Pete Farndon and James Honeyman-Scott died at young ages as a result of drug use.
Pretenders singer Chrissie Hynde shares she feels “guilty” for the untimely deaths of her band members in the ’80s. Band co-founders Pete Farndon and James Honeyman-Scott died shortly after each other as a result of their drug use.
Honeyman-Scott succumbed to cocaine intoxication in 1982 at the age of 25, just two days after Farndon was fired from the band for his heroin use. Farndon drowned in a bath a year later when he lost consciousness after an overdose.
“I’m guilty,” Hynde tells Record Collector. “If it’s true, then it’s not a big word. It’s only a big word when you feel guilty without being guilty. But if you’re really guilty, then you should raise your hand and say ‘guilty as charged’.”
The singer continues: “I didn’t try to get her off drugs and I was even a part of it. It’s not like I was her mother and we went on tour and it was all very hard. I had problems with Pete — so maybe it’s not his fault, but I wish I had done some things better.”
Hynde also shares that since Farndon and Honeyman-Scott’s deaths, the band no longer feels like the Pretenders. “Since Pete and Jimmy died and because I had to replace people, it’s now more of a Pretenders tribute band called The Pretenders,” she says.
The Pretenders released the 1982 single “Back On The Chain Gang” as a tribute to Honeyman-Scott, who was still alive at the time the song was written.
RELENTLESS, the Pretenders’ twelfth studio album, will be released on Friday (September 15th).