Interview: Cherie Currie on The Runaways, coming to New Zealand, and Kim Fowley.

Cherie Currie began playing music all the way back in the 1970s - and she’s still going strong today. She started performing as the lead vocalist in the iconic teenage band The Runaways (alongside the likes of Joan Jett), before leaving the band for a multitude of reasons.

Since then, she’s made music with her sister, brother, and even worked with Kim Fowley - the man that originally managed The Runaways - conceiving the album ‘Reverie’ prior to his death in 2015.

Cherie is set to tour New Zealand in the coming week - playing Auckland’s Kings Arms on Friday 20th May, Wellington’s Bodega on Saturday 21st May, and finishing up at Christchurch’s Churchills on Sunday 22nd May.

We spoke to Cherie recently on the phone about the upcoming tour, the fame of The Runaways, and more...

COUP DE MAIN: Hi Cherie, thanks so much for taking the time to talk to me today!
CHERIE CURRIE: I certainly appreciate your time as well. Thank you.
 
CDM: You’re coming to New Zealand to perform very soon - what can people expect to see from your live show?
CHERIE: Well, I’m a very strong believer in giving the fans what they want - so they want Runaways songs, and I’ll have some other surprises in there, but I’m going to do all the favourites I think. It’s just going to be a great time.

CDM: Your musical career has been pretty incredible - you started at such a young age and it’s still going today. Did you always see music as a long-term career?
CHERIE: I think it was always something that I was going to do, here and there, for the rest of my life, just simply because it was so easy. Being a stage performer for me, was-- to be in front of people was just something that just came very naturally to me. And I love to sing. I love being on stage and I love making people happy, so you just don’t walk away from something like that.

CDM: You were thrust into the music scene so quickly in the 70s, with so little experience. Did you learn how to play music and sing really quickly, or was it a gradual education for you?
CHERIE: Oh my goodness, <laughs> I’d never sang on stage until I was in The Runaways. So basically, it was, you better be good or you’re out - was what I think we all felt. So my very first show I had such terrible stage fright I froze, and I never did that again. <laughs> I took on the persona of David Bowie, as my hero, and Joan took on the persona of Suzie Quatro until we could figure out who we were on stage, because we were by no means in any way shape or form-- everybody got to see us grow into ourselves from the very beginning.

CDM: ‘Reverie’ is the first album you’ve released in 35 years - what made you decide to release an album after all this time?
CHERIE: Well I actually had made a record in 2010, and Blackheart was my management. I did that record with Matt Sorum from Guns N’ Roses. I’m very happy to say even though it got shelved for years, that I was unsure why, after I left Blackheart I really didn’t expect it to see the light of day, but it’s actually coming out in September - so that’ll be great, because there’s Billy Corgan on there, from Smashing Pumpkins, he wrote a duet for us to do. The Veronicas, and Brody Dalle, and even Juliette Lewis shows up for some extra vocals. I think Matt Sorum did a great job producing this album.

CDM: It was the last album that Kim Fowley produced before his death, and it was apparently his way of making amends with you. How was the working process, especially because there’s so much history between you two?
CHERIE: Well that started probably about six, seven years ago when I saw him at a party, and I had been just tearing myself to pieces for 30 years out of anger, and not understanding why we did the things we did - and I really realised that it only hurt me. Instead I decided I really wanted to get to know him and talk to him about the reasoning behind his approach to us as young girls, and Kim and I started a friendship. Basically, me being a mother as well, I understood things so much better than I did as a 15-year-old, of course, 16. Then when I heard that he was gravely ill, and dying, he reached out to me and asked if I wanted to make a record, and I jumped at that chance. Not only that I wanted my son involved - talk about coming full circle - I was going to be able to be in the studio with a man that was truly brilliant, and appreciate him this time instead of being intimidated by him, and have great memories, instead of the memories I’d had in the studio with him as a kid. So it was such a wonderful experience, truly. Then he moved into my house for about 10 days, towards the end of his life, and I cared for him - he was bedridden. I cared for him until he had to go back to the hospital, and that was wonderful too. So I just have great memories - you know, 40 years changes a person. You’re not the same as you were 40 years ago, and I’m glad I got to know him towards the end of his life.

CDM: That’s a really nice sentiment.
CHERIE: Exactly. Because I cannot imagine the hole I would’ve felt, the loss I would’ve felt, of not doing that, and it was very healing for me, it left me whole, and I was not whole before this. So it was a good thing, it was a very good thing for me to do, and I was thrilled and honoured to do it.

CDM: You also worked with your son quite a lot on the record - he helped with production and also writing some of the songs with you. Did you encourage him to pursue music, or was it a decision he kind of made on his own?
CHERIE: Well he picked up the guitar when he was 13-years-old, and he just never put it down. I immediately started bringing him on radio shows that I was doing - the very first one was with Steve Jones from The Sex Pistols, he played with Steve, and I sang some Runaway stuff. I asked him to accompany me on stage whenever I did do shows, which was very very rare. But when I opened for Joan Jett in 2010, Jake was in the band and it was just an amazing experience. He continued to tour with me for four tours after that. Then he got a record deal of his own, and I miss him every time I’m on stage.

CDM: Lita Ford featured on the album on ‘Is It Day Or Night’ and ‘American Nights’, which were two classic Runaways songs. What made you guys decide to re-record those songs for this album?
CHERIE: Well, because those were two of my favourite songs. And I also, they were songs that Ken had written and I just thought it was a good idea because— I think we did a really good job on those tunes, and they were so easy. I’d been performing those songs for four tours, so basically we’d just go and get it done, and I invited Lita to come and do a duet with me on each one of those tunes - and it just made it really special.

CDM: Obviously The Runaways were such an important group for women in music - never before had girls banded together and been truly ‘punk’ in the music scene. At the time of being in The Runaways, did you realise the importance of what you were doing? Or was it something you only realised in hindsight?
CHERIE: Well, we knew that this was something we wanted to do, but it’s almost like-- people had never swam before, ever, and people were venturing out into the ocean, you don’t know what’s going to happen, and that’s what it was like in The Runaways, because of course there were other women that had come before us - Suzi Quatro, who was just a huge influence on Joan and myself - but there had never been teenage girls, 16, 17, and 18-years-old, playing their own instruments and doing this. So we were in uncharted territory in a very male dominated business, where we were considered a novelty, and of course we would be. Trust me, if I was any of those guys back then, it would’ve been hard to take us seriously, but we were serious. I’m very very proud of what The Runaways did.

CDM: Your book was so honest, and so real. It’s amazing to read a book that doesn’t hold back at all. Did you find it difficult to write the book, especially when talking about things that must’ve been difficult for you to relive?
CHERIE: My original book was through Price Stern Sloan in 1989. I’d always talked openly about everything that had happened in the band. Fortunately for a young adult book, a lot of stories, they were just too much for them. So I felt so thrilled that I was able to rewrite the book as a mother, and as someone who continues to look back on those days, and tell the stories I couldn’t tell in the young adult book. I just feel so blessed all the way around - who gets two opportunities to write an autobiography? And I will say, trust me, I spent weekends in my robe, where it wears you out. Because you have to face those demons, and you have to take responsibility for the things you participated in, and the drug addiction - you have to take responsibility, and sometimes that’s really hard for people to do. But, for me, it was easy. After I finally got it out on paper, it was a great relief.

CDM: I read that in the 1980s you worked as a drug counsellor. Did you find it important to use your own experiences to help others who might’ve been going through the same experiences as you?
CHERIE: Yes. It was a great experience, and I had to give back in any way that I could. Trust me, if it wouldn’t have been for the fact that I was a counsellor, I never would have realised that I was an artist, because I would sit with them in school for two hours a day, and I took coloured pencils, and I started drawing. That, in turn, got me to Price Stern and Sloan as an illustrator for their kids books. And when they asked me how long I’d been drawing, I said, “A year.” They said, “How is that possible?” And I told them the story of The Runaways, and they said, “This is our first young adult book.” So I actually, everything went hand in hand, that made this book happen.

CDM: I love the film ‘The Runaways’, I thought it was a really great insight into the world that you guys lived for a few years. Though, the film noticeably didn’t include what led to you cutting your hair in the beginning - which was a really awful sexual abuse experience. I find it really admirable that you speak so openly about abuse, in a world where victims are so often seen as weak, or even not believed. Do you find it important to speak up about issues such as these?
CHERIE: Good lord, I mean, rape happens every nine seconds, and it just happens. A lot of girls don’t talk about it. The thing is for me, the fact that I survived my kidnapping which happened right after I left The Runaways - that was from a deranged killer - I mean you have to just be thrilled that you lived. So many people don’t. To me, it’s life. You have to discuss it. You have to talk about it. You have to be there for other victims, you just have to. So I’ve always been open about everything. I think that comes from being on stage from 15-years-old.

CHERIE CURRIE is touring New Zealand this week, click HERE to purchase tickets.

Watch Cherie perform ‘Cherry Bomb’ below…