There's plenty of information at every sonic level, and yet it's very poppy, pop rocky. They just blended it into this irresistible pop hit. So again, that was a ballsy effort, and, uh, produced just the intended effect. It was a, a high point for sure

THE LEGACY OF BLONDIE

[00:40:33] Dave Anthony: the legacy of this band, their influence stretches across, new wave, modern pop, probably how to package a group in terms of what you said earlier, their savvy, their media-savvy ways. : What do you think their most overlooked contribution to, to rock history is?

Debbie Harry was a compelling front woman

[00:40:52] Fred Schruers: I think they showed that if you have a compelling front person and [00:41:00]you have musicians tuned in enough to the entire band's thrust and image to make that front person stand out without dominating too much, thus the phrase Blondie is a band. That, you knew that came straight out of Chris and Debbie to the marketing department.

[00:41:18] Fred Schruers: . Blondie is a band. Yes. And don't mess with our sister, you know. Don't make her an ornament. Don't make her a, a, some kind of cheap imaginary incel date. She's a fully fledged songwriter musician. This is her husband sometimes, who,, totally believes in her. When you know you've got a locomotive of a front person,

[00:41:46] Fred Schruers: You feature that. And any band can learn from that

The similarity of Pat Benatar to Debbie and Neil Giraldo to Chris

[00:41:49] Dave Anthony: Oh, sure. I wonder if it influenced Pat Benatar and Neil Giraldo, Benatar was, uh, sort of a well-packaged front person relative , you know, videos loved her, and then Neil was the [00:42:00] guitar hero guy, and that seems to almost be a model based on Blondie  oh, sure. in fact, they were on the road with the Blondies,

GUEST MUSIC PICKS: FRED SCHRUERS

[00:42:17] Dave Anthony: Fred give us a hit you still love of Blondie and maybe a deeper cut we should listen to for our homework

[00:42:23] Fred Schruers: Yeah. Well, the one I now wanna look up, and I will report to you and send it to you, I'm Gonna Love You Too by Buddy Holly. I think I can find a live rendition of that maybe. . So I'm fascinated to hear that.

[00:42:49] Fred Schruers: Uh, you know, my- I bug my wife. Sometimes I'll be singing Rip It To Shreds while I'm doing the dishes. She goes ... -

[00:42:59] Dave Anthony: off, that's off the [00:43:00] first album

[00:43:01] Fred Schruers: Yeah, I know. Oh, I played that album. It... Talk about wearing out your vinyl. Uh, you know, " Here she comes now. You know her, Miss Groupie Supreme." So that's autobiographical. They don't want, they saw some chick at CBGBs probably talking to Chris.

[00:43:29] Fred Schruers: Excuse the use of the term ch- chick. I'd like to just be riding along on a long drive and listen to In the Flesh, and listen to her croon that, you know. There's an erotic element to her performances,

[00:43:51] Fred Schruers: you feel a depth of eroticism. So I think In the Flesh might reward in the right mood,

[00:43:59] Dave Anthony: today we've [00:44:00] been talking to Fred Schruers. , . On the beat and following the scene at CBGB's, at Rolling Stone, , and wrote a book on Blondie, which is a telling tale of their early days, and hints at a lot of the things we talked about today, which is how these, group of people became massive stars, packaged their brand, and ultimately combined the, , incredible innovations across a bunch of different genres with the packaging of,, an amazing frontwoman, a guitar man that, , formed their own partnership within that that's quite compelling. you for being on the show today.

[00:44:38] FRED: My pleasure. Uh, great questions as always, Dave. Thank you

CLOSING NOTES ON BLONDIE 

[00:44:42] Dave Anthony: Some closing notes

[00:44:45] Dave Anthony: . With the 1980 single "Rapture," Blondie introduced the emerging genre of hip-hop to 

mainstream rock audiences, making it one of the first rap-influenced songs to hit number one on the US charts, and eventually leading to the changing of music [00:45:00] forever.

[00:45:02] Dave Anthony: . One of Debbie Harry's most personal journeys ended quietly. After finding her biological mother, a concert pianist, in the late 1980s, she learned that no relationship would follow. Harry accepted it with characteristic pragmatism. I really just wanted to see what they look like, but whatever her reasons to not want a connection, I have to respect that and be empathetic."

[00:45:24] Dave Anthony: Blondie had four number one hits on the US Billboard Hot 100: Heart of Glass, 1979; Call Me in 1980; 1981's The Tide is High; and Rapture, also 1981. They did even better in the UK, where they had six number ones, which we discussed in the episode how they caught on in the UK prior to their US success

[00:45:47] Dave Anthony: before they became Blondie, the band began as The Angel and the Snake, a bohemian downtown project from Chris Stein and Debbie Harry. The name changed when street catcalls of, "Hey, [00:46:00] Blondie," followed Debbie Harry everywhere, and instead of rejecting it, they turned it into their identity.

[00:46:06] Dave Anthony: Blondie's biggest global hit, Call Me, was never on a Blondie album. Written by Giorgio Moroder and Debbie Harry. for the movie American Gigolo starring Richard Gere, it became a defining anthem of the era and only appeared on the movie's soundtrack.

[00:46:25] Dave Anthony: Blondie's breakthrough didn't come in New York or London, it came in Australia. A TV show in that country called Countdown accidentally played their video from the song In the Flesh, which was the B-side of the Blondie single Ex-Offender, and overnight, a band still unknown at home found its first wave of real momentum

[00:46:47] Dave Anthony: debbie Harry began using Deborah as her professional first name in 1983 to coincide with her acting career. After almost landing the role of the female lead in the movie [00:47:00] 1982's Blade Runner, she appeared in 1983 in David Cronenberg's cult classic Videodrome. She played Nicki Brand, a provocative psychotherapist and radio host

[00:47:11] Dave Anthony: who becomes romantically entangled with a character played by James Woods, and draws him into a nightmarish world of mind control and hallucinations

[00:47:21] Dave Anthony: In 1999, Deborah Harry made chart history, becoming the oldest female artist at the time to reach number one in the UK with single " Maria. A late-career reminder of Blondie's long reach across generations. In fact, they had number-one hits in each of the 1970s, '80s, and '90s.

[00:47:40] Dave Anthony: Deborah Harry was also listed as one of People Magazine's 100 Most Beautiful People in the World over 60. - . The list came out in May 2007

[00:47:50] Dave Anthony: - Blondie's song Rapture containing the hip-hop interlude sung by Debbie Harry didn't just top charts, it crossed genres. Members of the hip-hop collective [00:48:00]Wu-Tang Clan later cited it as their first exposure to rap.

[00:48:05] Dave Anthony: John Lennon was an earlier admirer of Blondie's sound, especially the electronic edge of Heart of Glass, which he reportedly praised and suggested as a direction for Ringo Starr's next album. The admiration ran both ways. Blondie returned the nod on their nineteen eighty-two album, The Hunter, in their song English Boys, recalling in the lyrics of the song, quote, "When I was seventeen, I saw them in a magazine, the English boys with the long hair," unquote.

[00:48:35] Dave Anthony: Blondie's hit One Way or Another came from a dark real-life experience. . Deborah Harry wrote the lyrics after dealing with a stalker ex-boyfriend, admitting that she used humor in the lyrics as a way to cope and move forward. Bandmate Nigel Harrison created the song's sound as a surf song gone wrong, and Deborah added the famous phrase, "Gonna get you, get you, get you, get [00:49:00]you."

[00:49:00] Dave Anthony: Deborah Harry claimed in her autobiography entitled Face It that she was nearly abducted by serial killer Ted Bundy, but was able to escape his car after he lured her into it. Based on her location of New York City, crime experts have expressed doubt that it was likely Bundy, but it has never been officially disproven.

[00:49:19] Dave Anthony: Decades after their initial breakthrough, Blondie's 2017 album, Pollinator, reaffirmed a core part of their identity: a constant openness to new sounds. On the record, they reentered the modern pop landscape by collaborating with a new generation of artists, including Sia, who sang Titanium and Chandelier, Charli XCX of Boom Clap fame, and British singer-producer Dev Hynes, who's also known as Blood Orange.

[00:49:48] Dave Anthony: If you're the blushing, pearl-clutching type, please turn down the sound for this next risque item. Here it is. Both Chris Stein and Debbie Harry have [00:50:00]commented in their memoirs about an event that occurred during their 1977 tour with David Bowie and Iggy Pop. According to both Debbie and Chris, Bowie bluntly propositioned Debbie backstage, exposing himself and asking Debbie, quote, "Can I sleep with you?"

[00:50:16] Dave Anthony: Debbie famously shot back with a cheeky grammatical quip, "I don't know. Can you?" One of the most famous and grammatically correct rejections in rock history.

[00:50:28] Dave Anthony: We talked about Blondie's willingness to borrow from all kinds of musical styles. One of their biggest hits has a surprising source of While the song Dreaming sounds like a high-speed new wave anthem powered by Blondie drummer Clem Burke's explosive drumming, co-writer Chris Stein later admitted it was pretty much a copy of ABBA's Dancing Queen. Proof that Blondie could transform even disco into something entirely their own special thanks to our guest today,

[00:50:58] Dave Anthony: Fred Schruers,

Closing Credits

[00:50:59] Dave Anthony: former Rolling [00:51:00] Stone magazine staff writer follow us on Instagram, X, and other social platforms for daily music history insights delivered straight to your feed. And follow us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube to stay up to date when our new episodes drop. Thanks to our production crew, Scott Campbell, Chad Raymond, Amelia Madea, and Nigel Campbell. I'm Dave Anthony. Thanks for listening. Join us next time for another Garage to Stadium story

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