Chris Stein is worried hitting the road with the band would be too much for him because of his health problem after the 71-year-old musician suffered from a heart issue.
- October 18, 2021
AceShowbiz - Blondie co-founder Chris Stein fears he'll no longer be able to tour with the band after suffering a heart issue.
Debbie Harry's longtime sidekick reveals his condition leaves him very tired and he doesn't think hitting the road anytime soon is a good idea.
"I don't know if I'm going to be participating in touring going forward," he tells NME.com. "I just have some heart bulls**t. I take medicine for it that's a little fatiguing. It's an irregular heartbeat. It's not super-serious, but it's just tiring and I don't have the stamina I did when I was 30 or 40.
"So I mainly deal with the recording at this point. I was actually sitting down for the last couple of tours. I figured if BB King could do it, I could! We'll see."
The possible tour cancelation came only a week after the band announced a Christmas single "Yuletide Throwdown", a revamp of their 1980 hit "Rapture".
Harry said, "It has been an impossible amount of time since I believed in Santa Claus, but I could very well believe again if he was Freddy Brathwaite!! Some of my best times have been making music with [bandmate] Chris Stein and Freddy B."
"The first time we recorded the basic track for 'Rapture' we decided it was too slow, so we sped it up and that's the final version we released. I had the master tapes and took a copy of the tape of the first version home, overdubbed on top of it and put Debbie and Freddy's vocals on it. It was originally for Flexipop magazine, and it came out with other Christmas tracks I'd produced by the bands The Brattles and Snuky Tate."
