Blondie had planned to release a John Congleton-produced new album, the follow-up to 2017’s Pollinator, this year, but those plans were put on hold when drummer Clem Burke passed away in April. Debbie Harry and Chris Stein talked to NME about the band’s future in a new interview that also promotes the new deluxe reissue of 1999’s No Exit that arrives on Halloween. Asked by NME when the album would arrive, Stein said, “We thought it was going to arrive at the end of this year, in the last quarter, but now it’s moved to next year. I think it’ll maybe be in the first or second quarter of next year. But the sound? I like it.”
“You like it? I like it too!,” Harry added. “I think that it’s a traditional Blondie composite of sounds and styles of music. That’s a format we’ve stuck with from the get-go. Over the years we’ve gotten better and better at it, and we’ve also taken a few outside tracks from outside artists. We have a track from Johnny Marr, and we have one from Glen [Matlock] too. Chris did a lot of writing for this one, and I did a lot of lyrics.”
“The lyrics are terrific,” Stein added. “It’s very, it’s great, sophisticated, mature, and also accessible.”
NME also asked Harry if she’d return to the stage as Blondie. “Well it was Chris, Clem and myself who were the only original members doing live shows,” she said. “We just lost Clem, and Chris isn’t playing anymore… but maybe that could change.”
She continued:
Essentially, I don’t know. I’ve never liked it when there was just one original member performing and everybody else there is a stand-in. [That said,] the guys I’ve been working with until this last tour are terrific. I’ve been working with them for at least five years in most cases, and it’s been a privilege to work with [Sex Pistols’] Glen Matlock, but I just feel like they deserve more of the identity somehow.
Maybe if I were to rename whatever version it is using Blondie as an umbrella term… like ‘Blondie Presents’ I’d be tempted. But, I just don’t feel comfortable marching out on stage without my original guys and calling it Blondie. It doesn’t make sense to me.
Harry also told NME, “When it comes to another Blondie album [after this upcoming LP], I think it’s probably the same thing that I said about doing shows, maybe it would be ‘Blondie Presents’ or something like that. I haven’t really ironed it out yet…”
Later in the interview, NME asked Harry and Stein about their recent musical inspirations. “I like a lot of modern pop music right now,” Stein said. “I really like Doja Cat, and ‘Espresso’ by Sabrina Carpenter I’ve been playing to death. I get caught up in all that stuff, but then I also listen to more weird, obscure stuff. There’s Napalm Death and Slipknot, and Amyl And The Sniffers who are some of my favourites. It’s pretty broad, the stuff I’m listening to.”
“I still really like listening to rock,” Harry told NME. “I’m not listening to pop music so much these days, although I have to say that there is a lot of really incredible stuff around. But for me, there’s something I like about the roughness of rock. Pop stuff is clean and clear and perfect, but I like the animal version of rock n’ roll. I think my appetite for that was always cured by being on stage and doing live shows because it’s rougher.”
Read the interview in full on NME.
Pick up the deluxe reissue of No Exit and Blondie action figures in the BV shop.