In his candid new memoir, the guitarist talks about the glory period of Parallel Lines and how addiction and loss altered his life
‘I’m a fan of chaos’: Blondie’s Chris Stein on Bowie, Debbie Harry and 50 years in rock’n’roll
A few years later, though, before Basquiat died of a drug overdose in 1988 aged 27, Stein found himself short of funds. He sold the painting for $10,000 to, an art curator and co-founder of the Mudd Club, where Stein and Basquiat would hang out.
“It was a dangerous environment,” he says. “We got attacked, all this stuff was going on for everybody. It wasn’t going on uptown for the rich people so much, but we were just all living on the fringes of society down there, so it was a different situation. These magpie tendencies would eventually find an outlet with Blondie. Stein had not long graduated from New York’s School of Visual Arts and was playing guitar in different bands when, in 1973, he went to a gig at the Bobern Tavern by all-girl trio the Stilettos. Harry was a brunette who worked in a hair salon in New Jersey back then. “She was super-charismatic even at that very early stage,” Stein remembers. “I suppose I saw what people saw later on, just very early.
was hard to keep up,” says Stein. “That’s why everybody self-imploded after a while in the early 80s. It was tremendous amounts of pressure. And just our own weaknesses, and all the drug abuse. For me, anyway.”t was also becoming clear that Stein was ill. He had blisters all over his back and legs: he feared it might be Aids but, in 1983, he was diagnosed with pemphigus, an autoimmune disease that was eventually brought under control with steroids.
Blondie reformed in 1997 and came back strongly: their single Maria went to No 1 in the UK, giving the band the distinction of having topped the charts in the 1970s, 80s and 90s. They were inducted to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2006. Their last album was the well-regardedin 2017, but Stein reveals that Blondie has recently finished a new record, which could be released this year. “It’s good,” he says, “a little experimental in places.
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