Neon Angel

  The Runaways embarking upon their first Japanese tour was the highlight of my time in the band. Unlike in America, where the press and a large section of the general public could never get over our ages, or shake off the suspicion that somehow the Runaways were some kind of Monkees-type band overseen by Kim Fowley, people really got us in Japan.

  “Cherry Bomb” was a huge hit, topping the Japanese pop charts. Kim had told us that the reception in Japan was going to be much bigger than it had been in the U.S., but I had to admit that going into it, I was quite nervous. Although the second U.S. tour had passed pretty much without incident, after my experiences in Europe, I feared that another long foreign tour might prove to be the band’s undoing.

  Before the tour, Kim arranged for a photo shoot for Japanese prepublicity and the glossy tour book, which would be sold at our shows. When he told me that the photographer would be coming to Aunt Evie’s house to do the session, I immediately cross-examined him about the pictures.

  “Will the other girls be coming over to my house, too?”

  “No. He’s taking some solo shots.”

  “But what about the other girls?”

  “Don’t worry about them. Everybody is having a solo shoot. That’s the way the photographer wants to do it.”

  I thought that this was strange, but let it go. On the day of the shoot, the photographer had me dressed up in a pretty revealing outfit. It was a much more risqué shoot than anything that an American photographer had attempted with me before, and I remember that it made me feel uncomfortable. I figured that the photographer must know what he was doing. He kept instructing me, in broken English, how to pose.

  “Move legs . . . like this!” and he would illustrate by moving his hands apart. “Open!”

  The shoot had been going on for quite some time when my Grandma peeked in on us; she nearly fainted when she saw what I was wearing and how I was posing. Seeing her teenage granddaughter posing like that for some random Japanese photographer really upset her. She came charging in, screaming at the photographer and attacking him with her cane. The guy nearly dropped his camera in surprise, and ended up grabbing his equipment and fleeing the house, with my grandmother in hot pursuit.

  I laughed it off at the time, but those pictures would definitely come back to haunt me.

  I knew that the tour had to go well. Tensions in the band were pretty high, and one of the main issues was with Jackie. Her relationship with the others was at an all-time low. Her weakness as a bass player was becoming far too apparent, and there were many discussions about how her playing skills were holding back the band live and on record. Also her attitude drove us all nuts. She would have nothing to do with the rest of us when it came to letting loose and having fun. If she didn’t have her nose stuck in a book, she was indulging in her next favorite pastime: whining.

  Normally, I consider myself quite a tolerant person. But when you’re in a band that is constantly on tour, other people’s bad habits can quickly become totally unbearable. There was something about Jackie’s voice that really got to me. Listening to it was like having a nail driven into my brain. When she started complaining—which was often—it took on a really gut-wrenching quality.

  Jackie whined about everything. About our schedule. About the songs. About money. About Kim. About our bad habits. About our drinking. About our drug taking. Sometimes being in the Runaways was a little like taking the wildest school trip ever with some of the baddest girls in high school. Unfortunately, Jackie’s presence was like having the world’s most uptight teacher along for the ride.

  Also, the tensions between Lita and me were going nowhere. In order to defuse them, we tried to limit our interaction, but of course this was next to impossible on tour. All it took was the slightest thing, and Lita would be shouting and screaming at me, and I had had just about enough of her.

  On the upside, Scott Anderson was suddenly, and unceremoniously, booted from the Runaways crew. Kim never gave us a reason, and I wasn’t egotistical enough to assume that it was because of how he’d treated me after he’d got me pregnant. We assumed that he’d wanted more money or more control, and we figured that Kim would never have agreed to that. No doubt Scott thought he was irreplaceable. I would have loved to see the look on his face when Kim booted his sorry ass to the curb. I just wish I could have buried my foot up there on his way out. It was a relief to know that I wouldn’t have to deal with him anymore.

  The Japanese tour lasted for a couple of months. Coming to Japan was our first experience of being treated like real superstars. It was like Beatlemania—Runawaymania, really! We were huge on the radio over there, and had already attracted a devoted and fanatical fan base. Everywhere we went, people stopped to give us beautiful gifts, ask for autographs, and pose for pictures. Our Japanese label spared no expense, and we stayed in only the grandest and most luxurious hotels. It was the only tour we had ever done in which we didn’t have to share rooms: not only that, but the rooms that we had were incredibly extravagant.

  We were on an immediate high upon arriving in Japan and realizing just what a big deal the Runaways were over there. That high became very short-lived when we got a look at some of the prepublicity that had been going on. The first problem was an article in a prominent music magazine that featured some of the pictures taken at Aunt Evie’s house.

  By now I felt strongly that Kim played fast and loose with the truth and was a troublemaker, but I still remember being surprised to see that I was the only member of the Runaways whose image was used for the piece. Lita’s eyes just about popped out of her head when she saw the pictures of me posing, partially undressed, on the cover of the magazine. Not only had there been no separate photo shoot for the other girls, but they hadn’t even been aware that I was having a solo shoot. Immediately a black cloud settled over the band, which darkened further when we saw the beautiful, glossy tour booklet that contained—almost exclusively—photographs of me. And, of course, the tour T-shirts, which contained an image of my corset with the cherry logo on the shoulder.

  Lita went ballistic. She accused me of everything she could think of: lying about the photo sessions, deliberately keeping the others away from them, and somehow trying to subvert the Runaways so I could turn it into the Cherie Currie band. No matter how much I tried to explain, or protest my innocence, Lita was adamant that this was all my doing, and that I was a devious egomaniac who was hell-bent on shutting the other girls out of their own band.

  It seemed natural that the press would focus on the lead singer of any band. But the logic of this was lost on the others; they began shutting me out. Lita was the most vocal, of course, but the others expressed their resentment in more passive-aggressive ways. There was always the occasional comment about my “publicity hound” tendencies, or the odd bit of eye rolling and snickering whenever my picture was taken. I decided that the way to deal with it was to try to ignore it.

  While we played to sold-out stadiums, we started working on a new album—a live album meant to capture the energy and buzz of those Japanese shows. We recorded quite a few shows, and during our downtime, we were put into a recording studio to do overdubs. The Live in Japan album would go on to be one of our most successful, and also the source of one of my strongest memories of my time in the band. It was when we were doing overdubs on the track “Come On.” After we had listened to the playback, Lita turned to me and said, “Good job, Cherie. Your vocals were really good on that. I liked it.”

  This might not seem like much, but the fact that Lita Ford had paid me any kind of compliment was kind of mind-blowing. Usually she just growled at me in the studio, like some kind of dangerous animal thinking about attacking. Other times she’d put on a Heart album, and when Ann Wilson started singing she’d scream, “Now why in the hell can’t you sing like that?”

  Funny, isn’t it? After all of the things that went on in the band, one of my strongest memories was such a small, quiet moment.

  We got over the shaky start to t
he tour, mostly because it was hard to be in a bad mood in Japan. When I say that the promoters and fans showered us with gifts, I’m not kidding. Pearls, silk kimonos, beautiful flowers waiting for us in our hotel rooms . . . To be frank, after a few weeks in Japan I really, really didn’t want to go home. It truly renewed us. Finally being treated like the serious musicians that we were was a long overdue validation. Over there, our ages, and our sex, didn’t count against us. Just the opposite, in fact. The Japanese really understood us, they got us, and our American teenage rebelliousness was exotic and alien to the Japanese youth who came to our shows and literally screamed and cried all the way through our set.

  The shows themselves were incredible. Stepping out onstage, I would see a mass of screaming, devoted faces looking back at me every night. We fed off the energy of the fans, and probably played some of our best shows ever. As a document of all the real strengths of the Runaways, I’m not sure that Live in Japan can be beat. At the time, it really felt like a new beginning for the band.

  I fell in love on that tour.

  He was a certain Latin singer, who had just had a major hit in the States with a ballad that had taken over the airwaves. I loved his song. The other girls’ tastes tended toward the harder-edged stuff—metal and blues-rock for Lita and Sandy, punk and hard rock for Joan, I really had a thing for the soft stuff. I guess that’s just the sunny California girl in me. That’s why I didn’t like punk when we toured the UK: I couldn’t relate to it. It’s all very well sticking safety pins through your ears, and screaming about the weather, and the dole, and how you’re vacant, pissed off, and you want to smash it up. But I couldn’t relate to that at all. I had traumas in my life, for sure, everybody does. But I didn’t want my record collection to add to it! Music for me was an escape, a way out, I wanted it to make me feel good not depressed.

  So I already knew who this singer was when we played the Tokyo Music Festival with him. He was very handsome, maybe a little overweight, but he had these deep, soulful eyes and long, dark wavy hair. And that voice! I remember watching him sing at his sound check, and I was just blown away by his whole persona onstage. He was dressed all in white. That was his thing. He was always in these crisp, clean white suits. When he was done with his sound check, I walked right up to him and said, “I’m sixteen years old, and I’m in love with you.”

  Then I walked away, leaving him standing there speechless. He actually sent one of his entourage over to find out where I was staying. When I arrived at my room later that day, there was a beautiful bouquet of flowers waiting for me. The note read “When can I see you?” That’s how our love affair began.

  We got to spend a few days together before he had to continue his tour. Of course the others got wind of our relationship, and their first reaction was something along the lines of “You gotta be fucking kidding me!” They thought that this guy’s music was totally square, and they teased me relentlessly about it. Any chance they’d get, they’d burst into a mocking rendition of his hit song. To them, the fact that not only was I in love with him, but I actually liked his music was totally insane. I guess they thought that his style was old-fashioned, or cheesy, but I was never one to be put off by what other people thought.

  The relationship would carry on after I returned to the States. The first day I arrived home he bombarded me with white roses—four dozen on the first day. We were going to get married at one point, and my dad even gave his permission. He flew me out to San Francisco to meet his friends. Then suddenly, without warning, he dropped me like a hot rock. He wouldn’t return my calls, and I was devastated! It was the first time I was ever genuinely heartbroken in my life. I found out later that his family had pressured him into breaking it off, because they thought I was way too young for him. I was just seventeen and he was twenty-four, and that was too big a difference for his family. He eventually apologized, and told me that he felt terrible, but it took me a long, long time to get over that one.

  This amazing, incredible Japanese tour took a dark turn almost overnight, and nobody saw it coming. The incident that finally did it to us revolved around Jackie’s beautiful, white, one-of-a-kind Thunderbird bass.

  Jackie loved that bass. It was her most prized possession. Despite the luxury that surrounded us in Japan, we were still—by and large—totally broke all of the time. The bass had been a huge financial investment for Jackie’s family, and Jackie was always warning the road crew to take special care of it. She was totally paranoid about anything happening to it. She had right to be, because our road crew—headed up by the loathsome prick Kent Smythe—was hardly the most considerate bunch around. As is often the case in the music industry, the road crew did just about as many drugs as—if not more drugs than—the band. They usually started drinking and doing coke early in the day, and kept on until they passed out sometime the following morning. They drove us around loaded on coke and speed, and they drank like fishes.

  In Japan, the situation was a little better than back at home, because we had hired an all-Japanese crew who were hardworking and relatively sane compared with the crew we’d have over in the States. But we still had Kent Smythe in charge, and with drugs not readily available in Japan, he tended to be drunk most of the time.

  It was at a sound check that it all happened. We had just finished when Jackie put her bass down on one of those flimsy guitar stands, and she obviously hadn’t put it back on correctly. As she was walking offstage, I wandered over to the opposite side of the stage with Lita. Suddenly there was a crash: Jackie’s bass had tipped over, hitting the stage. Everybody looked, and Jackie came running back with her face white. Not only did the bass fall, it just so happened to land badly, and the neck snapped off. Her bass was ruined. When she saw the condition of her beloved instrument, she immediately accused me of kicking it over on purpose. I have no idea why she’d have thought that, and I immediately protested my innocence. Although I found Jackie to be irritating as hell, there was no way on earth I could ever have done something so callous. I knew how she felt about that bass; we all did. Jackie flew into a rage and began shouting, screaming, and crying. Her mental state was not helped when she discovered that her bass hadn’t been insured, and Kent Smythe seemed less than concerned about how upset she was. His attitude was basically “Get over it!”

  A replacement bass was provided for the show that night, but Jackie was a mess. I had never seen her like that. She didn’t speak to anyone; she immediately became totally withdrawn and depressed. She played the show with little enthusiasm, and then went straight back to her hotel room, refusing to speak to anyone.

  The next day, I tried to call her room. There was no response. I would walk past her room and hear her crying on the phone. I’d lift my hand to knock but decide against it. She really did believe that I had deliberately knocked over her bass, and I didn’t want to make the situation any worse. I felt deeply sad for her, accompanied by a sense of dread that I couldn’t explain. I asked Kent about her, and he told me that she was fine and not to worry. But I did worry. By late afternoon, I decided to go to her room and see how she was.

  Jackie was on the floor above me. I went up in the elevator, and was walking to her room when I saw Kent Smythe coming toward me, obviously on his way back. Kent was a big guy, tall and beefy, and totally unattractive. He had long, greasy hair, and treated us all badly. He was abusive, and bullying, and obviously had no respect for us as people or musicians. I think he regarded his gig roadieing for us as a glorified baby-sitting job. When he saw me coming, he barked, “Where do you think you’re going?”

  “I’m going to see if Jackie’s okay,” I snapped, and went to breeze past him. Suddenly Kent grabbed my arm and pulled me back.

  “No, you’re not!” he said. “She just needs to be left alone. Come on, let’s go.”

  I shook my arm free and stared at this big lummox. “I’m going to go see Jackie,” I said again. “And don’t put your hands on me, Kent.”

  “No, you’re not!” he insist
ed. “Come on, let’s go.”

  “Get your FUCKING hands off me, you ASS! You just TRY and stop me!” I wrenched my arm free and continued walking, never taking my eyes off Kent till I knew he was out of lunging distance.

  “Fine!” he shouted, throwing his arms up in exasperation. “Suit yourself . . .”

  “Screw you!” I yelled, flipping him the bird when I knew I was safely down the hall and out of his reach.

  As I approached Jackie’s room, it became apparent that something was wrong. I don’t know what had gone on between her and Kent moments before, but through the door I could hear her screaming and crying. I heard her banging things and eventually glass shattering. I started pounding on the door, telling her to open up.

  After a few moments, the door swung open, and I was horrified at what I saw.

  Jackie was standing there with a chunk of broken glass in her hand. Her arm was covered in blood. As I pushed my way into the room she continued hacking at herself with the glass. I lunged at her and tried to wrestle it from her hand. In the struggle, I ended up with a few cuts of my own. Jackie was hysterical, and by the time I’d thrown the glass to the floor, she’d collapsed on the bed, sobbing uncontrollably. I had never seen anybody in such a state. As I tried to comfort her and stop the bleeding with a bath towel, I realized that this wasn’t just about her bass anymore. The bass had been the last straw, but finally all of the bullshit that we all put up with in the Runaways—Kim’s abuse, the roadies’ indifference, the internal pressures, the arguments, the mismanagement of the money—all of it had climaxed into this. Jackie just lay there, bloody and barely aware that I was even in the room. I called down to Kent’s room, and when the road crew arrived, I was ordered out and told not to say anything to anyone.

  The following morning at breakfast, after a sleepless night, we were all informed that Jackie Fox had already left Japan, and not only that, she had left the Runaways. When Kent told us, it was in his usual couldn’t-give-a-shit way: “She’s on a plane home. Oh, and yeah, she’s out of the band.”