HEAVY METAL QUEEN RULES THE AIRWAVES

Pat Benatar’s unexpected popularity at the beginning of 1980 was viewed by some as the beginning of a trend, one that has shifted the stereotyped image of the female rocker from the wispiness of Ronstadt and Nicks to a more hard-driving, heavy metal/ queen bitch type. She and her band have released only one album to date, containing the radio biggies, “Heartbreaker,” “No You Don’t,” and John Cougar’s “I Need A Lover.” Her current touring band consists of guitarist Neil Geraldo, bassist Roger Capps, rhythm guitarist Scott St. ClaireSheets and drummer Myron Grumbacher. The band plans to return to the studio in mid-April to begin work on their next LP. Pat was contacted on the eve of her first British tour.

CREEM: Do you think it’s a little easier right now for a woman to break into the rock ’n’ roll business than it was a few years ago? PAT: I’d say so, definitely. I’m not sure why it was easier for us to, I know now it’s easier for new people to, because of Debbie [Harry] and because we broke through. I think there’ll be a lot more acceptance of women in rock.

CREEM: Do you think there’s any kind of prejudice on part of radio programmers? That they may have some kind of preconceived notion of women’s place in rock?

PAT: It’s hard for me to say, because I didn’t get any, so I don’t know for sure. There probably was, I guess, over the years, but I was real lucky when the record came out. People played it.

CREEM: Why do you think they did? PAT: I don’t know, (laughs)

CREEM: Do you think your career might be in better shape now if you were a male? PAT: No. Not at all. I’d say actually [being female is] working to my advantage right now.

CREEM: Do you think you’ve been exploited at all, by the press or the public, because of your femininity?

PAT: No. Well, I dunno. everybody gets exploited to a certain extent. I thinx they use the aspect that we’re all females—women rockers and all that—and I think there’s a bit of exploitation there. I hope that dies down and stops soon. I hope they just continue to let us be musicians and not put so much emphasis on us being female. CREEM: How would you define the stereotyped image of women in rock during the 70’s?

PAT: Probably a Patti Smith type. I think that Debbie Harry helped break the mold, and even though some of the new girls are Patti Smith types, they’ve put a place up there for girls who don’t want to be masculine and still sing rock ’n’ roll. CREEM: Have there been any women in rock that you’ve listened to and especially admired?

PAT: I really like the new ones a lot more than anybody that came before, except for Janis Joplin, maybe. But I mostly listened to male singers while I was growing up. CREEM: Like who?

PAT: Mostly bands, and mostly British groups. Things like Zeppelin and all that kind of stuff. So I really hardly ever listened to any women while I was growing up. CREEM: Then would you say that while performing, you’re projecting a male vocal role in the person of a female?

PAT: I use that as an example for myself. I wanted to sing and move as hard as they did onstage. But I still wanted to stay feminine—which was, you know, the difficult thing. But it worked itself out. CREEM: Do you see any similarities between what you’re doing now and, say, Suzi Quatro and what she did in the early 70’s?

PAT: No. I know that there are a couple of songs that I do that are real tough and real angry, but I’m not a “tough girl” onstage. A lot of people call me, you know, a “bitch” onstage, but I don’t think that. And most people, after they’ve seen the show, don’t think that either. I look a little aggressive, but I’m not overly aggressive. I’m not a real aggressive girl onstage—performance-wise, yes, but attitude-wise, no.

CREEM: You’re being touted in the British press as America’s latest hot-to-trot singing sensation. If you weren’t so hot-to-trot, do you think things might be turning out differently?

PAT: (laughs) I think that was the whole thing. Honestly. And that was the point, that was what I was trying to do anyway. That you could rock, you could be real aggressive, and still remain female. CREEM: Have you noticed a heavy male or heavy*female audience at your shows? PAT: It’s very mixed, which surprises me. I thought it would be very male-oriented, but it’s a mixed audience.

CREEM: Do you find many women interested in performing asking you for advice?

PAT: Sure. Most of the letters I get are from women.

CREEM: Let’s say I was a woman, which I’m not, but if I wrote and asked you how to make it in the business like you did, what would you tell me?

PAT: I’d say just work hard and put out a good record. Just persevere, and if you’re real lucky, it works. Because none of us were thinking about making a big-selling record, we were all real surprised that it happened.

CREEM: How did your association with Mike Chapman come about?

PAT: Just through a social occasion. He heard one of the tapes I had done as a demo, and we had wanted him to do the album before, but he had been real busy and wasn’t able to do it. And then Terry Ellis, the president of Chrysalis, had been at some social thing at his house and played a demo tape uhhn...casually (giggles), and Mike liked the tape. So he made some time for us to do the record together.

CREEM: What were you doing before you were signed to Chrysalis?

PAT: I was doing a lot of different things. I’ve done everything from bar bands to cabaret, to being a singing waitress—I was doing everything. I really wasn’t doing much rock ’n’ roll until about three yeais ago.

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CREEM: When you’re onstage performing, do you think about the fact that some males might be projecting their fantasies on you?. FAT: Yeah. I hope so!

CREEM: Do you want that?

PAT: Yeah. And I hope the females do, too. I mean, that’s the point, to fne, you are fantasy, whether you’re a guy or a girl, and you’re th^re to entertain and take them from whatever place they’re in and put them someplace else.

CREEM: Poes it make you feel at all uncomfortable?

PAT: No. It’s exactly what I want. I mean I don’t want to be sex-ploited, but I’m not kidding myself that... (pause) they’re using it as something.

CREEM: Do you think the renewed popularity of iwomen rockers is due to a change in the role of women, or just a change in people’s musical tastes?

PAT: Probably both. I’m sure that what happened over the past 10 years with the women’s movement—even though I don’t consider that affecting me, because to me I’ve always been this way, you know—I imagine that’s brought the role of women to a lot of people’s attention. Also, I think the cycle has come around again. You know,

the girl groups were around when we were kids, and most of the new girl singers are pretty similar in background. A lot of them have older sisters who were all born around the same time—no matter what they say (laughs) —and we share a lot of similarities —a strong mother thing, we were the war babies, and all that kind of stuff. I just think the cycle’s come around again. And I’m sure the women’s movement had something to do with it, too.

CREEM: Does it bother you that sometimes people consider you as a “woman artsist” rather than just an artist?

PAT: No, not tob much—only once in a while. Most people don’t play that aspect up much anymore. In the beginning they did. You know, you either make it on your face or your body, and it’s never your singing. And that stopped happening onceMwe started playing.

CREEM: I know this has probably been unavoidable—have any pom 'magazine approached you for potential layouts?

PAT: (laughs) Yeah, they do. You just say “thank you. but no thank you.”

CREEM: How would you define your role in the band, the interplay between band members?

PAT: What vye’ve done is divide it up: Neil is the bandleader .and I’m the leader of everybody. The point is that when we play it’s a band, and there’s no front person in anybody mind, we all play together. It’s just like any other band. We just play, and nobody ever thinks of me as the girl in the band, I never think of them as the guys, we just play. We’re only there to do one thing and that’s play.

CREEM: Do you want to be the hot new female singer who’s beautiful and has her picture plastered all over every magazine? PAT: I’m not really sure how I want all this to turn out yet. It’s a double-edged sword. I mean, obviously I do want all that for the narcissistic side of it, but then I do want people to stop making such an issue out of it. To me, it’s like the way you look is like the icing on the cake, the cake has to be good—otherwise the icing does nothing. So, to me, looking good is like frosting on a cake that’s good without it.

CREEM: Do you think that we can expect to see a lot more women musicians becoming prominent in the future?

PAT: Yeah, I believe that there’s a definite pattern happening now, and I hope it continues, I hope it doesn’t become a faddish thing. I hope it doesn’t die down by spring, you know? There’s a lot of good bands out now, with women fronting the bands, like the Pretenders. And there’s one girl that I particularly like, Sue Saad And The Next. It’s a real good time for everybody to do it now. And I just hope it sustains—because I think I’d like to see everybody just take the labels off and leave it as it is. %