While sorting through the aisles of pineapples, cereals and bobby pins at the Hasegawa General Store on some future trip to Maui, don't be surprised if you find Pat Benatar, as well.

No, not shrink-wrapped copies of the pioneering '80s rocker's half-dozen or so multimillion-selling CDs such as "Crimes of Passion" or "In the Heat of the Night." We're talking the real deal: three-years-and-counting full-time west side rock icon /local girl/fruit-'n'-veggie farmer Pat Benatar.

"Spider and I got married there in 1982. And we were hooked the minute we got off the little plane and stepped into the little town," said Benatar, by phone. "We spent the rest of those (past) 25 years traveling constantly back and forth until we decided, 'OK this is crazy. Let's just go!' "

Explanations are in order.

Benatar's "Spider" is Neil Giraldo, her producer, arranger, co-songwriter, guitarist and partner, who'll join her for a couple of concerts with the Honolulu Symphony Pops Friday and Saturday at the Blaisdell Concert Hall. The "little town" is the postcard-perfect West Maui village whose name she wished to keep secret, where she, Giraldo and their two daughters reside.

She may be the world's coolest soccer mom, personable and chatty, but she's still up for taking the head off of anyone daring to give her crap about her career choices. Benatar, now 53, talked about rocking with the symphony, being a female rock icon and the importance of being local.

'HIT ME,' WITH VIOLINS

Surprised to find one of the founding rock chicks of all rock chicks fronting a gig with the Honolulu Symphony Pops? Join the club.

"It's just a way to diversify what you do. It's beautiful to have a symphony in back of you doing all that great stuff," said Benatar. "It brings a whole new dimension to the songs, which is the purpose of doing it. And it's just really fun to do."

So fans should really be thinking "Love is a Battlefield," "You Better Run" and "Hit Me With Your Best Shot" with strings and woodwinds, then?

"Yeah, you should, absolutely!" said Benatar, laughing. "You'll be hearing most of the greatest hits and probably a few obscure things. We tend to pick really popular songs when we do this because they really lend themselves to the transformation, and the audience recognizes them a lot quicker.

"Then we pick a few for us that are kind of the sleepers — the beautifully written songs that weren't hits. ... 'Run Between the Raindrops' ... 'Somebody's Baby' or maybe 'Promises in the Dark.' "

Giraldo has been working with Pops conductor Matt Catingub on arranging Benatar's rock repertoire for the Pops.

"Spider's really great at this," said Benatar, proudly. "He's kind of bent. He's always looking for strange parts anyway, so it doesn't seem to be anything but exhilarating for him. ... He loves arranging."

Benatar said most of her works have proven surprisingly adaptable to symphonic rearrangement. Not that she wanted every one of 'em in her show.

"One of the criteria is that (a symphonic rearrangement) bring something to the song. That it embellishes it or takes it in directions that are going to improve the arrangement of the song," said Benatar. "If that doesn't happen and it's just a bunch of musicians playing behind it ... we don't keep it. ... That's just wasting everyone's time."

'EVERY DAY WAS A BATTLE'

Pat Benatar is a card-carrying member of a select group of female musicians out of the late '70s and early '80s who are now regularly name-checked as pioneers for women in rock. Fierce determination to keep every facet of their careers — from music to fashion to videos — in their control instead of their record label's have made Benatar and peers like Chrissie Hynde, Deborah Harry and Patti Smith heroes to younger women rockers who hope to follow in their footsteps.

Divorced from high school sweetheart Dennis Benatar, Juilliard- and Broadway-trained and, at 26, armed with her major label debut ("In the Heat of the Night"), Pat Benatar demanded that her brand of rock be taken as seriously as that of any boy's. In 1979, that wasn't easy.

"It was a nightmare. Every day was a battle. Every day!" remembered Benatar. "There wasn't a day that didn't go by where some idiot program director was, like (here Benatar does a convincing male Southern drawl), 'Come on, baby. You just sit on my lap and we'll get that record played.' ... It was just horrible stuff."

Benatar credits Giraldo, the rest of her band and crew for keeping her sane.

"The guys in my band were so supportive," said Benatar. "They would've ripped anyone's head off who tried to say I couldn't stand up against any male rocker out there. They would've. Because they knew me better."

Born in Brooklyn, N.Y., Benatar also chose to deal with the madness on her own by having fun with it and effectively playing tough girl. She married band member Giraldo, with whom she crafted many of the chart-topping rock hits that have since become classics. She embraced music video early on, becoming one of early MTV's first heavily-rotated artists. Four consecutive best female rock vocal performance Grammys went home with Benatar between 1980 and 1983. Fans followed as her repertoire moved between crunching rockers and theatrical rock ballads, scooping up 32 million copies of her albums worldwide.

Benatar also cultivated a much-emulated-among-high-school-girls style — heavy on spandex, leggings, waist-clinching belts, short skirts — she insists was all her own.

"I had waited all my life to be that," said Benatar, of being a rock star. "I wanted to be Robert Plant. I wanted to be Mick Jagger. ... I wanted to break down barriers and be able to cross over and do things that were more diverse.

"And as I got more famous and more latitude to do what I wanted, I did. I just went as far as I could go in all directions. Sometimes in the right direction. Sometimes not."

Benatar said that when her string of platinum albums and hit singles began to ebb in the late '80s as music tastes changed, she was OK with it. After taking a five-year break from touring, she returned to the road in the mid-'90s and has been touring on her own timetable ever since.

She still records — a new CD is in the works; her last one was out in 2003 — and is writing an autobiography.

And she still refuses to take orders about her career from anyone. "I'm 53 years old. I'm not a child anymore," said Benatar. "I always tell people, 'Do not give me crap, because I have dust rags older than you!' "

Benatar laughed lustily.

"I've done everything I wanted to do. I have a life. I have children. And I'm still grateful and lucky to be able to continue my career. That's very gratifying to me."

FARMERS IN SHORTS

So what's a typical day in the life of Pat Benatar on Maui like?

"When we're not working, we're basically farmers," she said, happily. "We're outside, and we're working in board shorts and slippahs. ... I love it!"

Besides cultivating what Benatar described as " 'Jurassic Park'-sized" fruits and vegetables, the couple grows herbs and other plants for Giraldo's Web-based organic vitamin-supplement company On The Rock Nutrition. Asked how "local" she and her family have become, Benatar had a ready answer.

"We're pretty local. In the little town we live in, you either get local or you need to go," said Benatar, laughing. "I've been going there since I was 26 years old."

She chuckled again when asked what she and Spider's now quarter-century-old relationship had that, say, Nick and Jessica's or Sonny and Cher's didn't.

"The truth is, we have incredible respect for each other as people, as musicians, as partners, as parents," said Benatar. "He's a wonderful man. He's very easy-going. And we're committed. We made the commitment and we try not to stray from that. ... We get along great. That's a blessing. And that's it! No big secret."

What do Benatar's daughters, ages 12 and 21, think of mom's rock icon status?

"Oh, they're so over it! ... They're so sick of it. ... (They're), like, 'Are you gonna wear those clothes? Ewwww!' " said Benatar.

"I'm just their mother, and I'm a geek as far as they're concerned. It doesn't matter what your parents do. They're still your parents."

Benatar, however, can claim some justifiable pride about her place in rock history.

"I'm just basically proud to have been part of a group of women who stood up and fought the barriers of a male-dominated genre of music and succeeded," said Benatar. "There were many of us at the time. I wasn't by myself. And I'm grateful every time I look back and think how lucky I was to have been a part of that movement.

"It was a great, great thing. And the benefits of that still carry today. And I'm proud of that."

Reach Derek Paiva at dpaiva@honoluluadvertiser.com.