Name	Pretenders
Height
Naionality	American-British
Date of Birth
Place of Birth	Hereford, England, UK, and Akron, Ohio, U.S.
Famous for	Singing

Pretenders are an English-American rock band formed in Hereford, England, in March 1978. The original band comprised initiator and main songwriter Chrissie Hynde (lead vocals, rhythm guitar), James Honeyman-Scott (lead guitar, backing vocals, keyboards), Pete Farndon (bass guitar, backing vocals), and Martin Chambers (drums, backing vocals, percussion). Following the drug-related deaths of Honeyman-Scott and Farndon, the band has experienced numerous subsequent personnel changes, with Hynde as the only consistent member, and Chambers returning after an absence of several years.

The band's first single, a cover of The Kinks song "Stop Your Sobbing" (produced by Nick Lowe and recorded at the July Regents Park sessions) was released in January 1979 and gained critical attention. It was followed in June with "Kid," and then in January 1980 the band got to No. 1 in the UK with "Brass in Pocket," which was also successful in the US, reaching No. 14 on the Billboard Hot 100. Their self-titled debut album was released at the end of December 1979 and was a success in the United Kingdom and the United States both critically and commercially. The band played at the Heatwave festival during August 1980 near Toronto. During March 1981, the EP Extended Play was released, containing the UK and US success "Message of Love" and "Talk of the Town", "Cuban Slide" and a live version of "Precious," recorded in Central Park. The second full-length album, Pretenders II, was released during August 1981. Pretenders II included the Extended Play singles, the MTV video success, "Day After Day," and popular album-radio tracks "The Adultress," "Birds of Paradise," "Bad Boys Get Spanked" and "The English Roses".

The Pretenders' album Break Up the Concrete was released through Shangri-La Music on 7 October 2008. It was the band's first Top 40 album in the US in twenty two years. Tracks include "Boots of Chinese Plastic", "Don't Cut Your Hair", "Love's a Mystery", "The Last Ride" and "Almost Perfect". With Hynde was the guitarist James Walbourne, pedal steel player Eric Heywood, bassist Nick Wilkinson and drummer Jim Keltner (on the album only). Chambers returned to the drums on tour with the band. Several one-off shows were performed during the closing months of 2008, including a couple of Christmas charity shows. The 'Break Up The Concrete Tour' began in mid-January and covered most of the United States, with shows until the end of March. It then continued in Europe, with gigs in Sweden, Norway, Finland, Denmark, Germany, Netherlands, France, Spain, Belgium, and the UK during the months of June and July, before returning for a new tour in Canada and the US during August and September 2009.