Actor, artist, author and singer Cherie Currie is reclaiming her legacy as a pioneering rock musician, recording new music and touring after a long hiatus from the industry.
Currie blazed a trail for aspiring young female rockers as a member of the first all-female rock/punk band The Runaways with fellow members and future rock stars Joan Jett and Lita Ford. The Runaways only lasted from 1975-79, and Currie had quit the group in 1978 to go solo. Interest in the story of the short-lived group was reignited in part by Currie’s autobiographical book “Neon Angel: A Memoir of a Runaway” and the recent biopic “The Runaways” starring Kristen Stewart as Jett and Dakota Fanning as Currie.
After splitting from The Runaways to embark on a short-lived solo career, Currie stayed away from music until the last few years.
“I have been writing for the last 30 years, writing songs and recording,” Currie said when asked about her long absence from the music scene. “But I became a mom and had to make a living. So I became a chainsaw artist. When the movie happened and I opened for Joan Jett in 2010, it was such a successful show that I was immediately offered a record deal. So I thought, You know what, why not?”
When she decided to record new music, Currie said she was pleasantly surprised to find that some of the biggest and influential names in rock music wanted to write and record with her, including Slash and Matt Sorum from Guns N’ Roses and Billy Corgan from The Smashing Pumpkins.
“I think there is the mutual respect that we have because we know that the road is hard and you can only imagine what it was like for young girls who were away from their families for a long period of time with no parental supervision for the majority of that time,” she said. “We had each other and we went out there and survived and did our best and thrived for the time. It was a crazy time. I feel really blessed that people in this business acknowledged us.”
Currie has also collaborated with some of her former Runaways bandmates, having recently recorded a Christmas single with guitarist and singer Ford.
“I just shot the cover for the single that Lita and I did called ‘Rock the Christmas Down,’” she said. “I can’t wait for everyone to hear this song. It’s awesome.”
The collaboration came after a long estrangement from her former bandmate, but the two reconnected through Jett.
“Joan was having dinner with Lita a couple years ago and I asked her if she would please pass my number to Lita and tell her I’d really love to talk to her,” Currie said. “At the time, she was feeling the same way. She reached out to me and we got together for dinner and we started a friendship. Right before I left for the road a couple of months ago, she called and said she was going to do a Christmas single and asked if I wanted to do a duet with her, which I was absolutely thrilled to do. It’s been magical. It’s been an amazing experience.”
So we had to ask, even though the question probably has been presented a thousand times already: Now that Ford, Jett and Currie are on speaking terms, can a Runaways reunion be on the horizon?
“Lita and I want to do it,” Currie said. “Joan is not so sure. We’re working together, Lita and I, and reaching out to her and saying, ‘Let’s do this! Why not?’ So we’ll see what happens.”
Currie said her willingness to embrace the music she helped to create as part of The Runaways is a relatively recent development.
“I couldn’t listen to The Runaways music for at least 20 years because it was a sore spot, the way I left the band, and we had been so used and abused,” she said. “When Madonna was wearing a corset and they were saying she was the first, I was like, Well, wait a minute. That was something I did when I was 16 years old. So I really felt like we had all but been forgotten. But when I started watching these videos about 17 years ago, I was shocked by how good we were and the fan base we had. When my book came out in 1998, I was so surprised that when I had my first book signing in Hollywood the line went around the block. It was such a great surprise. There are fans of the band that have stuck with us for the last 35 years. They’ve opened my eyes to what a groundbreaking band this was.”
Considering the then-underage Currie paraded around in a corset on stage in the 1970s, we asked her what she thought of the outrage that comes when legal-aged pop stars like Miley Cyrus are dressing scantily and dancing suggestively more that 30 years later.
“The corset was only worn for three minutes of our show during ‘Cherry Bomb,’” Currie pointed out. “When I saw that corset for the first time, I just knew it would be something that would draw attention to the song. Miley, she’s expressing herself and doing what she wants to do. Everybody is going to judge you, good or bad. There are people out there that nothing is going to make them happy. They are always the loudest as well. If you don’t like it, turn the channel, turn off the radio or get off the computer. She’s got something to say and she’s saying it.”
Now that she’s back on the road, Currie said she is seeing old-school fans of the band, along with younger fans who discovered their music through “The Runaways” movie.
“The movie brought us a bunch of new fans so there’s both equally, a lot of young people and a lot of people my age that love the band,” she said. “It’s great to see new fans, some being as young as 8 or 9 years old. What I love about The Runaways’ music is anybody can do it. Anyone that aspires to be a musician can pick up a guitar and learn these songs. I’m no Celine Dion and neither is Joan or Lita. We just sing from the heart and anybody can sing out songs and they do them well. That’s a cool thing.”
While some of the former Runaways were not entirely happy with the way they were portrayed in the film, Currie said she was thrilled with the way it turned out.
“Dakota Fanning is my favorite actor of all time,” she said. “The acting was superb. It was a beautiful caption of the 1970s. If I were to do the movie, I would have added some other stories. How do you put two-and-a-half years of craziness in an hour-and-a-half? How can you not be thrilled with Michael Shannon, Kristen Stewart, Dakota Fanning and everyone else that worked so hard on this film? I’m so proud that they found our plight and our journey movie-worthy.”
In the film, there was a significant amount of canoodling going on between Currie and Jett’s character. So we asked if she thought her sexuality was portrayed accurately in the film.
“Yeah, I do,” she said. “Back in the 1970s it was one of those times where there was a lot of experimentation going on and we were kids and we were out there growing up in front of the world. There were a lot of drugs and things happened, right?”
Cherie Currie performs 8 p.m. Nov. 15 at The Barbary, 951 Frankford Ave. For more information or tickets, call 215-634-7400 or visit www.cheriecurrie.com/.