Musical icons Blondie had a special surprise for their audience within their UK and US tour; the band shocked the crowd with a slight amendment within their lineup. Sex Pistols musician Glen Matlock joined the band on stage throughout their Spring performances; Matlock took up the bass after the band’s bassist Leigh Foxx suffered a back injury. Joined by The Smiths co-founder and guitarist Johnny Marr, the “Heart Of Glass” hitmakers conducted the UK leg of their tour this Spring and finished the ten date leg with a set at Birmingham’s Utilita Arena.
Both acts have confirmed that Matlock will appear on Blondie’s new album while Foxx recuperates from their injury. Speaking to Classic Pop Magazine, cultural icon and Blondie guitarist Chris Stein gave the following details, “Glen has just been great. Unlike ‘Pollinator’, we’re mostly keeping this album in-house: it’s just the band and Glen playing on it. He’s fitted right in.”
Blondie’s last full release Pollinator dropped over five years ago and was their eleventh studio album. The album was released on 5th May 2017 via BMG Rights Management and sired four singles, the album’s lead single “Fun” was a huge success and peaked at number two within the UK official vinyl singles Chart. After several albums of somewhat experimental work, Pollinator is often regarded as a return to a more traditional format and sound for the band. The tracklist features a host of special guests and a-list collaborations, with many songs co-written by other artists, including Johnny Marr, The Strokes’ Nick Valensi, Charli XCX and Dev Hynes, aka Lightspeed champion.
The English musician Matlock recently made headlines for his comments during an interview to mark God Save The Queen’s 45th anniversary and the recently released Danny Boyle biopic of the band Pistol. Whilst appearing on the ITV programme Good Morning Britain, Matlock stated, “I think one of the things is that, you know, how worse off we would be if [Boris] Johnson was a president, that would be even worse. I’m really quite pleased to be out of England at the moment, the terrible, turgid Tories have just been getting on top of me.”
The 66-year-old musician continued, “So to be touring, as I have been, I got asked very last minute to play with Blondie, we’ve been touring over here (in the US) and I just not long got back from Mexico, it’s been really quite refreshing to do something different and step outside and see how other people see us.”
Blondie’s charismatic frontwoman Debbie Harry and Stein will be back in the UK this winter for a series of special shows; the singer and guitarist will conduct a lecture tour across the UK. Entitled ‘An Evening With Debbie Harry & Chris Stein in Conversation‘, the series of appearances were initially scheduled to begin this February; due to the covid-19 pandemic, the four shows were postponed until the end of this year.
‘An Evening With Debbie Harry & Chris Stein in Conversation‘ Dates
01/11/2022 – The Palladium – London
03/11 – Royal Concert Hall – Glasgow
06/11 – Town Hall – Birmingham
08/11 – Bridgewater Hall – Manchester
Click here to purchase tickets.
