PAT BENATAR: TOO SHORT TO LIVE?

(With the size-joke void left in the wake of this year’s annual final Prince tour, the handsome editors were indeed a-smilin ’ when the 'phone rang and the intrepid Liz Derringer was on the other line.

Not that Liz, is, you know, pint-sized or anything. Would we imply that? She is, however, like that (and believe us, our fingers are crossed) with rock’s reigning flyweight champ (female division). And when she offered to share some of that... closeness with our reader.. . well, what could a handsome editor say?)

How has having a baby changed your life?

It’s definitely different. There aren’t enough hours in a day. Before I had Haley I would think I had no time to do anything and now I really have no time to do anything. It’s really a great experience and the best thing that ever happens to you.

Do you have to have a Nanny?

Just when I work. I do everything myself except when I work I have someone who watches her. But Haley won’t let anyone else take care of her, she wants her mother!

What about when you go on tour?

She’s going!

Some people thought you might not tour after having a child.

You know what it is, it’s only people who don’t have children. They think something terrible or miraculous happens when you have them and really neither happens. It fulfills you in so many ways and it’s such a great addition to your life but on the same token it doesn’t alter your life all that much, it only enhances it.

You list the name P. Geraldo for your writing credit.

I wished I could have changed my name when

we got married but I was already known as Benatar.

You’ve addressed social issues before, but mainly your hits were more romantic. Why the shift to more “political” stuff?

Yeah. I don’t know what it is, maybe it’s age or having a child. It just changes your perspective so much. It’s a lot of water under the bridge and things are different now.

It must be nice to be able to reach so many people with your viewpoint.

It goes back and forth, sometimes I feel like doing light records that are just entertaining and other times I feel like saying what’s on my mind, personally, and sticking it in the music.

Did something in particular happen to put you in this frame of mind?

Everything changes after you’ve had a baby. Things you thought were important become less important. And the things you hoped would be important are. It alters how you perceive everything in a positive way and it reflects throughout your music.

Let’s talk about some of the songs on the album. “Let’s Stay Together” you wrote with Neil.

That’s about relations of our hearts and if you think the relationship is worth having you have to work at it. Not just between you and your husband or boyfirend but between parents and children or whatever. If you think it’s worth having then don’t give it up.

How do you two work together professionally?

We usually don’t write in the same room. He usually gives me pieces or I give him pieces and we work on them seperately. This one song we had the same idea at the same time and we went into our home studio and wrote it and instantly recorded it. So what you hear is the very first time it was sung or played.

“Don’t Walk Away” was written by Nick Gilder and Duane Hitchings. How did you get together with them?

We’ve been friends with Nick for ages and Peter Coleman, our co-producer liked to bring songs to the record that I can do a lot of vocal acrobatics on. So that was one. It fit right in with the rest of the record.

How about “Lift ’Em On Up”?

That’s about the working class man and the things he has to go through sometimes. It’s tough and it’s hard. I come from a working class background and it wasn’t always nice. We had a lot of fun, but it wasn’t always easy for my father. It still goes on for a lot of people.

Word has it you were a kind of a tomboy growing up.

Yeah, I’m not really aggressive unless I’m backed against the wall. I’ve never been that feminine. I’ve always felt better playing baseball than Barbie dolls.

You studied opera in those days though, right?

I studied. My mother was an opera singer but she stopped when she became pregnant with me. My father didn’t think it was a great idea for a mother to be singing. Little did he know his daughter would. (Laughs).

Suffer The Little Children” is not the first time you’ve written about the plight of abused children. You wrote “Hell Is For Children” but this one is a true story.

It’s a true story about a seven-year-old child who was buried alive in a suitcase. I read that the guy who did it was up for parole. The thing that really got me was that when they did the autopsy they found she’d been alive for two days. It was such a horror story, I wrote the song for her. Kids are so precious and so vulnerable. All they want is to love you and for you to love them back, you just can’t believe people do this. It’s the supreme act of cowardice.

Is there any significance to the album’s title?

What the song is about is not why I chose it for the title. I thought the title itself strung the songs together for the record. It was the theme of the record of living with your eyes open. Dreamland being America.

“Cool Zero” seems to echo Neil Young’s “This Note’s For You.” Do you feel strongly about rock becoming a corporate sellout?

I’d never be so pretentious to know what’s good for everybody else. My personal opinion is I don’t agree with it. I’m certainly not against anybody making a living but the thing that irritates me is the power you have over people to buy a product because you endorse it. I don’t think that’s correct.

Even if you believed in the product?

I don’t think so because I don’t want to be that influential on anybody. I’d certainly take up an issue and put my-name to that, like Amnesty, or abused children or world hunger because that benefits everyone. But I wouldn’t do it to benefit a corporation.

You had mentioned that life was difficult when you were a kid. In what way?

I had a strong family unit. I had a great childhood, but we were very poor, we struggled. I never had any great amounts of wardrobe or the latest records.

It must be fun to have everything you want now.

It’s something that you have to learn, which we haven’t learned to do. Neil and I both came from pretty straight backgrounds thinking something miraculous would happen and you’d learn how to use and spend money, but we didn’t. We’re still living like poor slobs! (laughs) Every once in a while I do get a manicure. We spend money on the baby.

How long has it been since your last record?

21/2 years. It seemed so long. We used to crank them out every 9 months. I like it this way, so we’ll probably do it like this from now on.

What were you doing all that time?

We worked. We took one month off after the last tour, then we went into make the record. It took us 2 years, not constant, but stopping and starting work.