Speaker 1: What would be your last meal? Jeez ah mm hmm ah, Peter,
Speaker 1: I love you said that like a revelation. It's kind
Speaker 1: of what I imagine Blondie eating, Like, let's go get
Speaker 1: a slice, like in between the branding cool songs, Let's
Speaker 1: get a slice like that's let's say that's actually perfect.
Speaker 1: That's that's it. Hello, I'm Mini Driver. Welcome to the
Speaker 1: premiere of Many Questions, Season two. I'm so glad you're here,
Speaker 1: and if you're new to this show, let me fill
Speaker 1: you in. I've always loved Pruce's questionnaire. It was originally
Speaker 1: a nineteenth century parlor game where players would ask each
Speaker 1: other thirty five questions aimed at revealing the other player's
Speaker 1: true nature. It's just the scientific method really. In asking
Speaker 1: different people the same set of questions, you can make
Speaker 1: observations about which truths appeared to be universal. I love
Speaker 1: this discipline, and it made me wonder, what if these
Speaker 1: questions were just the jumping off point, what greater depths
Speaker 1: would be revealed if I asked these questions as conversation
Speaker 1: starters with thought leaders and trailblazers across all these different disciplines.
Speaker 1: So I started this podcast because I wanted to put
Speaker 1: together a kind of cultural anthology where I invite you
Speaker 1: to explore the questions I think we've all been asking
Speaker 1: ourselves lately. How are we similar? How are we individual?
Speaker 1: Which commonalities surprise us? And why? So? I adapted prus
Speaker 1: questionnaire and I wrote my own seven questions that I
Speaker 1: personally think a pertinent to a person's story. They are
Speaker 1: when and where were you happiest? What is the quality
Speaker 1: you like least about yourself? What relationship, real or fictionalized,
Speaker 1: defines love for you? What question would you most like answered,
Speaker 1: What person, place, or experience has shaped you the most?
Speaker 1: What would be your last meal? And can you tell
Speaker 1: me some thing in your life that's grown out of
Speaker 1: a personal disaster? And I've gathered a group of really
Speaker 1: remarkable people, ones that I am honored and humbled to
Speaker 1: have had the chance to engage with. You may not
Speaker 1: hear their answers to all seven of these questions. We've
Speaker 1: whittled it down to which questions felt closest to their
Speaker 1: experience or the most surprising, or created the most fertile
Speaker 1: ground to connect. And I'm starting season two with legendary
Speaker 1: lead singer of the band Blondie Debbie Harry. We don't
Speaker 1: usually use one of the seven questions as the episode opening,
Speaker 1: but because Debbie is such a rule breaker, I figured
Speaker 1: it was only right to break a rule in her episode.
Speaker 1: I've always felt like Blondie and the Ramones and the
Speaker 1: New York Dolls were this super creative scream in the
Speaker 1: face of corporate rock. And Debbie herself has always felt
Speaker 1: to me to be part of the vanguard of cultural engagement.
Speaker 1: She is a elective soul and a straight shooter of
Speaker 1: the best New Jersey variety. And as usual, it was
Speaker 1: a privilege to have spoken with a person who has
Speaker 1: helped shake the cultural conversation so specifically. So the first
Speaker 1: question is where and when were you happiest. Oh, well,
Speaker 1: I think that I was happiest in the early days
Speaker 1: of Blondie. I probably didn't really know how happy I was,
Speaker 1: but I was very happy. It was a brave new world,
Speaker 1: and I was struggling, you know, climbing and learning and working,
Speaker 1: and it was quite of wonderful. And the reason I
Speaker 1: know this is because when they flew the planes into
Speaker 1: the Twin Towers, I went through the series of anger,
Speaker 1: of grief, of this and of that, and one day,
Speaker 1: I was just sort of laying there on the couch
Speaker 1: and I thought, oh my god, I wish it was
Speaker 1: the seventies again, and the tremendous feeling came over me
Speaker 1: about how that was a great, wonderful time for me.
Speaker 1: So I look at that as being happy. Do you
Speaker 1: think it's because you guys were part of that van
Speaker 1: god of that New York scene, that whole music movement
Speaker 1: that happened. Were you aware of just being at the
Speaker 1: forefront of something and creating it or were you just
Speaker 1: too busy being in that whole music scene, in the
Speaker 1: club scene that you didn't realize that you were at
Speaker 1: the forefront. Oh, I don't think we've thought of ourselves
Speaker 1: as being at the forefront. You know, it was a
Speaker 1: very creative period for us, and we were Dare Devils,
Speaker 1: and you know, we thought that we were Dare Devils.
Speaker 1: I don't know. The scene was very energetic and there
Speaker 1: was really nothing of value. None of us had record
Speaker 1: deals or anything like that. We're all scrambling and scuttling
Speaker 1: around like, you know, a little vermin. But you know,
Speaker 1: it was very creative. So we fed off each other's
Speaker 1: creativity and it was you know, this sort of one
Speaker 1: optmanship as much as you know, we could figure out
Speaker 1: how to do and it was a spirited I guess
Speaker 1: is the best way, you know how people do in
Speaker 1: music today, there are so many collaborations, like you'll have
Speaker 1: all these people doing guest vocals on other people's tracks.
Speaker 1: Was there a lot of collaboration that that we didn't
Speaker 1: necessarily get to hear that wasn't necessarily recorded, Like do
Speaker 1: you remember playing and writing or recording with other people
Speaker 1: that it was never really for public consumption. The time
Speaker 1: that I was thinking, I was really kind of before
Speaker 1: we do any recording, serious recording. I mean later on
Speaker 1: I sang on something of the Ramones. I think I'm
Speaker 1: probably the only the only female to saying on a
Speaker 1: Ramon's record. Then I did something with d D when
Speaker 1: DD did his rap Invasion. I remember I am definitely
Speaker 1: going to listen to that tonight, D D King D
Speaker 1: D King. So there was some of that, but that
Speaker 1: that sort of came around later. But I think in
Speaker 1: the early days people were just maybe swapping back and
Speaker 1: forth musician and more than performing officially. Um you know,
Speaker 1: like for a while, television's current bass player Fred Smith
Speaker 1: was my bass player, you know, and then Richard Hell
Speaker 1: broke off and formed the void OIDs and Walter Lore
Speaker 1: was playing with the void OIDs, or when he was
Speaker 1: playing with Johnny Thunders. You know, there was sort of
Speaker 1: this period of time when people were establishing who they were.
Speaker 1: So I think that that there's sort of an era
Speaker 1: that nobody really knows about that much. It was never
Speaker 1: officially recorded, maybe it was or something, I don't know.
Speaker 1: Do you think that it was freedom from any kind
Speaker 1: of pressure that he was just creating in a vacuum
Speaker 1: outside of like a record label expectation or numbers or
Speaker 1: money or anything, that that was really sort of unadulterated happiness,
Speaker 1: for you is sort of unencumbered creativity. Yeah. I mean
Speaker 1: we all had the goals and high aspirations of playing
Speaker 1: for thousands and thousands in arenas, and of course, you know,
Speaker 1: any buddy who joins a rock band has that dream.
Speaker 1: You know, that that's really where they all want to go.
Speaker 1: Very few want to just stay in the clubs. I've
Speaker 1: always felt out was the underpinnings of it all. So
Speaker 1: what relationship, real or fictionalized, defines love for you? My
Speaker 1: relationship with Chris is definitely a big big love in
Speaker 1: my life Chris Stein, guitarist and Blondie. Yeah. Yeah, It's
Speaker 1: gone through so many different stages and different kinds of love.
Speaker 1: So I would say that, you know, since I've had
Speaker 1: intimacy with him and working relationship and a great friendship
Speaker 1: for all these years, I think he's the only person
Speaker 1: in my life that I can honestly say that about. Well,
Speaker 1: that you basically went through the scope of a whole
Speaker 1: relationship with one person. It is kind of amazing. It's
Speaker 1: hard to be friends with excellent us. You have to
Speaker 1: work on it. You know, it's work, and I mean
Speaker 1: having a great love relationship is work and sacrifice and
Speaker 1: being flexible. And that's really what happens, isn't it did
Speaker 1: do all of the different permutations of love? Did that
Speaker 1: always feed the kind of creative cabal that you guys had,
Speaker 1: even if you guys were not getting along, Did it
Speaker 1: always somehow feed the creativity? Well, we always had a
Speaker 1: very easy communication with one another. I always knew what
Speaker 1: he was saying. I always understood him. He of course
Speaker 1: is capable of understanding anything. I mean, he's really really
Speaker 1: smart person. So I think that, as you know, in acting,
Speaker 1: it's about listening and hearing. We could hear each other.
Speaker 1: That was a big part of it from the very beginning.
Speaker 1: Like how old you and you met him? Oh I
Speaker 1: was old. I was twenty seven seven. Yeah, oh I
Speaker 1: love seven. I loved Wow, you were twenty seven when
Speaker 1: you met him, and like we're right from the offset
Speaker 1: was immediate, like not just like immediately falling in love,
Speaker 1: but an immediate recognition that this person was was kind
Speaker 1: of it. No, we were sort of friends before we
Speaker 1: got intimate, and we met through music. He came to
Speaker 1: one of my very early shows, and then within the
Speaker 1: next two weeks he replaced one of our backing musicians,
Speaker 1: and then you know, we worked together in that format
Speaker 1: for a while, and then we went off on our
Speaker 1: own because we wanted to do something that was less
Speaker 1: cabaret and more rock. That was that I love it,
Speaker 1: and that was that, Like it's an iconic relationship, and
Speaker 1: that was that, Like Parallel Lines was the first record
Speaker 1: I ever bought with my own money when I was
Speaker 1: nine years old. And the fact that your friendship has
Speaker 1: lasted through the whole course of my life, like that
Speaker 1: makes me feel that makes me feel good about the world.
Speaker 1: Thank you. That's very nice, it's very generous. Well, it's
Speaker 1: pretty true. There's only one record that you buy first,
Speaker 1: like it stays in your brain and your heart. I'm
Speaker 1: so old that it's it was forty five. It was
Speaker 1: a single. What wasn't it? Uh, that's Domino. I think
Speaker 1: Blueberry Hill or something like that. But I used to
Speaker 1: buy forty five as well. Yeah, forty five was fun
Speaker 1: an LP, like you had to save up for an
Speaker 1: LP right in England, that's what an album was going. Okay, yeah,
Speaker 1: what quality do you like least about yourself? Oh? Well,
Speaker 1: I've been working on that I have. It's funny you
Speaker 1: should ask that, you know. I think I used to
Speaker 1: if I was backed up again into the wall or
Speaker 1: something and I felt threatened or paranoid or afraid, I
Speaker 1: would react with anger and it was an inappropriate reaction.
Speaker 1: And so I try not to do that anymore. I'm
Speaker 1: very very aware of it, and I guess I've become
Speaker 1: too much of an adult. But I mean I do
Speaker 1: have moments of terrible temper, but not so not so
Speaker 1: unreasonable as it once was. Would it be an emotional
Speaker 1: situation like of somebody backing you into a corner like
Speaker 1: as opposed to literally, that's what would illicit anger. Yes, sometimes,
Speaker 1: and I guess you know, anger and fear. You can
Speaker 1: respond to that in so many ways, so many different ways.
Speaker 1: You know that it does inhibit you. I think that's
Speaker 1: really what upsets me about it is that it closes
Speaker 1: me down, and I'd rather not be closed down. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that is the thing that comes with having lived a
Speaker 1: little bit. It's going the reaction that feels good in
Speaker 1: the moment actually a long term effect. It's so much
Speaker 1: worse for you me us. Yeah. Yeah, So what person, place,
Speaker 1: or experience most altered your life. Well, immediately I think
Speaker 1: of something as a small child, But I think that's
Speaker 1: that's a fantasy, you know. I don't think there is
Speaker 1: one thing. It's always like a chain of events for me.
Speaker 1: I first started as a backup singer in the sixties
Speaker 1: with a friend from high school's husband, and I sort
Speaker 1: of got bitten. I was terribly shy and was very
Speaker 1: happy to be a backup singer and marveled at people
Speaker 1: like Janis Joplin and Grace Slick, and you know, I
Speaker 1: was just, oh my god, how can they do it?
Speaker 1: How do they do it? But then you know, I
Speaker 1: was disappointed. You're learning about human nature all the time,
Speaker 1: and I was such an idealist, you know, kind of dummy,
Speaker 1: and so I sort of had a taste of business
Speaker 1: in the arts and I didn't like it. I didn't
Speaker 1: like it, and so I left it and I did
Speaker 1: other things for a while. But I felt like I
Speaker 1: was haunted because I couldn't get it out of my mind.
Speaker 1: So then, do you remember the moment that you really
Speaker 1: decided to come back and focus on music for yourself.
Speaker 1: I approached someone who I knew, not very well, but
Speaker 1: I knew they were on the scene. I was a
Speaker 1: follower of the New York Dolls at the time, and
Speaker 1: I was living in New Jersey. I was helping my
Speaker 1: mother who was seriously ill. You know. I was hanging
Speaker 1: around going to these shows at the Mercer Arts Center,
Speaker 1: and I love the Dolls and everything you know that
Speaker 1: they represented in it. And many of the people who
Speaker 1: would go to those shows, you know, I sort of
Speaker 1: built up a friendship with So I ran into one
Speaker 1: of those people and I said to her, what's going on,
Speaker 1: what are you up to? And she said, oh, I
Speaker 1: have a band, and I said, oh great, what's it called?
Speaker 1: She said, Pure garbage and I said, oh, great name,
Speaker 1: really really great name. She said, oh, and Hollywood lawns
Speaker 1: in it. And I said, oh good. That must be
Speaker 1: so much fun. And so I said, let me know,
Speaker 1: give me your number, let me know the next time
Speaker 1: you do a show. So I never heard from her,
Speaker 1: and I called her finally and said, well, when is
Speaker 1: the show? She said, oh, we broke up. I said, oh, well,
Speaker 1: let's form a band of our own. You and me,
Speaker 1: no way. Yeah. What was the name of that band?
Speaker 1: The still Lettos. Oh that's a good name. Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: a really good name. Wow, she still have that music?
Speaker 1: H I do. Actually, somebody found a recording recently and
Speaker 1: they're actually going to do something with it. I was amazed.
Speaker 1: It's not the great fidelity or you know, quality, but
Speaker 1: it's live. It's good, you know, it's like it has
Speaker 1: that quality. Oh my god. So was it recorded live
Speaker 1: in a venue or in the studio? Had to be
Speaker 1: a venue. I don't remember being in a studio. Well,
Speaker 1: I couldn't swear to anything. Don't ask me to swear anything,
Speaker 1: don't anything. That's pretty cool, I mean, god, I'd love
Speaker 1: to hear that. That's amazing. Well, I remember the songs
Speaker 1: that you wrote and where you're playing guitar. I guess, yeah,
Speaker 1: you were really sincere and saying stuff. You know, you
Speaker 1: were saying things and you were feeling things. It was obvious.
Speaker 1: I honestly think that's pretty much all there is to
Speaker 1: feel stuff. And if you're a creative person and you
Speaker 1: make things, you put that into what you do. And
Speaker 1: it's never going to be for everybody, but I for
Speaker 1: always felt like that was my job was to do
Speaker 1: that and you know, take the embarrassment if it doesn't
Speaker 1: work out, but never really let that stop you, right,
Speaker 1: And that's that's key, that word, and that meant Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's a very big part of what holds people back.
Speaker 1: You get embarrassed. So well, yeah, so what question would
Speaker 1: you most like answered? Oh? God, I think that you
Speaker 1: know as a former that I'm always learning, I'm always learning.
Speaker 1: It must be the same for you. Yeah, it definitely is.
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm astonished at how much there is to
Speaker 1: keep on learning. I have a thirteen year old son
Speaker 1: and we have this similar experience. He plays the piano
Speaker 1: and he kind of writes music and I did when
Speaker 1: I was really young, and I remember sobbing to my
Speaker 1: mother and my son didn't come sobbing to me, but
Speaker 1: he was really glum one day and I was like,
Speaker 1: what's up, and he was like, just you know, I
Speaker 1: was just playing the piano and I was just like
Speaker 1: writing a song. I just I just saw it like
Speaker 1: by the time I've grown up, like there's going to
Speaker 1: be no music left to ride. I was like, dude,
Speaker 1: I had the same thought. I wept about it, like
Speaker 1: all the songs are going to get written, And I said,
Speaker 1: I've got to tell you, like, if anything, that become
Speaker 1: more songs to write, Like there's more to learn and
Speaker 1: there's more to do. The older I've gotten, I can't
Speaker 1: believe how much I missed when I was younger. I
Speaker 1: can't believe how much I thought I knew everything very true.
Speaker 1: When you guys are writing songs, was an organic process
Speaker 1: of you'd sit down to write a record or did
Speaker 1: all these songs kind of come out of different situations
Speaker 1: for all of you? Like how was that process when
Speaker 1: you guys would write just what you said, you know,
Speaker 1: out of experience and out of you know, situations, and
Speaker 1: some grain of truth or absurdity you know, would strike you.
Speaker 1: And I was always making snippets you know, little little
Speaker 1: jots of things. And I still do that, you know,
Speaker 1: little ideas notes to myself, and then I will organize
Speaker 1: them and come up with some music or you know,
Speaker 1: when we start working together as if they and in sessions,
Speaker 1: you know, and trying to create new material. But it
Speaker 1: works in all different ways for me. I'm sure it
Speaker 1: does for you. Yeah. I think it's just about paying attention,
Speaker 1: whether it's a phrase of music, or whether it's a line,
Speaker 1: or whether it's something someone says or something that you see.
Speaker 1: I think recording it is the most important thing. Like
Speaker 1: I think it's the only thing I like about my
Speaker 1: phone is that I can record a voice note kind
Speaker 1: of wherever I am. It becomes some weird college journal.
Speaker 1: Did you contribute to your college today? Yeah? You know
Speaker 1: what I did? I did good. I wrote a book
Speaker 1: and I worked not just on the writing of it,
Speaker 1: but the design of like what the book covers going
Speaker 1: to look like and what that means. And today was
Speaker 1: sort of looking at it and going, is anything ever
Speaker 1: really done? I could carry on writing this book literally
Speaker 1: for fucking ever. I could carry on tinkering with the
Speaker 1: phone and the color and the picture. It doesn't ever
Speaker 1: really end, Did you feel that way about records that
Speaker 1: like it's like, okay, I guess we should stop. But
Speaker 1: you could actually carry a roam forever if left to
Speaker 1: your own devices. Yes, it's a danger zone for sure.
Speaker 1: Sometimes you just have to back away from the table,
Speaker 1: drop your fork, walk away, walk away, walk away from
Speaker 1: the desk. I know, yeah, I know. But I do
Speaker 1: try and do something every single day to add to
Speaker 1: the college. It's good for my mental health, particularly in
Speaker 1: these days, which is still a little bit more isolated
Speaker 1: than perhaps they used to be. Do you do you
Speaker 1: try and do something every day? Well, what I do
Speaker 1: as I sort of closed myself up in the car
Speaker 1: and driving in my little sound booth on wheels. I'm
Speaker 1: very careful not to you know, because you're not supposed
Speaker 1: to use your phone, you know, when you're driving. But
Speaker 1: I have to make notes, so it's always sort of
Speaker 1: sitting there on my thigh, you know, I'm always pushing
Speaker 1: the button. You know, something that happens to me a lot.
Speaker 1: I guess why I'm out with people, if I'm at
Speaker 1: her show or something, and that's sometimes very surprising that
Speaker 1: it would be in the midst of all this sort
Speaker 1: of you know, noise and mayhem and something will you know,
Speaker 1: sort of pop into my head and I'll try to
Speaker 1: record that or scribble it down somewhere. Is there anyone
Speaker 1: that you listen to you particularly? You know, I am
Speaker 1: not a listener except when I'm in the car driving
Speaker 1: and I just cruise and cruise and listened to, you know,
Speaker 1: all different things. I like to see what's on top ten.
Speaker 1: I like to know what kisses playing. I like to
Speaker 1: listen to grunge. I like to listen to rap. But
Speaker 1: I mean, you wouldn't think that I'm a person who
Speaker 1: would really love Rage against the Machine, but I do.
Speaker 1: I'm actually incredibly glad to know that. But rage against
Speaker 1: the machine, I'm really interested in what people, particularly musicians, like,
Speaker 1: what they listened to. I like all kinds of music.
Speaker 1: Oddly enough, I have to admit it. When I'm in
Speaker 1: the house, I don't have music on. I am not
Speaker 1: the person who puts music on in the background. That's
Speaker 1: the only time that I'm sort of pinned down is
Speaker 1: when I'm in the cars. That's my that's my listening room,
Speaker 1: and I love it. I like that. So in your life,
Speaker 1: can you tell me about something that has grown out
Speaker 1: of a personal disaster. I think in terms of the industry,
Speaker 1: we all go through these rude awakenings, shall we say,
Speaker 1: and learning experiences that really, you know, shape our sense
Speaker 1: of worth and our sense of reality, and in actual
Speaker 1: fact that made me have to plant myself down and say,
Speaker 1: regardless of this, I will persevere. I've always felt it's
Speaker 1: really good to have to push up against something. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I felt that way too from the very beginning, because
Speaker 1: you know, having to demand a reaction from an audience
Speaker 1: is really really important, and it just makes you work harder. Yeah,
Speaker 1: exactly exactly. Insisting it's funny insisting a lot of women
Speaker 1: were not raised to insist on people's attention. Where actually
Speaker 1: told that it's a very bad thing for a woman
Speaker 1: to insist on people's attention. I think, yeah, act like
Speaker 1: a lady exactly exactly what exactly what kind of lady
Speaker 1: are you looking for? It's tricky because you're such an
Speaker 1: influential woman at that moment in time, Like, did you
Speaker 1: feel at a disadvantage being a woman in the industry.
Speaker 1: I've always felt that it was an idea whose time
Speaker 1: had come, and I felt that why Also about the
Speaker 1: gay scene, you know that the time had come for
Speaker 1: this to change. You know, I felt that way about
Speaker 1: women in rock or whatever you want to call it.
Speaker 1: You say that there were situations where you kind of
Speaker 1: have to find yourself worth and that you were pushing
Speaker 1: up against. Was that like within the industry? Yeah, there
Speaker 1: was really very little else to go, you know, there
Speaker 1: was nowhere else to go with it because it was
Speaker 1: always predicated on the next new thing. I think that
Speaker 1: the boy said really used up, but used up there
Speaker 1: a lot of time. Well, I think they have explored
Speaker 1: a lot. I mean there were always great stars who
Speaker 1: did exploration, like David Bowie and people like that, and
Speaker 1: there are still as part of the survival of the
Speaker 1: industry really is that it's it's the newest, it's the newest,
Speaker 1: it's the greatest, it's the latest, it's something fresh, and
Speaker 1: and that can be problematic that, you know, it's like
Speaker 1: you get this sort of five year plan of possibility.
Speaker 1: It's the same in Hollywood. It's always like the youngest
Speaker 1: and the freshest and the newest. Right, it becomes so
Speaker 1: myopic because it's just about that particular industry as opposed
Speaker 1: to being an artist in general, and that constantly evolving
Speaker 1: I think it's always hard to be a young artist,
Speaker 1: But it's really about seeing it as a marathon, I guess,
Speaker 1: and not a sprint, not just a five year but
Speaker 1: a fifty year. Yeah. I mean that's one of the
Speaker 1: things that Chris and I always talked about actually many
Speaker 1: of the artists that we admired. Of course, we're middle
Speaker 1: aged and at the time, you know, we were in
Speaker 1: our twenties. And also you know the fact that the
Speaker 1: great blues artists and the great jazz artists were fully
Speaker 1: developed and you know, had been playing for a long time,
Speaker 1: and it wasn't looked down upon that they weren't in
Speaker 1: their twenties. But you're right, in Hollywood, it's fierce because
Speaker 1: it's so built on the fresh, youthful anue or whatever,
Speaker 1: young heart throb. Yeah, it's all about merchandising and the
Speaker 1: mercantile part of of what we do. I think that
Speaker 1: the youth aspect is like it's an industry of its own.
Speaker 1: You have to really emancipate yourself unless you're going to
Speaker 1: go and just sort of sequest to yourself for the
Speaker 1: rest of your life after you're not super young anymore,
Speaker 1: which is obviously what Hollywood quite like a lot of
Speaker 1: women to do. But really those faster faster, and I
Speaker 1: was just thinking of moving out there. I was just damn.
Speaker 1: I was just thinking of love and of loving Hollywood. No.
Speaker 1: But I mean, it's so weird because it's such a
Speaker 1: tiny amount of time that you're really super young like that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and then you're an evolving artist for much longer. It
Speaker 1: took me a long time to sort of emancipate myself
Speaker 1: from outside of that. It's hard, very hard. He said
Speaker 1: that you were really shy when you were back in singer.
Speaker 1: How did you shed that shyness? Was it just by
Speaker 1: doing it? And what made you want to shed the shyness?
Speaker 1: I wanted to enjoy myself. I wanted to really be
Speaker 1: free and loving music the way that I do and
Speaker 1: the way that it makes me feel. I wanted to
Speaker 1: make people see that. One day, I did have a revelation,
Speaker 1: harsh revelation. It was at CBGBs. As a matter of fact,
Speaker 1: I went on stage and the stage is very small there.
Speaker 1: It's not like you can, you know, run back and
Speaker 1: forth and have to do a lot of you know
Speaker 1: this or that. You pretty much have to stay in
Speaker 1: your spot I walked out, and I realized I was
Speaker 1: waiting for the audience to give me, give it to me,
Speaker 1: give it me with me. Then I realized that I
Speaker 1: had to make them. I had to make them, I
Speaker 1: had to command them. And that was a real revelation.
Speaker 1: And then shyness sort of said, well, you've had your
Speaker 1: day because I've got work to do. Wow, that's pretty
Speaker 1: amazing to actually walk out on stage and it gets
Speaker 1: really real and this thing that you've had as a
Speaker 1: mantle in your life, it's like, Oh, I have no
Speaker 1: further use for this and I need to shed it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's pretty interesting. It's like it's a decision something else
Speaker 1: that I had heard that being shy was a form
Speaker 1: of ego, and I thought, wow, that's that's really crappy.
Speaker 1: I didn't like that. Do you think that was true?
Speaker 1: Well it just sort of made me just even more
Speaker 1: convinced that I had no time for it. I really
Speaker 1: like you that you just summoned all your impatience with
Speaker 1: something that was bugging you about your character and just
Speaker 1: left it by the wayside. Well, theoretically I did. I
Speaker 1: don't know if I did completely all at once, but
Speaker 1: I got the message many people ask me, how do
Speaker 1: you not have stage fright? I said, well, I have
Speaker 1: a job to do, and when I before I go
Speaker 1: on stage, if I'm too excited or or too nervous,
Speaker 1: I just say, okay, you know, concentrate on your job
Speaker 1: and the technical aspects of what you have to do.
Speaker 1: And that's sad, you know, just go out there, do
Speaker 1: your job. I like that. I think you're the most
Speaker 1: practical rock stop in the world. Oh ship, that's horrible,
Speaker 1: that's horrible. I'm quitting. Well, what do what do wether
Speaker 1: rock stars tell you? Well, who else are you talking to?
Speaker 1: Damn it? I don't know. Like Dave Carl, Dave was
Speaker 1: just so kind of all it all felt way more haphazard,
Speaker 1: And I really like the idea to be no nonsense
Speaker 1: with the parts of ourselves that are difficult and going Okay,
Speaker 1: well you're feeling really nervous, you're feeling really scary. It
Speaker 1: all right, Well you've got to go out there and
Speaker 1: you've got a job to do, so just focus on
Speaker 1: that and stop thinking about all the other stuff. Like
Speaker 1: it's really it's kind of good parenting of yourself. I
Speaker 1: did get some good advice about that, you know, and
Speaker 1: how to help yourself. Think about envisioning yourself as a
Speaker 1: small child, and you take your small child hand in
Speaker 1: your big child hand, say okay, you're with me, let's go,
Speaker 1: and I just I love it. I like that too.
Speaker 1: It's very good to parent ourselves. Yes, I mean, you
Speaker 1: do that for yourself, right, you have a child. But
Speaker 1: I've done it more for myself since I did it
Speaker 1: for my kids. Parenting him told me how to be
Speaker 1: a good parent to myself, more tolerant kind of a right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: take your own hand. I'd like that. Yeah. Oh, Debbie,
Speaker 1: thank you. Thank you with all of my heart. Thank
Speaker 1: you for coming and talking to me. I just think
Speaker 1: you're the absolute greatest. Thank you. I wouldn't have done
Speaker 1: it if I didn't feel the same way about you,
Speaker 1: and I keep my eyes out for you. Welcome here.
Speaker 1: She is, so thank you. Debbie Harry is a rock
Speaker 1: icon and her footprint on the industry is deep. I'd
Speaker 1: recommend if you can to get into a car or
Speaker 1: as Debbie would say, you're Sam Booth on wheels and
Speaker 1: blast your favorite Blondie song and don't forget to add
Speaker 1: every day to the collage of your life. Mini questions
Speaker 1: is hosted and written by Me Mini Driver, Supervising producer
Speaker 1: Aaron Kaufman, Producer more Than Lavoy, Research assistant Marissa Brown.
Speaker 1: Original music Sorry Baby by Mini Driver, Additional music by
Speaker 1: Aaron Kaufman, Executive produced by Me Mini Driver. Special thanks
Speaker 1: to Jim Nikolay, Will Pearson, Addison No Day, Lisa Castella
Speaker 1: and a Nick Oppenheim, a w k PR de La Pescador,
Speaker 1: Kate Driver and Jason Weinberg, And for constantly solicited tech support,
Speaker 1: Henry Driver h