Good Times, November 30-December 8, 1982

PAT BENATAR’S ‘ANXIETY’ ATTACK
-Robyn Flans

When Pat Benatar sings, people listen. Blessed with one of the most powerful female vices in rock, the Long Island-native-turned-Angeleno has stunned millions of ears across the country with her convincing hard rock style over the course of her four Chrysalis LP’s. Millions of record sales seemed to indicate that Benatar was doing something right, but after 1981’s Precious Time it became apparent to Benatar, and perhaps some of her fans too, that she was heading up a blind alley. Before too much longer, her raw sex appeal might completely overtake her musical credibility. Accordingly, with the recording of the new Get Nervous, a few basic changes seemed in order. The diminutive (barely five feet tall) Benatar explained some of the changes, as well as some of the triumphs and pitfalls of the past year.

When you went into the studio to do this new record, was there a premeditated direction? What was the approach on this album?

That last year before we took our break was really tough for everybody in the band. Everyone was having personal problems and it was a strained time, plus, Neil and I were going through a thing before we got married. It was a really horrible year for everybody. What happened was that we had all these songs that were dealing with what went down in that year and then we decided that we didn’t want this record to be so depressing or maudlin like that year had been. So, we decided to put in some songs that would really lighten it up and use a real tongue and cheek, humorous approach toward what happened that year. That’s why we called it Get Nervous.

I have to ask what spurred that album cover?

When Billy Steinberg and Neil wrote the song "Anxiety" and I heard it for the first time, the immediate thing I thought of was going to the ultimate point of losing your mind and being in an asylum, which was pretty much what was going to happen if we continued the way we were. I couldn’t think of anything more nerve-wracking than being wrapped up in a straightjacket, and at the same time, it was so funny that it really helped to lighten up the whole thing.

Isn’t it difficult being with somebody 24-hours a day with whom you’re having a relationship?

It is. It has its really great points and it has its really bad points. In any relationship, being together 24 hours a day is not always a good thing, especially in mostly tense and high charged situations, like when you’re about to go on stage. If anyone looks at you cross-eyed, you could kill them, you’re so pumped up. So you constantly have to turn off any kind of emotional attachment to that person because when you’re on stage, you don’t think of each other as lovers. You just think of each other as musicians. So it’s a constant on and off thing you have to learn to deal with, which takes a long time.

In a recent interview you said you felt that the music on this album was more modern sounding. What do you mean specifically by that?

We have only one dinosaur rock cut on there which is "The Victim". I think on the whole, when the keyboards were added, it electronically modernized the record a little more, instead of having just crunch guitars on everything, using the old format we were using. It really doesn’t go that far, though. WE move real slow to makes changes and I like to do it little by little.

It’s mostly the keyboards and some of the rhythms. It’s a lot more danceable than any record we’ve ever done. I think that helps to modernize the sound. WE get influenced every day by the radio too. You hear a song or a new group and it just influences you. I really like changing. I get bored really fast.

What spurred the addition of the keyboards?

We were going to just add a keyboard along with what we had as a basic unit already. Then Scott (St. Clair Sheets, guitar) was feeling a little pressed. He really didn’t get that much outlet for playing, so he was talking to us about maybe leaving the band. It just happened that we were looking to add another piece, so it ended up happening that Scott went and we brought in Charlie (Giordano).

You only co-wrote one tune on this album.

I know, isn’t that awful?

What happened?

I was just dried up. I had nothing. As soon as the album was being made, we were writing songs like crazy, but we were just not connecting that whole year. We had nothing to write together and when Neil went away to do the John Waite album in New York, he got together with Billy Steinberg and they began writing. When you live with someone, whether you’re consciously doing it or not, you begin to write about the same subjects. So he was writing about things that I wanted to say and there was no need for me to come up with anything. He would bring me a song and I would say, "Well, that’s that idea!" It actually worked out well because he really got to stretch out and work with somebody else, and I got to concentrate more on singing this time, interpreting which is what I really like to do.

Do you find that Neil’s lyrics really reflect your feelings?

We’re always on the same wavelength, consciously or not.

And that’s what provokes you to record a song?

I do the cover songs that we do because I like the songs. The songs from outside writers usually don’t have to deal with something personal. If I can relate to it, that’s great, but usually it’s not something that’s really close to me and the situation. The songs that we write generally have to do with immediate situations, close personal situations.

Do you feel that your success has given you more control over your career?

It’s a double-edge sword. It seems to me that sometimes I have more control than you could imagine and it’s really wonderful. Then there are other times, like sometimes dealing with the record company decisions that are made, where it seems that you get less and less control with every album you sell.

I have more negotiating power now, but sometimes I still feel that my hands are tied, like with photos that go out and the way the ads are written. They really try to cooperate, they really do, it’s just that they have such different ideas. They’re business people, they’re not artists. They make up ads before they ever hear the album and then you have to go and pull the ads and start over.

You mentioned before that you weren’t ready to handle the success. What’s changed? Why do you have a better perspective on it now?

The thing I really think happened is that I thought I was so much more of an extrovert than I really was. When so many people began making a big fuss and I was the center of attention every single day of my life, it became really boring. Instead of loving it and lapping it up and thing, "This is great," I started to go back into a shell and began to hide and really hated it. You work and work and work and then you get there and you realize you’re being such a brat and so ungrateful. But at the same time, you really can’t handle it, so it took me time. You need the time off. If you’re constantly doing it, you don’t have the time to look at things in perspective. When you have time off, you get to look at everything that’s happened, where you’re going, how important it is and how important it’s not. You have to find that balance and it’s an individual kind of thing. So that’s what I did. I just took the time off and tried to figure out how important it was and if I could live without it.

And can you?

No. (Laughs). But it’s not the only thing that matters to me in my life. There was one point where I was really fillip and said, "I don’t care if I don’t sing," but that’s not true. I really don’t know what I’d do if I didn’t’ sing, and that’s a good thing. When you get the attitude that you don’t care whether you do it or not, that’s really sickening. So I was real happy to get back on the track.

In another interview you said you were going to waylay the "sex goddess-bitch bullshit." What does that mean exactly?

It’s so strange. You start out doing it and you’re so naïve. You’re doing it and you don’t know what you’re doing or why you’re doing it. It’s just something that you do, it’s your character, it’s a fantasy part that’s inside you that comes out, whatever it is. All of a sudden, people begin describing it to you and telling you what you do, and for some reason, that freaks you out. Then you begin ding what they describe as being very self-conscious and inhibited. I went through the whole thing of feeling so guilty about sabotaging my own sex. How could this be? To myself, I’m such a liberated woman and I absolutely don’t believe in the stereotype. Here I am portraying this female, though, that everyone is saying, "Oh, she uses her sexuality to get ahead," which from my point of view is not really true.

What I was trying to portray was a woman who didn’t have to be androgynous and to prove you could be sexual and still be smart. To me, there’s nothing I can do about it anyway, it’s just the way it is. It just got so messed up and misinterpreted that I began to feel so guilty about it that I would pull back and try all kinds of different things, instead of just leaving it. I was just so insecure about the whole thing. Now, when I had the time off to think about it, I said, "Fuck them." What can I do? This is the way that it is. I’m not going to stop doing it. That’s what I do. Being sensual on stage is one thing and being what they’re saying that you are being is another. So that’s what I meant by that comment.

I don’t’ want it to be so overblown, so prostituted. I got on Chrysalis – our ad people, our promo people and everything like that and said, "I want to lighten this up because this is not what I ever intended and you guys have just taken it as far as your could go with it. You’ve got to stop, because I can’t sleep at night and every day of my life, I have to talk to interviewers who say to me, ‘Well if you don’t want people to think you’re like that, why do let them take those pictures?’ Okay, once and for all, this is the fucking end. We’re going to lighten it up, we’re going to have a little humor here." I’m a funny girl. (Laughs) I’m not going to change. I definitely have a sexual attitude on stage, but I also have a tongue-in-cheek attitude which I want them to understand more. It’s so tough being misunderstood. (Laughs).

You’re planning a family. I would imagine that would be somewhat difficult to manage.

Tres difficult. I don’t know what we’re going to do when this happens. Everyone has been waiting with baited breath saying, "What happens now?" To kind of take the pressure off, the next album will be a live record, so I can have the baby. Then we’ll see what happens after that. I really don’t know how I’m going to get it all in. It will probably mean limited touring. I still have many records left in my contract, so I’ll have to do that and I don’t want to stop altogether, obviously, but I’m sure I’ll have to cut down. It’ll be nice fore a change. It’s the one thing Neil and I really want and we’re really looking forward to it. I just feel so ready. I’ve waited so long and I feel much better about it than I ever felt in my life, especially with him, too.

Let’s go back to your beginnings. When did you start to sing?

I’ve been singing since I was a little kid in school choirs, so I always sang. I started doing this (rock) about seven years ago.

That’s when you decided to devote your life to it?

I don’t know. I always listened to rock & roll. I just think that when you live on Long Island and you have a real clean voice, I don’t think anybody ever thinks that you can sing rock & roll, so they put you somewhere they think you belong, and once you start doing it, like everything else, you get real interested in it, so I continued. But it was such a paradox singing that and listening to the Rolling Stones that it became too hard to do, and I just quit.

Was it difficult getting back into shape vocally?

It was real hard. All the muscles just go flat inside and the diaphragm and everything just lays down, so it took a long time to get the stamina back. When I had studied, I had such rigorous training. They would make us wear harnesses and whack us with sticks to get us built. So after not doing that for a long time, it just goes to flab inside and I had no breath. I couldn’t even sing three words without struggling for breath. That took a long time.

What other kinds of things did they do during training?

They put fingers in your mouth so you’re open enough to get the tone and things like that.

You weren’t singing between the ages of 19 and 21 when you got married and moved to Virginia. Had you decided to table your career of did you think you could do something in Virginia?

I was probably so enraptured with getting married and the whole thing went with it, that it never crossed my mind. Plus, I was so disenchanted with the music I was doing and still believed that even though I wanted to sing rock & roll, I would never sing it. I didn’t want to sing anything else, so I just didn’t do anything. I got married and I was going to college doing anything else but music. Every once in a while it would get to me and I would be watching Rock Concert or something, and choke. I could never get the nerve to do it, I had just burned out my nerves.

Did anybody ever try to discourage you because of your size?

Sure. No one thought I had the lung capacity, especially when I was going for opera. Everybody I knew was so huge, big women. But it just matters what equipment you have inside and how much diaphragmatic control you have, and you’re facial structure. People thought it wouldn’t happen because I have such a small nose and they said I had no cavity for the resonance to happen, but instead, what I have is deep cheekbones and a deep nasal cavity inside. I have no nose, but I have this huge resonating cavity in the inside of my face which gives me the power that I have, besides a large set of lungs. They always tried to discourage me my whole life: "You’re too small, you sing too clean, girls can’t do rock & roll," and on and on. And when that happens, you just end up going completely the other way. You get real introverted and you become uninterested and you don’t do it anymore. I guess that’s why I quit. But somewhere along the line I was working in a bank, and I remember the day. I just stood there and looked at all that money and said, "What the hell am I doing here?" I was counting the money and all I would do every day was think of ways to steal it. Not that I wanted it, but just for something to do, because it was so boring. And I was there with all these proper little Southern girls, which is such a whole other thing when you’re from New York. So that was it, I quit. I remember quitting that day without giving any notice; I just turned in my keys and left.

After that, I went out and just started singing. Right away, I read in the newspaper that they were having auditions at this club called the Roaring Twenties for singing waitresses, and that was the first thing I ever did for money. WE did stuff like Diana Ross songs, the strangest things. It was like a revue, but you waited on tables. It was very strange.

How long did you do that?

Four months. Then I joined a lounge band and I came to New York after that, in ’75.

So that’s when you made your commitment to music?

Right. (Laughs) We had this lounge band that was doing really well and we got on T.V. and all this stuff. In fact, my bass player is from that band. I remember how upset everyone was when I quit the band and then took Roger (Capps) with me. We just started doing clubs and I didn’t think I could really sing, so I was doing cabaret – theater songs and pop songs mixed together, so we did this and we found we didn’t like it, so then we went to Catch A Rising Star, and that’s when it started. Bruce Morrow, (Cousin Brucie, the DJ) who is big on the East coast, saw us, and we did this T.V. thing and one thing led to another then Chrysalis came down and it just went from there. When it began to happen, it happened immediately. It was like in a matter of weeks, but it took four years to get to that pint. This was already late ’78 when Chrysalis came and saw me, and then we signed in early ’79.

People expect you to be a certain way offstage. You’re very different than the image you have on stage, and yet you say that the image came naturally. Is it just because when you get a microphone in you hand and have that freedom, is that what happens?

It’s my alter ego. That’s the only way I can explain it, because it’s definitely genuine. It’s not something I fabricate, but I can’t get it any other time. A lot of people get really bummed out, I’m sure, but that’s as much a part of me as this is, but the only time I’m like that is then. I always tell people that I don’t wear black clothes all the time, and I don’t’ wear eye make-up 24-hours a day either. But that’s the best part, because you get to go back and forth, and it’s great. It’s like every fantasy you’ve ever had, you get to live it every day.