Great Pretender -- Chrissie Hynde Is Rock's Coolest Woman, But Don't Call Her That

Concert preview

Pretenders, 8 p.m. Wednesday, Moore Theatre ($15; 628-0888). ----------------------------------------------------------------- NEW YORK - Don't call Chrissie Hynde a feminist. Or even a woman.

"I'm a chick," she announces testily during an interview in the conference room of her record company, Warner Bros. "Just this morning, I talked to a girlfriend for over half an hour about cosmetics. I'm cliched right down the line. I couldn't give a damn about women as an issue."

Oh yeah? Then why does she sing about the subject so much, and in such righteous terms? On "Last of the Independents," her terrific new album (her first in four years, her best in 10) with her band, the Pretenders, Hynde rails against men and the belittling of motherhood on the song "Mother"; turns green with envy over male privilege in "Every Mother's Son," and sneers about how men view sex as "five minutes of feel" in "Money Talk."

"They're just pop songs," she shrugs, "something to drive your car to."

Welcome to the wonderful, contradictory world of Chrissie Hynde.

Serious, or just pretending to be?

Talking to Hynde - who, at 43, still ranks as the coolest woman . . . sorry, chick . . . in rock 'n' roll - it's hard to tell which statements she makes in earnest and which she employs for confrontational effect. She's media-savvy enough to announce at one point: "I want to give you quotes no one else gets. Otherwise, I wind up looking like a bore.

"I'm a pretty likable person when it comes down to it," she smiles after the arctic-thick ice is finally broken. "I have a terrible reputation, though."

Not as a singer, songwriter or performer she doesn't. When she released her first album with the Pretenders in 1979, Hynde's quavering voice, cutting guitar work and ear-catching melodies instantly won over critics and the masses. "The Pretenders" went Top 10 and its single "Brass in Pocket" went to No. 14 in the U.S. at a time when British punk - the music scene Hynde rose out of - all but guaranteed commercial suicide in the states. Hynde managed to sail on to mainstream album-oriented rock and pop playlists, buoyed by her classic-rock song structures and supercool persona. With her arch swagger, formidable bangs and a hint of the young Keith Richards, Hynde epitomized the androgynous rock hipster, marrying the image of the carefree boy to that of the worldly woman; she created herself as the self-assured artist with a bitchy wit.

Then tragedy threw her band, and her future, in jeopardy. Two of the four Pretenders died of drug overdoses: guitarist James Honeyman Scott in 1982, bassist Pete Farndon, who had also been Hynde's boyfriend, the following year.

"I was traumatized, struggling through my life," Hynde now says of that time.

In 1984, she managed to come back with one of her strongest albums, "Learning to Crawl," but she has pulled back sharply from the spotlight since. Hynde has released only three albums since '84 and has not toured since '87. Her 17-city tour that began last week brings her to Seattle and the Moore Theatre on Wednesday.

If she missed the time away from the limelight, Hynde won't admit it. "I've been busy," she snaps.

That business amounted to rearing two daughters, now 9 and 11. Though Hynde banishes details of her family from the press ("Not one hair on their heads is open to the public. I don't even want the media to know their names"), she frequently alludes to them in interviews, as well as in her always autobiographical lyrics. She named "Learning to Crawl" for the baby steps of her first daughter, the product of a short-lived relationship with the Kinks' Ray Davies. Her second child was with Jim Kerr, leader of Simple Minds, whom she married in '84, then divorced in '89.

She says she's still close with her ex-husband. "I know whatever happens I can always go to him," she says warmly.

Vegetables, not politics

Despite her fairly relentless gender politics, Hynde insists: "I've never been political."

So where does that leave her role as one of the vocal vegetarians who once boasted facetiously of having firebombed a McDonald's? "Vegetarianism has nothing to do with politics," she says icily. "It's a spiritual movement."

Hynde's lack of interest in advancing any political or social agenda no doubt stems in part from the realization that in the last few years she has come to be regarded as a sort of distaff Sting - the politically correct queen of rock. She now seems to have declared war on that. "A lot of my political views would shock people," she says eagerly. "I'm for capital punishment."

And the last thing she wants is for anyone to think she's a role model for female rockers: "I don't want to be a figure in the establishment to lead others."

The suggestion that she ranks as one of the world's most underrated rhythm guitarists makes no dent in her modesty. "I think I'm overrated," she fires back. "I do the job. But no one could accuse me of being a great musician. I have some idea what the dots on the guitar neck signify. From there, I wing it."