Chrissie Hynde reveals why The Pretenders lose money on concerts and albums

The Pretenders are losing money on concerts while also seeing cash from album sales dwindling because of streaming, singer Chrissie Hynde has revealed.

The star said she and her bandmates still greatly enjoy playing live at small venues, even though their management would prefer the profits from large outdoor stadium concerts.

The American-born musician, whose band’s back catalogue includes the No. 1 ‘Brass in Pocket’, said: “I love playing clubs, and after that lockdown James [Walbourne], my guitar player, and I, we were saying ‘well, there’s no point in doing this unless it’s fun’. We had a real think about why we do this.

“Everyone else has got bigger, and I just kept wanting to get smaller. So I said ‘Let’s play clubs’.

“Of course, my management said ‘Oh, we can’t get any’!”

In the end, it was left to the band to work on finding the smaller venues, and their current tour dates included clubs around the world, while British gigs included the 1,500 capacity O2 Ritz in Manchester and Electric Ballroom in London, as well as the unlikely Cheese & Grain in Frome, Somerset, and the Bearded Theory Festival in Walton-on-Trent.

Interspersed among the intimate gigs were performances at several giant US sports stadiums to sustain a living.

Many artists have accused companies like Spotify of passing on an unfairly small cut from their platforms’ subscribers.

It has meant a growing dependence on ticket sales, but many artists have come under fire from fans for bumping up prices, and in some cases introducing ‘dynamic pricing’, which sees prices rise with increased demand.

Hynde, however, said The Pretenders have chosen to put pleasure before profit on their current tour.

The singer, whose latest Pretenders’ album Relentless was released last month, said such was the desire to play in front of small crowds that the band even decided to perform for free.

She said: “Eventually, I said ‘look I’ve got a few club dates that we’ll do for free’.

“Going back on tour, playing a club, you get there, get out of the van, go play, walk off stage straight into the van, no dressing room stuff and just go back to the hotel. So doing the clubs because they’re fun.

“But they’re big money losers.

“We have a guy doing sound, we have a skeleton crew, and we will stay in hotels.”

But Hynde, now 72, speaking on the Out to Lunch podcast, insisted: “Touring for fun, that’s why we tour.”

Among the well-known acts more recently attacked over allowing ‘dynamic pricing’ was Bruce Springsteen, whose tour this year saw some tickets rise to over $5,000 through the approved agency Ticketmaster.

But in a Rolling Stone interview, Springsteen defended the move saying in the past he’d instructed his promoters to find out what other performers were charging, and “charge a little less”, but age had prompted a re-think.

He said: “This time I told them, “Hey, we’re 73 years old. I want to do what everybody else is doing, my peers’.”

Arguing that it would otherwise only be touts or middlemen brokers who would profit from the richest and most fanatical fans, he added: “I know it was unpopular with some fans. But if there’s any complaints on the way out, you can have your money back.”