Blondie headlines Wolf Trap on Thursday (Photo via Facebook).
By DCist Contributor Christina Smart
Here’s a fun fact for music trivia nuts: When Blondie reunited two decades ago, the band’s first live appearance took place here in D.C. at 1997’s HFestival, held in RFK Stadium. Now, 20 years into the second chapter of their career and on the heels of the release of their fantastic new album, Pollinator, Blondie kicked off The Rage and the Rapture Tour last month. Garbage is serving as co-conspirator and the tour stops at Wolf Trap on Thursday.
Pollinator, Blondie’s eleventh studio album, finds the band once again rejecting any musical limitations. Collaborators include Sia and Joan Jett. The album also finds the band once again delving into cover land, as it did with “Hanging on the Telephone” and “The Tide is High”. The song, “Fragments”, is an epic, seven-minute, semi-prog rock song.
“That song has a good backstory,” says Blondie guitarist and co-founder, Chris Stein. “It’s this YouTube kid named Adam Johnston. I watch his movie review YouTube channel, which is called Your Movie Sucks. After a while I noticed he was a musician and would start putting snippets of his songs after one of the reviews. He had a little clip of this song, which I thought was really great so I just pursued it and then I played it for Debbie who said ‘Yeah, I could really sing the shit out of that.”
With the release of Pollinator, Blondie also launched the #BeeConnected campaign, aimed at raising awareness and funds for organizations working to restore bee populations.
“I’ve been hearing about the bees forever,” Stein says. “Then, when we were working on the title of the song, Debbie just came out with “Pollinator” kind of spontaneously and we just thought that was really great. And then the association with the bee situation came out of that.”
Blondie has supported numerous causes in the past but for Stein, the bees’ decline is symptomatic of a larger problem.
“The bees are a microcosm of everybody fucking the environment,” he says. “It’s kind of representative of a broader picture. Bee cross-pollinization is responsible for a third of our food crops. I don’t know if people get that it’s not just a casual thing.”
Blondie’s relationship with opener, Garbage, a band that seemed to carry Blondie’s torch in the ’90s, goes back several years.
“We’ve been friends with Shirley [Manson, Garbage’s vocalist] for a really long time,” Stein says. “She inducted us into the Hall of Fame. It just seemed like a no-brainer. Everybody was all for it.”
The second phase of Blondie’s career has lasted a lot longer than the group’s first run, and Stein is content with the band’s legacy and place in rock history.
“It’s nice sort of having the elder statesman position,” Stein explained. “I was lucky enough to be friends with William Burroughs and I always liked how people would defer to him so I kind of feel a little bit of that now. If I was going to trade being 20 without all the experience, it would certainly be a toss up—I’m not really sure. But to be 20 and have the experience, that’s a no-brainer.”
As for retiring, Stein, who is 67, doesn’t see that happening any time soon.
“I’m always seeing guys in the police force say that once you retire, you’re dead in five years,” he said. To avoid that outcome, Stein continued, “I would keep working on music. The touring may get lighter cause it’s tricky when you’re older. Tommy, the guitar player, who’s half my age, when I hear him say ‘Oh, I’m tired’, it’s laughable, but that’s the reality there.”
Blondie will be playing Wolf Trap on Thursday, August 3, with special guests Garbage. 7:30 p.m. $35-85.
