At one point, after Cherie Currie had stepped out of the music spotlight and was focusing on marriage, motherhood and creativity of a different sort, she didn’t think about her former band, The Runaways. She actually didn’t think they had made much of an impact in rock & roll. But she was definitely in for an eye-opener when she finally realized that this band of rock rebel chicks – which also included Joan Jett, Lita Ford, Jackie Fox and Sandy West – had indeed been a trailblazer for women to not only pick up instruments and rock out but to rock out hard. In her recent memoir, former Go-Go’s bass player Kathy Valentine wrote, “Seeing The Runaways made me think if they could do it, so could I. That show lit a fire under my ass.” And she wasn’t the only one to sing the praises of the band, who released their first album in 1976. Thousands of girls wanted to be musicians after seeing or hearing The Runaways. Some made it, some didn’t. But the music has never faded away, despite what their former singer had believed.
Fast forward a few years and Currie is in the studio with Matt Sorum, former drummer for Guns N Roses and the Cult, making a record of kick-ass rock songs. But some obstacles fell in the album’s path and it’d be another few years before Currie would be able to release it. Lucky for us, that time is now.
It’s sad to think that these songs have been sitting on a shelf somewhere. But fate can sometimes be advantageous and in a world of quarantines, social-distancing and fear of walking out the door, we need good rocking out music, and Cherie Currie has it all right here in the palm of her hand: Blvds Of Splendor. Head-to-toe, this record is spilling over with strong songs that show no signs of being dated, stale or boring. The first single, the lead-off track “Mr X,” features Slash, Duff McKagan and Sorum raising absolute hell with the rhythm. “Force To Be Reckoned With” is a blaze of knock-head rock courtesy of Currie’s confident vibe and Nick Maybury’s lead guitar that takes off with you holding on for dear life. “Rock & Roll Oblivion” is a bluesy power ballad, while “Shades,” co-written with her son Jake Hays, slows down even more to emphasize the heartbeat in the song. And as a homage to former Runaways drummer Sandy West, who passed away in 2006 from cancer at age 47, Currie chose the title track to their 1977 sophom*ore album, “Queens Of Noise.”
Spending her recent years as a chainsaw sculptress, Currie had made some movies and several solo albums, including one with her twin sister Marie, after she left The Runaways following two studio albums. She saw her 1989 memoir, Neon Angel, become a movie in 2010 starring Dakota Fanning as a teenaged Currie, about the same time she started work on the aforementioned album. To say she is excited about having this recording finally out there for people to hear is an understatement. You can hear it in her voice when she talks about the songs and working with people such as Sorum and Maybury, who told me via email, “I’ve been working with Cherie now for ten years and I’m lucky to be part of her rock n roll family; what an honor to rock with Cherie Currie.”
Glide’s Leslie Michel Derrough spoke with Currie last week about the record, The Runaways and rock & roll.
Cherie, on your album cover you are still rock chick-ing it out. So I guess that is here to stay.
(laughs) Well, you know what, I did have a wonderful person that was making costumes for me right when I opened for Joan. I was asked to do that show and Matt Sorum had a friend that did wardrobe for his now wife and her band and this little gal came and just decked me out in these cool clothes. So I kind of liked it at the time. I think I’m past that now (laughs). I don’t think I would ever feel quite as good as I did in my fifty-year-old body in my sixty-year-old body wearing those outfits (laughs). I certainly feel a lot more comfortable in the t-shirts that I wear now so I think that’ll be my new garb when I tour.
Age is just a number
It really is. I still feel the same way I did in my twenties, amazingly so, or in my thirties. I’ve never really felt much different. I definitely don’t feel old. I’ve got arthritis in my hands a little bit from all the carving but I think it’s truly all in our minds, Leslie.
Blvds Of Splendor took a little while to get here. Can you tell us about those obstacles that kind of got in it’s way?
Well, when Matt and I finished this record back in 2010, I knew the record was so special but I wasn’t completely sold on the final mix. I wanted more of a huge sound. So I asked Kenny [Laguna] if we could bring in Thom Panunzio, who is known for mixing great sounding records. But in doing that, I delayed the record coming out when Blackheart was planning to do it. Now, looking back and listening to the record, I’m glad I did that. But of course, Kenny is on tour with Joan ten months out of the year and the record ended up getting shelved.
Then when they were thinking about putting it out, I had an accident when I was chainsaw carving and I had a scaffold collapse with me on it and that took a good solid year for me to recover from that. And by then I didn’t think the album was going to come out at all. So I just kind of shut the door on that. But with this pandemic happening and after Record Store Day and them putting it out as an LP, it was a real pleasant surprise to finally see it released and to hear it after ten years and how great it sounds. I’m so excited about it because I can’t wait to get out on tour eventually and do a tour for this record. It deserves it.
Did you do any extra tweaking before you allowed it to come out?
No, this record has been sitting as is in the Blackheart vault on a shelf somewhere for a long time. I’d literally stopped listening to the record for many years because it was just so hurtful that it was never coming out and I thought it was such a really great record that I just had to shut it out in order to move on with my life. I just had to. So the fact that it’s out and I can listen to it and my jaw just hit the ground how terrific it is, is just an amazing feeling.
You have some really cool people on Blvds Of Splendor, starting with “Mr X.” How far back does your history go with Slash, Duff and Matt?
I met Matt doing different charity events and he reached out to me when Ken Phillips, my publicist, and I were touring on the movie. We were doing a lot of stuff, like SXSW and traveling around the USA for the film, and Matt had called for me to be a background singer on his now wife’s record back then and I missed his call. By the time I called him back, of course, I’d missed that opportunity to work on his wife’s record. But I had just been asked to open for Joan, and I think we had two and half/three weeks, and I had no band. So I asked Matt if he knew of any musicians.
You know, I’m just a chainsaw carver from the Valley at this point. I hadn’t been onstage or done any touring in many, many, many years. So Matt says, “Well, I’ll be your drummer,” and I just fell out of my chair (laughs). He said, “I’ll put a band together for you,” and sure enough he did. He got Grant Fitzpatrick and Nick Maybury, two Aussies, who happened to be friends of Matt’s, and he brought them into this band and I brought my son and we went into rehearsal. And having Matt run these rehearsals, let me tell you, boy, you straightened up. If you were at all slouchy, you weren’t slouchy by the end of these rehearsals, I’ll tell you that much. A true pro and we kicked butt when we opened for Joan. It was unexpected. I don’t think Kenny expected it and I don’t think Joan expected it and I don’t think the audience expected it. We certainly didn’t, to be that good that night.
And Matt immediately, when we were taking pictures after the show, he just kind of out of the side of his mouth said, “You know, we’re going to make a record.” Right Matt, sure. (laughs) But within a week, we were in the studio cutting “Roxy Roller.” Then Matt said, “I’m going to produce a record for you.” We were actually offered a deal that night by a different record company but Kenny said, “I want you on our label,” and he was my manager, so of course I’m going to go with Blackheart. And we went in and Matt made this great record.
“Force To Be Reckoned With” is one of the big rockers on Blvds, and your son Jake had a hand in writing it.
I’ll tell you the story how this song even came about. Matt had hooked me up with Holly Knight to do some writing with her and I brought my son with me because I always brought my son with me because he’s a great musician and I wanted him to be a part of this. But she at that time was dating a young man that was writing with Jake while me and Holly were trying to do a little bit of writing on something else. This young person that she was dating was stealing my son’s song and telling Holly after we’d leave that it was him writing this stuff. And I knew it wasn’t because Jake was showing me before we went over there what he had written. So I just turned around and I said, “Holly, you and I are going to have a go.” And we did. I had a go with Holly because she was believing this kid that was not being truthful about who was writing this stuff. And she turned around and said, “You know, Cherie, you are a force to be reckoned with.” And I said, “You’re damn right I am,” because I was taking my son out, I was leaving. I was really upset with her. But she said, “I think this is a song that Jake and I are going to write, ‘Force To Be Reckoned With’” And that’s what they did. And that’s the story behind that song.
You honor Sandy West at the end with “Queens Of Noise.” Why did you pick that particular tune to represent her?
Anytime I did shows, I always asked Sandy to please drum for me; and this is up until the last part of her life. Because she and I had a camaraderie onstage like nothing I’ve ever experienced since. And I always knew that I was never going to have that opportunity again to work with someone like Sandy. We loved doing that song together onstage. So when Matt asked if there was a Runaways song that we could do, I immediately said “Queens Of Noise.” Then he listened to her drumming because Billy Bizeau had written that song specifically for us and no one had ever put drums to that song except Sandy. And Matt was so impressed by her that he played it exactly the way Sandy played it. Then we got to talk about her and what a really tremendous talent she was. And my best friend. So it’s great to be able to keep her alive at least in our memories and pay her the homage she so rightfully deserves.
Did you ask any of the other girls to play on any of these songs?
No, and Lita and I hadn’t really spoken in decades. Joan was off doing her touring and I just didn’t. I’m never comfortable asking anybody to do anything. I never have been so it was always Matt doing the asking. I’m so glad because I’m terrible at it (laughs).
How long was it before you realized you were a trailblazer for women in rock & roll?
I really had thought The Runaways had all but been forgotten, and I will be honest about that, up until 1997. I remember Madonna wearing a corset, basically taking all the credit as being the first girl in rock & roll to wear a corset, and I said, my God, I know you know that I did it first, right (laughs). I was so mad at her and then I really kind of thought that we had just been bulldozed over. Not until John and Art Linson came forward to Kenny and were interested in making a movie did I think that we had not been forgotten. I started watching the videos of our performances and started listening to the songs, because I hadn’t listened to The Runaways in twenty years, cause it was just so painful. We didn’t end right and we didn’t have anybody looking out for us so sometimes when things are painful it’s best just to forget about them, right. So when Art and John Linson were interested in turning my book into a movie, and Kenny and Joan wanted to be co-producers on it, that’s when I started seeing a lot of people coming out of the woodwork that were still fans of The Runaways. It was a surprise to me, Leslie. It was a big surprise.
I was a kid in the seventies so I remember The Runaways but the music seemed to always be around after that.
Well, I certainly didn’t think so. I mean, I did do a lot of guest spots on people’s records and things like that and they would say, “Gosh, The Runaways were so great,” and I’d say, “Thank you very much” and I’d perform on a record with them or perform on a stage with them, like the Pandoras and Redd Kross and bands like that. But again, I just thought of us as a flash in the pan, a momentary lapse of judgement maybe (laughs). But it was a pleasant thing to wake up and realize that that wasn’t really so.
In The Runaways catalog, which song took the longest to get right, to get finished, in the studio?
None of them. I would think the one that was, that took more time, was “Dead End Justice,” because it was kind of a rock & roll play where Joan and I, it goes from a song into a drama, you know. Kind of like an Orson Welles War Of The Worlds in a way but it’s me and Joan in jail (laughs). So that one took a little while and it happens to be a lot of Runaways fans favorite.
With The Runaways and the sexuality in rock & roll, since you girls were so young, was that just a natural progression of puberty or was that more pushed onto you by other people?
Oh no, that was just us. Jackie was the one that really dressed more like a floozy. We had our clothes made by this designer so we helped her design our outfits; you know, the silver and gold lame’ outfits and Joan’s red jumpsuit and Lita’s stuff and Sandy’s clothing. We all worked on that. But Jackie always wanted to shop at Trashy Lingerie. That’s where she usually bought her stuff. She didn’t want her to make her anything. I thought she was a little too floozy for me (laughs).
But the corset was something that I came up with when I was doing a show at the Starwood and there was a little tiny shop across the street that sold corsets and that white corset was the only one in the window and I could see it from across the street. It was like gleaming in the sun and I jaywalked across Santa Monica Boulevard and pressed my face up against that window and was mesmerized by this white satin corset with black fringe, satin ribbons and things like that. And I just said, Oh my God, I have to try this thing on, and as soon as I tried it on, I looked in the mirror and said, I have to wear this for “Cherry Bomb.” So I bought it and I took it home and I had Kim Fowley and Scott Anderson, our manager, meet me at the house and I put it on for them and said, “I have to wear this for ‘Cherry Bomb.’” And Kim said, “Absolutely.” (laughs) But the girls were not happy about it at all. They did not want me wearing it. But it was only for three minutes and I knew instinctively that that was going to garner an awful lot of interest in the band, one way or another. And that was really what I wanted. I wanted some theatrics and we certainly got it with that corset for “Cherry Bomb.”
When you were writing your Neon Angel memoir, what was something you realized about yourself that actually surprised you?
The original book was a young adult book that I wrote with Neal Shusterman and Neal Shusterman, he’s like the Stephen King of young adult books. He’s so amazing. He brought a lot of stories out of me that I had hidden. Then I’d rewritten the book and made an adult book version and told all the stories I couldn’t tell in the young adult version. Now that I’m doing the audiobook – and it is a vast book and I will say it’ll be at least forty hours listening, 364 pages. But I’ve taken three days off and I’m afraid what Chapter 10 is and I told my neighbor if he hears screaming and crying, don’t call the police, I’m just doing my audiobook (laughs).
Who was the first real rock star you ever met?
Alice Cooper. Alice was a very good friend of Denny Rosencrantz from Mercury Records and a friend of Kim Fowley. And Kim Fowley knew everybody. I think the next big rocker was Robert Plant and Jimmy Page from Led Zeppelin. They came to see us play at the Starwood and Robert Plant was wearing The Runaways t-shirt with “I love Kim” on it. That’s what kind of friend Kim was with these icons. But Alice Cooper came to our shows and he also came to our very first playback party for Mercury so he was the first one that I’d ever met.
What was the first song you obsessed over as a kid?
I’m going to say “American Pie” by Don McLean. It was a story, and you know the song, and I love him so much, and my very favorite song still is “Vincent.” But he had a huge impact on me and that 45 was the first record I saved my allowance money to buy.
To you, what is rock & roll?
I guess when you kind of embody it, it’s just a part of you. I don’t really understand a life without it so I wouldn’t even know how to differentiate that from who I am in general. So it’s kind of almost like taking a piece of me and trying to hold it up and look at it and try to explain what it is. I don’t really know how to answer that question, Leslie. I guess it’s an expression and I think it’s infinite, rock & roll is. I think it’s a dream, an ambition and a dream of many, many people that are born to ride this rock & roll wave into infinity (laughs).
