Why Cherie Currie Of The Runaways Wasn't A Teenage Dirtbag

LA outfit The Runaways were a teenage all-female rock sensation in the late '70s — a time when rock'n'roll was still defiantly a boys' club — and their flame burnt brightly, the group releasing four studio albums and a live one in just under four turbulent years.

When 2010 film The Runaways was based on founding vocalist Cherie Currie's autobiography Neon Angel: A Memoir Of A Runaway, it seemed inevitable that it would drag Currie back into the music world — which it did, with her 2015 solo collection Reverie marking her first album release in 35 years, despite her still staying musically active — although not quite in the way she originally envisaged.

"I did a single with Lita Ford — she reached out to me to rekindle, or actually birth, a friendship, because we didn't really have a friendship in The Runaways."

"I actually did four tours before I put out Reverie," she explains. "I'd made a record with [Runaway guitarist Joan Jett's label] Blackheart: right after the movie came out and I'd opened for Joan I was offered a record deal, that evening actually, and I ended up going with Blackheart. It was a great record — Matt Sorum [of Guns N' Roses] produced it, Billy Corgan from The Smashing Pumpkins wrote a duet for he and I to do, and then of course it had Slash and Duff [McKagan] and The Veronicas from Down Under and Brody Dalle and even Juliette Lewis — but then they shelved the record.

"So after a couple of years of not performing I left [Blackheart] and immediately booked four tours on my own, without management. That was a big 'flip the bird' kinda thing, but it was great — I had a lot of fun. Then when I got back into town I did a single with [The Runaways' rhythm guitarist] Lita Ford — she reached out to me to rekindle, or actually birth, a friendship, because we didn't really have a friendship in The Runaways.

"Then [former manager/svengali] Kim Fowley reached out to me to make a record and I jumped at the chance because I knew he was gravely ill — unfortunately he passed before the record was finished, but I've got great memories of Kim: they certainly beat the ones I had as a kid!"

While the '70s were a notoriously hedonistic time it seems The Runaways, despite their tender years, cared more about the music than the parties.

"I think we were before our time, but the great thing about The Runaways music is that anyone can sing it and anyone can play it," Currie reflects. "It wasn't as wild as you would think, because first of all we had performances almost nightly and we were travelling almost every day. The thing is if we wanted to party a little bit after the show then fine, but we never partied before because we needed to be good.

"So believe it or not, we were pretty darned responsible. The music was always the paramount concern, plus we were speaking from a teenage perspective and the things that we were saying were the things that teenagers could relate to because we were living it. And as I said anyone could play it and anyone could sing it."