The Runaways on "The Runaways"
Girl-punk legends and their controversial manager speak out about the hookups, meltdowns and raw rock that fueled the band's new biopic
JENNIFER VINEYARD

Posted Apr 06, 2010 9:07 AM

 

This weekend, The Runaways opens in wide release and audiences across America will get a good look at Kristen Stewart and Dakota Fanning as the leaders of the Seventies girl-punk icons, Joan Jett and Cherie Currie. Rolling Stone tracked down the young stars and went behind the scenes of the Floria Sigismondi-directed film for Secrets of The Runaways — and now the original bandmembers are speaking out about the biopic and what really went down during the band's brief rollercoaster career.

Check out photos from the set of The Runaways.

Like guitarist Jett and singer Currie, the band's manager Kim Fowley signed over the rights to his story in order to have some say in how he was depicted. (But because the movie is based on Currie's memoir Neon Angel, his control was limited). And since The Runaways is a drama rather than a documentary, the filmmakers did allow themselves dramatic license. Guitarist Lita Ford, who wasn't quiet about her dissatisfaction with the fim's development, is kept in the background of the story, and bassist Jackie Fox, who refused to cooperate with the production, is represented by a fictitious composite character. Given such compromises, how close can the picture be to the truth? Currie, Jett, Ford, and Fowley share their experiences with RS.

Cherie Currie

There's so much in your just published book Neon Angel — rape, teen pregnancy, abortion, kidnapping, arrests, attempted suicide — that never made it into the movie. It never made your original edition of Neon Angel from 1989 either. Why?
The publisher, it was their first young adult book, and they weren't comfortable having those stories. I don't think they wanted to take a risk.

Did Floria Sigismondi consult you for the screenplay?
Hell, no. She never even called me once. She never picked up the phone to call me or ask a question or anything. There were some things that upset me [in the movie]. I mean, I actually won that talent show in real life, and she has me up there being booed. I did have food thrown at me in school, but she took bits and pieces and twirled them together. She took poetic license.

Like with the day you left the band? That was during a photo shoot, not a recording session.
I wanted that to be accurate, and it's not, and I didn't understand why. It upset me because first of all, I would never have left the band in the middle of a record. That's just wrong. But they don't care about that. They thought it was more powerful than us being in the middle of a photo shoot. And I'm hearing people saying Lita Ford still says, "You were two hours late." It's like you know what? Just talk to Barry Levine, the goddamn photographer! He'll tell you that I was there two hours early helping him set up! It's just like a circus act, going around and around.

You describe so many love/sex scenes in the book except for the one the movie focuses on — with Joan Jett.
First of all, I don't skip it over in the book. I wrote an entire page on how that was some of the greatest sex I ever had. The thing is, I had already gone into detail with another situation with a woman, and I couldn't do that again, because what are you going to do, get into anatomy? And it happened too often. What was I supposed to do, say, "It's Tuesday, Joan and I had sex"? No. The thing was, it just happened, and it happened quite a few times, and it was fun. We weren't in love with each other, but we loved each other. But I didn't want to cheapen my reason for this book. My point was about all the experiences I had, everything from bisexuality to being kidnapped by a murderer, to being arrested, to being a dope addict, to losing my father to alcoholism, and how all these terrible things happened but I turned out OK. That is the point of the book, not how many times I slept with Joan, or Sandy West, or other women, or other men.

How do you think the movie is affected by having a particular point of view, yours and Joan's, versus including Lita Ford's or Jackie Fox's?
That had nothing to do with Joan or I. That had to do with Jackie. I asked her to be involved in this from the beginning, but Jackie made it impossible to work together, not with us, but with the producers. And they basically decided to write her out than to deal with her. This could have been more about the Runaways if Lita and Jackie would have become involved, but they chose not to. I'm sorry if they used my book, but I wrote a book, and no one else had! Maybe there will be another film about the Runaways, and they'll dive into the story, the true story, the deep, deep stories of the members of the band. But that's just on the surface here. Floria shows the '70s quite well. The acting is fantastic. But there are holes. To be honest with you, it wasn't for my book, I would have been really upset, because I would have thought this was our only chance.

Did you learn anything from the whole experience, things you never knew about your bandmates at the time?
I was blown away when Joan wrote the foreword for the book, that she was pissed when I left. That's the first time that I knew that, when I read that. I thought they'd be thrilled that I was gone, so that floored me. I couldn't listen to the Runaways for 20 years, because I was that crushed.

You and Joan went back in the studio to rerecord some tracks for the movie. What was it like, after all these years?
It was like time stood still, like we never stopped. It came back like it was yesterday. It was great.

You're performing this summer. Could there ever be a Runaways reunion?
No. Sandy wanted it, so badly, and I wanted it for her, but without Sandy, it couldn't be.

You also helped Dakota Fanning in the studio?
Joan and I were in the studio with both the girls, and I think Dakota kicked ass. We spent a lot of time singing at my house. We spent a couple of hours just doing lines back and forth. And she was interested in how I felt when I was on a stage, so I worked with her on her stage performance, especially the mic move, where you twirl the mike. I got knots on my head the size of lemons when I didn't do that right. I wished I could have spent more time with her on set, but things were kind of tense there.

Why were things tense?
They wanted to make their movie, and they were a little fearful that I might change this or that, or influence Dakota in a different direction. Because if I could have, I would have been there every second.

Advertisement

Joan Jett

How did you get involved in helping Cherie Currie publish her book — and how did that evolve to becoming a movie, with you signing over your rights to your life story and becoming an executive producer?
It's sort of been in the works for years. My producer and manager, Kenny Laguna, had been trying to help Cherie get her book published, and in the course of trying to make that happen, he thought maybe a TV movie of it might be cool. He even investigated it with MTV, but they weren't interested. I just felt that if at any time this was going to happen, where the Runaways story would be a movie, these were real movie people who wanted to make a real movie, so I was going to give it a shot. It was from the onset, I believe, that I would be an executive producer.

What did you think about Kristen Stewart playing you?
You know, I asked Kristen if she was going to cut her hair, and she said yes. So I had great faith that she was going to pull this off, because she seemed very dedicated. We had a few weeks together before filming started, and she picked my brain. Working with the actors, the whole process was brutal, but in general, working with the actors was great. They were brilliant.

Cherie Currie said that she had no idea you were so upset when she left the band until she read the foreword you wrote for her book. You never communicated that to her?
I really have nothing I got to say about it. I said what I had to say in the foreword.

How does the movie match up with the story of what else really happened?
I think it's great. It is a movie, and so there are aspects of it that might be embellished and such, timeline shifts, but most of the things happened to us. The movie, beyond being a really interesting story in and of itself about all-girl band trying to break down barriers and such, it's a real story, it really happened, and I think the movie touches on a lot of other issues that teenagers go through. Communication with family and friends. Exploring your sexuality. It's complicated and there are no easy answers, and we're not giving you any answers. We're just telling you what happened to us.

Why do you think you encountered so much resistance to the idea of all-girl band in the first place?
My big gripe is that people don't allow teenagers to own their sexuality. Now, wherever they land on what their preferences are, that's not important. What's important is that they're going through these feelings, and it's disrespected, like they're supposed to bottle it up. I didn't like being told girls can't play rock & roll. I'd say, "What do you mean girls can't play rock & roll?" I'm sitting in school with girls playing violin and cello and playing Beethoven and Bach, so what do you mean girls can't play? Do you mean girls can't master the instrument? No. You don't mean that. You mean socially they're not allowed to, because rock and roll implies sex. Mick Jagger, the cover of Sticky Fingers. Robert Plant with his shirt open, "Whole Lotta Love." This is what I grew up with, and being told you can't do it because you're a girl, that didn't wash. My parents always told me that I could do anything I wanted, and I believed them. And so I think it's important that you're able to own it, and women owning their sexuality is threatening.

Does it ever get any easier?
I just did an interview about this movie, and I was on the phone with the writer, we had a long discussion. But when I read the paper, I read that "Kim Fowley created and controlled the Runaways." Now, this writer was on the phone with me, he could have checked his facts. If it was a band with boys, not girls, he would never have used the word "controlled." He would have said "managed." And I am livid that stuff like that still exists today. He wanted to perpetuate the view that women cannot do it themselves, men must be controlling it at its root, men must be telling her what to wear, what to say, how to act. She's acting tough? They must have told her to do that because it would sell records or something. It's like, come on, man. Get real.

What do you think about the bands that followed in the wake of the Runaways, that were female-centric, female-controlled?
Certainly people have drawn parallels to the riot grrrl movement, but beyond girls playing instruments, I don't know that you can say that it's the exact same experience, really. I think we were doing something a little bit different. I think to some degree, we shared some of the goals of that movement, but I wasn't a part of that, I didn't start that, so I don't know, but I think they had a wider goal than just inspiring girls to pick up a guitar.

And your goal?
Ultimately our goal was the good old cliché of following your dreams. I really feel that people beat down other people's dreams, constantly. Make an attempt to fulfill yourself, and if you don't quite get there, you'll have great stories to tell along the way. Beyond just showing what the Runaways went through, that's the message I want to get out.

Advertisement

Lita Ford

Did Scout Taylor-Compton ever contact you to research playing you?
I did get to meet Scout. I absolutely adore her. We had a lot of fun in Lake Tahoe, and she's going to come meet us in Las Vegas. But it wasn't a research trip. She just came out to say, "Hi." She said, "I don't know you, but I just played you in the film." I don't know what they said to her, or what she studied to play me, but it was cool.

You haven't seen the movie yet, but from what you've seen so far, what do you think?
I'm kind of in the dark about the movie. I don't know if I'll get around to seeing it. I've seen the trailers, and I could be totally wrong, but it looked like they beefed it up. Joan Jett wouldn't do that. If anyone's going to pick up a chair and throw it at the glass, it's me, not Joan. And Cherie Currie wouldn't have said some of those things.

And there's no Jackie Fox. The bass player gets no lines, she's an amalgam.
That bothers me. She was in the goddamned band. How can you not mention a bandmember? I don't get it.

It's because she, like you, didn't sign over her life rights. Why not?
They sent us an e-mail and offered a ridiculously low amount for the rights to my story. It was a joke. I asked them to pull out some stuff, and it's nice that they pulled it. I don't even know what anymore. My real issue was with management, because they managed to screw things up with the band, and it has nothing to do with what was in the Runaways. This has gone on for 30 years, since the day the band broke up, and it's still going on. So what do they have me say in the movie?

You have two scenes, basically — both where you blow up at Cherie. Once about the Japanese magazine.
Oh God, the magazine? Is she still going over that? The thing about the photo session, I remember, it upset me because I didn't know there was a photo session, and all of a sudden, she's on the cover of a magazine, and half-naked. Where the fuck did this come from? It was a huge surprise. I got upset. Nobody had told me about it. OK, they want to focus on the lead singer, that's fine, I don't care. You have the opportunity? Go for it. Look great, make us all look great, and represent us. I just wanted to be told. I was really in the dark about pretty much everything. Nobody was getting paid, and that pissed me off, too. I was trying to be as professional as possible. And if things weren't right, I complained.

The other scene is supposed to be the photo session where Cherie left the band, but it's depicted as taking place in a recording studio, and you're blowing up at her again.
All the good parts, huh? Yes, she did leave the band, I remember that totally perfectly. She didn't show up. She was two hours late. It was something she did all the time. She was fucking the manager [Scott Anderson], so whatever he would say, she would do, and God knows what he told her, to show up at 2 p.m. or 4 p.m. or what. Everything got all mixed up, and in the meantime, the rest of us were sitting there waiting, and Joan probably knew what was going on, because she was close with Cherie, and that was it. I just blew up at her. "Get your shit together. I'm not here to wait for you. I want to make music and you're not here." So I did blow up. I got pissed. I had had enough! I don't know if she was to blame or who was. But everyone sees the Runaways in their own eyes.

The only other thing is at the end of the movie, they say on the screen what Cherie, Joan, and Kim Fowley did since the band. But they don't mention you or Jackie, your accomplishments since the band broke up. Or that Sandy died.
They didn't put that in? That's amazing. That's definitely wrong. I don't know where any of them are, and it would have nice to see that after watching the film. It would make total sense to put that there. That's just normal to put that there. Huh. They may have made some stuff up, but it sounds like they didn't too much. It sounds like they kept out stuff on my behalf. I wish them a lot of luck. All of them need it.

So a Runaways reunion is unlikely?
At this point, things don't look too good. We don't get along that good, and probably, right now, people don't want to see each other! Most of us went our separate ways. Some of us stayed in touch. I kind of disappeared from the world, had two children, lived in the Caribbean, and that was life. I got rid of everybody, and I'm just now coming back. We've got an awesome reality show in the works about our family.

What would the show be like?
Nothing's signed yet, but there's a whole lot of people we're talking to. Our family is a reality show. Everyone that meets us says that. Life in the Caribbean, it makes you look at things differently. We taught our kids how to live off the land. We're not organic freaks or anything like that, but we taught our kids, if you need a tomato, go to the front yard. We've got a beautiful home on this chain of islands that shoots down to Brazil, and we're self-contained. Anytime anyone wants to do the show, we're ready. Let's go.

Advertisement

Kim Fowley

Cherie Currie, Joan Jett, and Sandy West did a life rights deal. Jackie Fox and Lita Ford did not. How did you make your decision?
I chose to do a life rights pro rata in regards to all things Runaways, because I wanted to be in the movie, and here's my say in how I am portrayed.

How did you want to be portrayed? After all, Cherie's book has some harsh stuff about you.
Cherie Currie wrote a diary that evolved into a book, and I came to the conclusion that this is Cherie Currie's teenage diary and nighttime soap opera version of rock & roll martyrdom. That's her interpretation of her life at the time, with her friends, family and Runaways. I didn't know about all the things she was going through at the time. I cried at the screening. I wish I would have known. I felt bad for her. But I was 36 when she was 16, and how many 36 year olds are parents of an all-girl band? In my mind, I was a drill sergeant, and they were an all-girl army. I was training them to be a rock & roll army. I was General Patton. I was not qualified as a social worker or a shrink. What does she say about me?

She has an allegation in her book Neon Angel that you held a "sex education" class by demonstrating intercourse with a woman named Marie in a hotel room in front of her and Sandy and a friend of hers named Rick.
I don't remember that! I wouldn't have invited anybody in my hotel room, if I had one. I don't remember Rick. Sandy's dead. And I don't know Marie. In Cherie's book, she admits to overindulging in alcohol and drugs, and what she saw when she was stoned, drunk, or abusing illegal substances, it possibly never happened. I never had a hotel room of my own. They never paid me to travel, so I never toured.

Speaking of hotel rooms, what about the one in Sweden? Some guy demanded sex from the Runaways on a Swedish tour, and allegedly the Runaways beat him up, tied him to a chair, set his clothes on fire while the snow was falling outside, and rode away giving him the finger. That's rock & roll. Let him cry. And remember, I wasn't in Sweden. I heard about that when they were interviewing us for the movie. They called Joan and me, and Joan didn't deny it. She just nodded her head, laughing and smiling. So why isn't that in there? I asked Floria and John Linson, and they said, "We didn't buy your book. Cherie has the book." What else is in there?

She describes you "pimping" her out after a show at the Starwood to an unnamed singer, which I believe was Rick Springfield?
I remember, the night at the Starwood, Robert Plant and Jimmy Page showed up, the leader of the Ohio Players showed up, and Rick Springfield. Everybody came to the dressing room, and I introduced them. Robert posed with all five girls for Circus magazine. It was quite a night. But what Cherie and Rick did or didn't do, which is just as vague as Rick and Marie, and just as vague as what happened in Japan... It's all poetic license, all these urban legends. What else?

She claims that you promised their parents there would be tutors and chaperones.
Jackie's mother was one of the chaperones who went to Japan. As far as tutors are concerned, Scott Anderson and Kent Smythe were the managers on tour, and Toby Mathis, so talk to them. It was a court approved contract, certified by the state of California. What else?

This is on a much lesser scale, but she says you pitted everyone against each other.
No. I didn't pit anybody. Remember, they didn't get along. They had separate friends, schools, backgrounds. They pitted themselves against each other. They were rebelling because they were like Britney Spears — not a girl, not yet a woman. That's the Runaways. There's a reason there was never a girl Beatles, a girl Rolling Stones. Jackie and Cherie left without my participation. What else?

She says — and this is the only one that really made the movie — that you were verbally and emotionally abusive. There's a scene where you have boys throwing things at them.
It was glass, wood, and bricks, and Cherie wasn't there. She wasn't in the band then. But I don't remember dog shit [being thrown at the band]. I didn't have a dog.

But that last one, surely you know about from your participation with the movie? What was involved with that?
I didn't go on set. I was never onstage for any of the Q&A promotions. I'm in the audience, I'm introduced, and I wave. Joan and Kenny Laguna felt it would be appropriate to have Michael Shannon have a sit down character research meeting. When I first got the script, I recommended Kenny Ortega, who staged the Runaways show, be the director. Either him or Allison Anders. This was before Floria Sigismondi.

So what did you tell Michael to help him prepare, that he wouldn't have known otherwise?
I told him I was a functioning cripple. I didn't advertise it. I'm more comfortable with it now because I'm a cancer survivor. But I had polio twice. I have vertigo. I can't open milk cartons by myself. I don't feel my extremities. I try to hide and overcompensate by being colorful, so that people won't notice that I have mobility and eye/hand problems, that certain body parts don't work. I'm not a Casanova by any stretch! Look, I'm a creepy guy. I'm like 10 feet tall, a giraffe, and people have no sympathy for giants. America doesn't deal with extreme people that well. I told Michael, "When I'm found dead, they're going to show a clip of you, not me, so let me die in regal splendor."

Michael said you offered to record with him?
I want to record him because he's from Kentucky, so if he wants to do southern rural or roots music, we can autotune for any problems. Anyone who can talk can sing.

What do you think of how it turned out?
It's good cinema. It's a movie, you know? It's not a historical document. It's a coming-of-age capsule from Cherie's perspective. Not from mine, possibly not from Joan's, certainly not Lita's, and I would imagine Jackie has a different idea. When they put aside all the bickering and all the nyah nyah nyahs, no one could stop them. They blew Cheap Trick off the stage. When the fabulous five broke up, they were 17. Imagine if they managed to do it until they were 25. They would have been huge. The tragedy is, the idea was better than the band. If anyone wants to know the real story, look at the lyrics. That's the only true thing about the movie. What's your headline going to be?

I don't know yet.
Here's your headline. The Runaways Movie: Confessions, Revelations, Urban Legends, and No Sympathy for Giants. That's real Roger Corman-esque. Make it sleaze if you please.