York author Miles Salter holding a copy of his investigative rock biography A Dangerous Band: The Pretenders 1978-83 ahead of the book launch and signing session at Topping & Company on November 10
YORK author, journalist, songwriter, band leader, podcaster, storyteller, festival organiser and poet Miles Salter will launch his new book, A Dangerous Band: The Pretenders 1978-83, at Topping & Company bookshop, Museum Street, York, on November 10 at 7pm.
“I hope you will join me as I talk to poet and author John Goodby about The Pretenders and their remarkable, strange, dark, sad tale,” says Miles, introducing his no-holds barred account of ego, bust-ups and drug usage that forms his first narrative non-fiction work and first book since 2020.
As long ago as December 1991, Miles wrote and recorded the song Voice Of A Dead Man at Old Dairy Studios in York. “It was all about rock stars who were no longer with us: Freddie Mercury, who had died the previous month, Roy Orbison, Bob Marley, Jimi Hendrix, and it also mentioned Pete Farndon, so I was aware of the Pretenders’ story already, but then I became really interested in it.”
Thirty-five years later, A Dangerous Band is the result. “It tells the compelling true story of The Pretenders, one of New Wave’s most exciting bands,” says Miles. “Chrissie Hynde arrived in London from America in 1973. Tucked under her arm were the three albums she most treasured.
“She wrote for the NME [New Musical Express] and fell in with Malcolm McLaren and Vivienne Westwood via Sex, the provocatively named shop they ran on King’s Road. She hung out with The Sex Pistols and The Clash. After numerous near-misses, she formed The Pretenders in 1978 with three young men from Hereford: guitarist James Honeyman-Scott, bassist Pete Farndon and drummer Martin Chambers.”
Within 18 months they had released “one of THE great albums of the era”, as Miles bills 1980’s “incredibly aggressive” Pretenders, whose chart-topping single Brass In Pocket launched the band to international success and fame.
Chrissie Hynde: Lead singer of The Pretenders
“But tragedy ensued: by mid-1983 both Farndon and Honeyman-Scott were dead from drug abuse, dying within ten months of each other,” says Miles. “Beginning in February 2025, and drawing on previously recorded interviews , including one with Martin Chambers, I spent 18 months writing and researching the book, returning to Honeyman-Scott and Farndon’s home city, interviewing band members, romantic connections, family members, friends, record company staff and music journalists.”
In his three poetry collections, Miles writes of garden gnomes, strange neighbours, a bloke who shouts at the moon, a Brummie vampire, global catastrophe and near-death experiences, so what drew him to the story of The Pretenders, with its “rise of Chrissie Hynde from Akron outsider to London rock royalty, the sonic genius of their self-titled debut and the chaotic drug-fuelled spiral that tragically cut short the lives of James Honeyman-Scott and Pete Farndon”?
“The story was a gift to a writer,” says Miles. “Every time I thought ‘this can’t get any stranger’, something else came up. The more I talked to people, the stranger it became, the darker and darker it became. A story of totally living that rock’n’roll life but to their detriment as it cost them their lives.”
Miles found the writing experience “emotional”. “It’s just such a sad story. I wept often as I wrote. People told me how funny and charming and likeable Jimmy and Pete were, and they both died in the most appalling ways. I sent some of it to Lyn Honeyman Scott (sister of guitarist James Honeyman-Scott) and she said the same thing: ‘It’s desperately sad’.
“In terms of telling a story, I got lucky. Every time I thought things couldn’t get weirder, something more shocking emerged. It’s a real-life tragedy packed with all the elements of a compelling story.”
York author Miles Salter and the cover artwork for his book A Dangerous Band: The Pretenders 1978-83, published by Winter & May on November 1
That story has a Faustian element, suggests Miles. “They made a deal with the devil. It’s a case of ‘be careful what you wish for’. Chrissie Hynde wrote in one of her later lyrics, ‘what’s the price of fame?’. I think that sums up the book. It’s a question that has haunted her.”
Salter’s meticulous research uncovers the personal lives, conflicts and rivalries behind the hits, while exploring Hynde’s driven yet complex personality and the childhood trauma that shaped three of the band members.
“The book makes some pertinent observations about the psychology of creatives, showing how fame can destroy even the most talented,” says Miles of his behind-the-scenes look at the cost of success that weaves John Lydon, Sid Vicious, Ray Davies, Bruce Springsteen, Nick Lowe and music executive Seymour Stein, as well as McLaren and Westwood, into the tale.
“I learned that Pete Farndon felt nothing when Brass In Pocket went to number one,” says Miles. “It just felt anti-climactic, after watching footage of The Beatles at Shea Stadium and thinking that was the life he wanted.”
Miles did not interview Chrissie Hynde. “People kept asking, ‘have you spoken with Chrissie’, but the Pretenders’ story is not just about her, it’s about band members, brothers, sisters, family, friends, the whole community affected by Pete and James’s deaths.”
Book launch: A Dangerous Band: The Pretenders 1978-83 author Miles Salter, in conversation with poet john Goodby, followed by signing session, Topping & Company bookshop, Museum Street, York, November 10, 7pm (doors 6.30pm). Tickets cost £17.95, including hardback book or £5 “if you just want to come and listen”. To book, go to: https://www.toppingbooks.co.uk/events/york/miles-salter-the-pretenders/.