Chrissie Hynde (second from the left) and The Pretenders. The bandplays Casino Rama tomorrow and Wednesday.

Chrissie Hynde is one helluva rock and roll survivor.

"There's life in the old girl yet!" declares the 57-year-old frontwoman for The Pretenders, who is currently getting some of the best reviews of her band's 31-year-career with the stripped-down and dynamic sounding Break Up the Concrete, the group's first CD in six years and ninth overall.

"I'd like to get into the studio and do another album next year, now that the band is in place and really hot to trot," said Hynde down the line from Akron, Ohio, where she divides her time along with her long-ago adopted home in London.

Break Up the Concrete was recorded in a mere 10 days in Los Angeles without the only other surviving original Pretenders member, drummer Martin Chambers (but he is on tour with Hynde this summer, including tomorrow and Wednesday at Casino Rama north of Toronto, and Aug. 26 at Malkin Bowl in Vancouver). Instead, acclaimed session drummer Jim Keltner was behind the kit in the studio.

"I wanted to get some different feels on the album, and Martin's got a real signature rock sound," Hynde said. "I met (Jim) years ago when I toured with Neil Young and he's just great ... Someone suggested, 'Why not Jim?' And I thought, 'Wow, I wouldn't even have thought I was in his league.' But he was up for doing it. Martin's great live, but I have to do what I think is right for the band and that was my decision. Martin was fine with it. He loves Jim anyway."

Hynde says all of the current doom and gloom about the record industry is really just a correction of the excess that preceded it.

"There was too much money and too much stupidity and too much excess," she said. "I don't know why people like Clear Channel and record companies were giving millions of dollars in advances. It's just stupid. It's embarrassing. I don't even know why rock musicians should be getting paid more than doctors. It's just entertainment. I'm doing this, I'm not waitressing so, you know, why should I get overly rewarded? I already get to do what I want. I mean, I'm not going to give the money back. I certainly don't feel doom and gloom. I'm delighted that any industry can destroy itself with its own greed."

Among other activities keeping Hynde busy are her vegan restaurant, The Vegiterranean -- which she opened two years ago in Akron -- and her ongoing efforts with PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals).

She says she never considered giving up rock and roll, despite losing two band members soon after the band's 1978 formation. Guitarist James Honeyman-Scott died of a cocaine overdose in 1982 and bassist (and Hynde's ex-lover) Pete Farndon of a heroin overdose in 1983. There has been a rotating lineup of musicians ever since.

"I just love touring," Hynde said. "I don't mind sleeping on the bus and going to the next town -- that's where I feel normal. I'd never get in a car and drive to work and come home, because it just wouldn't work for me ... I love routine, but only for about three days."

Meantime, Hynde says to look out for a new Welsh singer-songwriter named J.P. Jones.

"I think he's going to make a huge impact when his record comes out," said Hynde, who has just co-written an entire album's worth of material with Jones and plans to sing on disc with him.

"We went to Cuba and wrote an album in a week. I've never done any solo projects ... I think it's one of the best things, if not the best thing, I've ever done."