The Pretenders will release their next album, titled Relentless on September 21st. The band has already dropped the album's first single, “Let The Sun Come In” and will kick off its European tour tonight (May 12th) in Brighton, England at the Great Escape Festival. North American fans will have to wait until October 1st to catch the band when the play the Ohana Festival in Dana Point, California.
2020 saw the release of the Pretenders' most recent album, the critically acclaimed Hate For Sale.
Leader Chrissie Hynde maintains that keeping music authentic and scaled back is really the only way it works for her: “I don’t like it when you listen to a track and you don’t hear two guitars, bass and drums. And maybe keyboards. I don’t like when you can’t tell what you’re hearing anymore. Although that happens a lot, obviously. But when there gets to be too much stuff on there, and you can’t tell what’s going on anymore.”
Hynde has never been easily impressed with the pomp and circumstance of the music industry. She admitted to us that she was actually embarrassed when the Pretenders were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame back in 2005: “I know everyone says it's a great honor and everything, but, y'know, I got in a rock band so I'd never have to be in any kind of hall of fame. So it actually didn't go down very well with me, but that's just me. I'm not trying to be a household name or anything. I don't want to be in the mainstream.”