PHOTO: AXEL DUPEUX | Towards the end of his memoir Under a Rock, which hit shelves on June 11th via St. Martin’s Press, Blondie co-founder Chris Stein reflects: “I remember that back then, Debbie and I never felt we’d quite succeeded, that we’d only attained some cult status; it’s only now in the rearview mirror that people consider Blondie as part of some grand showbiz hierarchy.”
Over the course of the memoir that covers Stein’s youth and formative years as an artist up until present day, Stein confronts his own life and artistic legacy with a down-to-earth grace and enlightened candor rarely found in a rock autobiography. And by reliving Stein’s and his group’s past along with him, one is left with the knowing feeling that they most definitely did succeed insofar as leaving a permanent cultural and artistic imprint on the world of music.
Other musicians contending with the weight of Blondie’s art-forward legacy in a continually digitized world, and the glittering charisma of a beautiful and compelling band frontwoman Debbie Harry (who contributes a warmly enjoyable foreword to the book) may have selected a cynical jaded tone for their first-person narrative. Faced with the alternately perplexing and bizarre post- COVID reality of the 2020s decade we are currently living through, Stein instead uses Under a Rock to treat both the collective cultural past and his own personal past with the respect, inquiry, and celebration they deserve, without negating or damning the present.
But Stein’s understanding of New York art-grunge founded in the era of the mid-late ’70s and ’80s CBGB and Max’s Kansas City rock club glory, and the colorful living that went with it, is well articulated in his book, reminding readers of the music scene’s vitality and immediate youth-based power that still resonates in Blondie’s recordings and those of the band’s contemporaries like Television, the Ramones, and Patti Smith.
Together with Debbie Harry, Stein founded Blondie in 1974, serving as its guitarist and ideological force. The group’s ’76 self-titled debut album introduced an art-first, pop-music-honoring sonic world that continued for a number of lauded records, which included a slue of chart-topping singles whose sonic adventurousness continues to influence musicians today. Blondie designed an aural character that married downtown New York art-hip with occasionally radio-friendly melody, molding a brand new sound character that left a dramatic mark upon the world of music.
In conversation with Chris Stein, infused with his inherent New York-cool, we learn more about the roots of Blondie and the origins of his new memoir Under a Rock, his and Blondie’s creative ideologies and artistic influences, and his ongoing captivation with the Burning Man Festival.