Debbie Harry says her early fame felt like "sex".
Debbie Harry
The Blondie superstar - who made a name for herself in the iconic rock band after forming in New York in 1974 - has opened up about the group's rise to the top, but she admitted the experience was also "strangely anticlimactic" after enjoying the journey much more.
In an extract from her book 'Face It' published by The Sun newspaper, she wrote: "Fame was a sensual sort of feeling, initially. It felt like having sex, a wash of electricity coursing through your fingers and your legs, sometimes a flushed feeling at the base of your throat. It was exciting, but at the same time strangely anticlimactic.
"I've come to the conclusion that for me, the best of Blondie was the early days of the band, when we were struggling artists scuttling around New York's Lower East Side just trying to get something going. Everybody got by on no money.
"Nobody talked about mainstream success. Who wanted to be mainstream? What we were doing was so much better than that."
The 'Maria' singer, now 74, also candidly opened up in the book about the drug use at the time, insisting the world was so different as they didn't really know "the consequences" of what they were doing to themselves.
She said: "For those times when I wanted to blank out parts of my life or when I was dealing with some depression, there was nothing better than heroin. Nothing.
"No one thought about the consequences. I can't remember if any of us even knew the consequences.
"It may sound strange when you are talking about drugs but it was a more innocent time. They weren't doing scientific studies and setting up methadone clinics.
"If you wanted to do drugs, you did drugs. And if you got hung up or got sick, you were on your own. Curiosity was a big factor too -- drugs were another new experience to check out."
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