Pat Benatar: Last Woman Standing

The ’80s pop-rock diva is still a "Heartbreaker."

By Jeff Maisey
Tuesday, May. 23, 2006

In 1979, Pat Benatar grabbed the rock-n-roll world by the throat and slapped it around in a way that perhaps only Janis Joplin had done before. She was a commanding woman with a powerhouse voice and sex-appeal. Her debut album, In the Heat of the Night, was an instant hit on the radio, thrust onto the scene by "Heartbreaker" and "I Need a Lover." She and her music were as hot as fire.

Benatar, like most recording artists of the era, instantly found success and all the expectations that come with it. Record label demands were with the hit products they’d hoped for.

Benatar quickly followed the success of her first album with a homerun, Crimes of Passion (1980), which had two knockout singles, "Hit Me with Your Best Shot" and "Hell Is for Children."

By 1984, Benatar’s popularity was beginning to wane, though she continued to score with songs such as "We Belong." After losing a major label deal, she rebounded nicely in 1997 with Innamorata.

The following is my interview with Pat Benatar. She called from her home on Maui.

Pat, I had heard that you lived in Richmond for a period of time.

I did.

When was that? Were you playing in a band at that time?

I was married and very young. My first husband was stationed in Petersburg. We consequently split up while we were living there and I stayed in Richmond. I lived in Hopewell for a little while and I wound up singing in Richmond for a couple of years. I began singing down there because I was going to college to become a school teacher and guess I just changed my mind. I really didn’t make it until I moved back up to New York, but my beginnings were there [Richmond] definitely.

At the same time you were signed to Chrysalis Records a band from here in Norfolk called States also inked a deal with the label. It has been said the reason States got dropped by Chrysalis was because your debut album sold much better than theirs. Do you remember States?

I don’t. I was probably so busy at that time I don’t remember them at all.

When you started out did you feel a lot of pressure being a woman fronting a rock band? There had been a few before — Janis Joplin, Grace Slick — but what was it like for you?

The world was a different place and it was exhilarating because everything was new, but at the same time it was difficult. I used to call it the gauntlet because every day they hand you some other horrible thing that you had to do or fight over. We were making it up as we went along. Women had been out there singing as part of groups but it was the first time that there was really a female frontperson that was heading a band. And it was really difficult, but lots of fun because it was insane every single day.

When you entered the studio to record the first album, In the Heat of the Night, did you have a chance to think the whole recording process through?

I don’t know that there was all that much thinking involved. Everyone always says you have your lifetime to prepare for your first record and that’s really the truth because you’re working so hard to get that first chance. You never get that luxury again after that. But I don’t know that I was so conscious of what I was doing. I was 25 years old and just ready to take over the world and have a great time. It was really about having fun and singing.

Why did you choose to cover John Cougar Mellencamp’s "I Need a Lover" for your debut?

Part of the compilation that happened when we made Heat of the Night was that we worked with a producer named Mike Chapman. He was doing Blondie and a bunch of other groups. He had made suggestions and he had a couple of songs that he thought would be really good to do from a woman’s point of view, taking these songs and turning the lyrics around. And of course that appealed to me instantly because that was what I was all about. So he suggested that song. We sat down and tried it out and it actually worked great when you shifted the gender. It didn’t set the tone for the record because we already had "Heartbreaker," which did set the tone. But it certainly pushed it along to solidify where we were going.

After In the Heat of the Night, what sort of things were you experiencing as you pulled together songs for Crimes of Passion?

That time was probably the most crazy of all because the lead time for the next record was so short, and we had been touring for almost 14 months at that point. It is really difficult to write songs when you’re on the road. You have to focus on performing. Even though it would seem like there is nothing else that you would be doing except thinking about music, it’s not that conducive to writing. It’s too much traveling and you’re distracted. So that was very intense because we had to come up with all these songs. We had no idea that it would take off and become so huge so quickly. The only thing that was beautiful about that was that there was no time to be afraid, because fear would have and should have come into play at that point, because after your first record is really successful I would think that you would choke. We didn’t have time to do that. We were so busy just trying to catch up. There was no time to think. We just did, and that probably saved us.

When I interviewed Alice Cooper he told me that "Dead Babies" was actually a song about child abuse. Was child abuse also an inspiration for your song "Hell Is For Children"?

"Hell Is for Children" came from an article that…I was living in New York when we wrote it and the New York Times did a series of articles about child abuse in America. I came from a really small town on Long Island and I had no idea that this existed, not in the little gingerbread place I came from. I was stunned. It affected me so much. I was moved by the articles. When ever that would happen I would write. I said to Neil [Giraldo, guitarist], ‘I want you to do something to the music that it sounds like pain. I want the intense pain that’s happening to these children in the notes,’ and so he did and it turned out just great. It became an anthem. I always wonder if other people have lofty intentions. I didn’t.

A lot of times what happens (in composing lyrics) is that it has such great meaning to other people and you didn’t know that was going to happen. That’s the really beautiful thing about writing.

Did you receive a lot of feedback stating the song dramatically raised awareness to the issue of child abuse?

Yeah. We started a foundation for abused children. Then we had all these grownups writing letters saying no one had addressed this in this way before and that it was so great having someone in rock-n-roll doing this.

It turned into this other thing that I don’t think any of us foresaw, you know?

Yeah. It’s a powerful song. The music is matched perfectly by the lyrics.

Thank you. Yeah, the anguish is there. Every time I sing it I really remember the afternoon when we talked about it.

Pat, your last headlining tour that stopped in Norfolk was at The Boathouse in support of 1997’s Innamorata, an album I thought was every bit as strong as your earlier works. How were things going for you during that point in your career?

It was a unique time. We had left our record company, which was terrifying and liberating at the same time. It gave us so much latitude to do what we wanted. Rather than have to crank out these records that were sometimes no really ready to be recorded, songs that weren’t finished. Their [record labels] business is to get product out and they’re not really that interested in how they get it. I’m not saying there aren’t people that care — there are — but it’s run like a business.

Innamorata was born out of that because we had time to write and time to explore how we were going to do the record, and there was nobody standing over us with a whip. But it was very scary because we completely stepped out of the main stream of the machine, the recording industry. And I don’t think you ever get to go back once you do that, but that was okay with us. There were a couple of years there where it was really touch-and-go as to how it was going to turn out, but I never had any regrets because there was no way that we could have continues the way we had been going…I’ve done everything that I wanted to do. I’ve achieved all the things that I wanted to achieve. I was one of the lucky ones that got to go and I was one of the lucky ones that got to stay.

When the Internet happened we rejoiced because it meant not only were the steps we had taken to remove ourselves not in vain, it gave you another way to thumb your nose at those people who drove you nuts all those years.

When you perform live these days, do you see aging faces in the crowd as well as youngsters?

Yeah, it’s pretty mixed now. There was a five-year span, probably around 1998, that it was just people my age or slightly younger, and the diehards. Then this other thing happened where, you know, that cultural thing that just happens when younger people think that they have discovered something new. And that’s what happened. All these college girls started coming. So now the audience is probably between 14 and 55, which is really interesting.

We call it last man standing. You have to survive past the 25-year mark because when historically and culturally it all comes around because the children of the people who came in the first place are all grown up. So it’s really about last man standing. •