Cherie Currie: "I’m a no holds barred type of gal so I’ll always tell you the truth'...

At fourteen, living in Concord, Sydney, I was about as far away from LA/Hollywood and all the rockstars that inhabited that mythical place as I was from the moon. Then I opened up a copy of Circus Magazine and was stunned to see a full page pic of a young, blonde, Bowie-haired woman in a corset and fishnets singing into a mic. At sixteen, she was on older woman. CRUSH! On further investigation I learned she sang with The Runaways. So on the following Saturday it was off to my favourite import record shop to buy the debut album. I still have it. And it still rocks.
Fast forward, oh, about a million years and Cherie Currie is telling me I have a “neat name”. Life’s funny that way, hey…

I hold up my copy of The Runaways LP to show Cherie and she says “Oh! I’ve got to sign that for you when you come to the show!” Absolutely- I bought this when it came out. “Oh my gosh! Is that an original?”

Oh yeah. “You know what- that’s worth a pretty penny! Look at that! Make sure to bring that to my show. So I can meet you in person and sign that for you”.

That’s a great offer! Thanks!!

OK, your final Australian tour- is that your final tour altogether and retiring from live music or just Australia? “It’s really… that I’m not gonna be touring anymore. I mean, you know, I’m gonna do special appearances and these one off type of shows. I’m going to Germany next year with my son as well. I just came from Ibiza, Spain, where my son backed me on drums and he was very close to Sandy West (Runaways drummer, died 2006) and Sandy taught him, gave him a couple of drum lessons and he just is paying such homage to her. And after all these years of playing with other bands abroad I really realise that (if) the drummer isn’t like Sandy West, The Runaways, the music just isn’t quite as good and Jake (Cherie’s son) just…when I turn and look at him it’s almost like I’m on stage with Sandy again-smiling- so I’m just over the moon. When we played Ibiza I really realised I had something golden there, with this band. Nick Mayberry (guitarist), who is Australian and who is one of the greatest guitar players who now lives here in Los Angeles – this is gonna be a very different show from the 2016 run that I did in Australia”.

So the lineup that will tour Australia with you will feature your son Jake and also Nick. “Yes. And you know, to be able to say goodbye and have my son there… he was really there when I started performing again when the movie came out (The Runaways, Floria Sigismondi, 2010) so he’s been with me every step of the way. So it’s nice to end with him. He’s so talented”.

With Sandy being gone now, do you still stay in touch with the other girls? Still pretty close? “Lita? (Ford, lead guitarist) She’s interesting. Joan (Jett, guitars) and I text every birthday, every Christmas, you know, we got very close just before the Runaways movie- about 1997 we really rekindled our friendship and then through the movie and then afterwards we performed together. Lita is, you know, I’ve performed with Lita at many shows like in 2016,2017 – but you know she’s hard to read. I wish that she and Joan got along a little bit better so we could have done a reunion but I think I’ve kind of given up on that now”.

OK. I appreciate the frankness. “Oh sure! Hey yeah, you know I’m a no holds barred type of gal so I’ll always tell you the truth. There’s no reason not to (laughs) yeah.

Then how about Jackie (Fox, bassist)? “Jackie…she and I parted ways. She did write me a couple of weeks ago to say ‘boy you look good for sixty five’ which I thought was nice, but we had a little bit of a falling out after Kim Fowley (Runaways manager) died (2015). You know, I took care of him during the end of his life. I moved him into my home and it was the greatest thing I ever did. We worked together, we wrote together, he produced my album Reverie (2015) with my son Jake, and for me to forgive him was huge. And I needed to forgive him because I just loathed the man from the time I left The Runaways and I really realised all it did was hurt me. And just this…again, that voice in your head that is always right. That it’s time now. And we became very good friends. I miss him. I really really do. But I worked with Lita on that album as well so… I worked on her records, she worked on my records, and all that and then she just (waves hand in a gesture of gentle dismissal) kind of leaves and doesn’t return texts and that kind of thing so it’s just a Lita thing (shrugs)”.

But your door’s always open? “Always! Always! And it always has been. I’m the only member of the band that has worked with every member since we broke up so… It’s too bad…a Runaways reunion would have really been wonderful. It really would. To do it for the fans, but I think it’s too late now”.

Regarding Kim Fowley, it’s great that you were able to make peace with him, but there does seem to be a lot of very negative feeling towards him regarding his treatment of the band -was it really as bad as it’s been made out to be? “(Deep breath), It was not pleasant. And that is the truth. Again, you know, Kim was the guy that had a terrible childhood, never had kids of his own… how do you deal with five fifteen, sixteen, seventeen year old girls? What he did do very well was train us to go up against a music industry that did not appreciate girls. There was only Suzi Quatro. And we’re teenagers and people thought that we were just hype. So a lot of the boy bands didn’t really dig playing with us. Until they saw us play and then they went wow, they’re good! So that was good. But it was a hard road”.

Certainly the Live In Japan album was a great indicator of how great the band sounded live. “Yeah- that was my favourite record for sure, it really really was”.

Between the first and second albums (Queens of Noise,1977) there was a pretty big leap, showing growth in the band’s writing and playing. A very big step forward from what the first record was-what do you recollect happening between those two albums to allow that- just lots more experience? The band being more involved in it’s production? “No. It was Earle Mankey, who produced it. And I do have to say, Kim Fowley- the way he worked was, he’d let us do, vocally, maybe two, three takes and then it was ‘out dog!’ You know, and that was the same with the (instrumental) tracks, I mean if you could get away with these tracks, to him it was rock and roll. Earle Mankey was a true musician and he played a lot of the guitar, the guitar picking, a lot of the acoustic stuff that I think, intricate acoustic parts that Lita and Joan couldn’t do. And he delivered quite a polished record”.

Were you happy with that record? “I was, it was quite a departure I thought. We were starting to have some issues on that record and I do blame Kim for that and he did apologise. He believed that as long as he kept us doubting each other… he would tell lies. (Adopts conspiratorial manner) ‘Did you know so and so said this?’ He thought that it would make us edgier on stage. And he realised that was a huge mistake and that we were too young to deal with that kind of thing. And when you’re a young girl, you know, you don’t even know who you are yet, we didn’t know who we were. We were growing up in front of tens of thousands of people”.

Then came the Live In Japan album. Which I guess was a similar situation to that of Cheap Trick at the time, in that they were struggling to become established in the US but then found almost Beatlemania levels of success over in Japan. Which must surely have spun out some head spaces? “Very true… and we brought Cheap Trick out here, to open for us at the Starwood (LA Club) I believe, ‘coz they opened for us. As well as Tom Petty in Detroit I believe- somewhere in the midwest anyway, but they were wonderful to us. Tom Petty and all the guys from Cheap Trick were very very caring and they kind of put us under their wing because they could see we were having kind of a rough go. And we’re KIDS for cryin’ out loud! (Shaking her head but smiling). It was tough Leeno, you know, it was really tough without having a parent or anyone, any guardian there with us. We were on our own”.

Did you all start drifting apart more in Japan then. More cracks appearing in the relationships? “Well the cracks really started during Queens of Noise but Japan was when we really realised we’d made it- ‘coz it was Beatlemania there. But there of course, at that time,1977, women still had to walk six feet behind their husbands. So girls there ate this up. They wanted their independence and it was just perfect timing”.

OK.Cherie? “Yeah?”

Gotta ask this one…the iconic corset/ fishnets outfit? “Uh-huh?”

How did you come up with that? What happened there? Was that idea presented to you or… “No, no. We were at the Starwood, we were doing a soundcheck and I walked out to have a cigarette and I happened to glance across Santa Monica Boulevard and there was this tiny little… ladies underwear shop. And there was this single corset in that window on a mannequin and I saw it from across the boulevard and I walked over there, I just like, pressed my face against it . I was like… it was that voice again. I just was drawn to it and I went in and I put it on and…I had to put it on lay-away (lay by). I thought it was the greatest thing and then my dad helped me buy it and then I had Kim Fowley and Scott Anderson (Runaways co-manager) come to my home and I put it on. And I said ‘this, I need to wear for Cherry Bomb (Runaways first single,1976) ONLY Cherry Bomb’. And they loved it. I knew the girls were not gonna love it, and they didn’t, but to me, I thought that it would be something that would kind of make the press go wild, and it did. And it helped very much. To see a sixteen year old in a corset saying ‘hello daddy’ or ‘have you, grab you, ‘till you’re sore’, whatever it is (smiling) it was really, I think, was a good move for me, to push for that”.

Definitely raised some eyebrows and got you noticed! “Yeah. People still think I was wearing that the whole set but I only wore it for three minutes for Cherry Bomb. That was it and I’d go and change into something else while Joan was doing You Drive Me Wild or Blackmail”.

All we had to go by was the magazine press coverage- so it was assumed that’s all you ever wore! “Yeah well…Yeah! (Laughs) the press isn’t always right about everything! The thing is that it did help the PR department of Mercury/Phonogram Records to have something to sell. And it worked so…”

Well I’m glad to know that it was your idea! “Yes well…me too! (Laughs)”

No, it’s great because there’s a very strong impression from everything we’ve read over the years that you guys were being pushed into things a lot so it’s great that you could make a call like that.
“Well, we were were tough though too, I mean even though Kim made it very difficult for us, he was building some monsters himself. You know, he toughened us up enough where we started fighting back so (laughs)…”

OK. If you had to choose one memory or event from that whole period that has stayed with you as something special, a milestone, what would it be? “I think it would have been after our first US tour, when we had had left after playing, I believe it was the Whiskey A Go Go, and when we came back after over three months on tour we were then headlining the Santa Monica Civic which was then one of the biggest arenas next to the (LA) Forum. And when I was walking out…and I hadn’t even seen my family in over three months (and I made sure that they were in the audience) so I was walking onto the stage and Kim stops me and says I want you to meet someone- and it was Rod Stewart! And that really stood out because I’d seen that in three months we’d come very far. My other one of course would be Japan and that Beatlemania when we got off that plane”.

That’s pretty great. Rod Stewart is way cool- but I know you’re also an Alice Cooper and Bowie fan from way back- “Yes”.

Did you ever meet those guys back in those days? “You know if it wasn’t for Alice Cooper… he was one of the main people that helped get us signed to Mercury Records and that was back in his drinking days. I remember he came to our album party, the playback party for Mercury and he literally fell over the table ,and he gave up drinking very soon after that but Alice is truly one of the greatest people you’ll ever meet. Wonderful, wonderful guy”.

Sadly, we’re out of time-anything you could add for the Australian fans coming to the show? “The one thing I can promise is that this show is really gonna be worth the time and the ticket.
It’s going to be fantastic.And I’m very proud to be going out this way with my kid backing me up with all these wonderful musicians and it’s gonna be fun”.

I know everyone will love it.