Lita Ford: Runaways were jailbait teenage troublemakers
In The Zone: Guitar legend details sex, drugs and rock n roll life in memoir Living Like a Runaway
NEW YORK – Lita Ford’s band The Runaways were one of the first all-girl rock groups when they hit the scene in the mid-70s, just as punk rock was exploding.
“Rebellious jailbait teenage troublemakers,” is how Ford described the legendary band to FOX411.
But as she writes in her new memoir “Living Like a Runaway,” on bookshelves Tuesday, Ford quit the band soon after joining when she learned some of the members were lesbians.
“I didn’t know what homosexuality was, I didn’t know it existed. My parents never told me, I don’t think my parents even know what it was,” said Ford, who was just 16 when she auditioned for the band. “So when I realized the girls were with the girls, I thought oh my God, what if they try to get me, like some kind of zombie or something – I didn’t understand it.”
Ford was ecstatic when the band called her and asked her to come back.
“Going home after being in the Runaways, I started having nightmares that I was going to miss this great band, and not be a part of this great band,” she said. “And when the girls finally called me back and said ‘Lita we can’t find anybody to replace you, you gotta come back,’ I packed up my guitars, got my amp in the back seat of my car and I flew up to Hollywood. I was so happy.”
Ford also grew from the experience. “I learned to just focus on my own six strings and just accept people,” Ford said.
The axe slinger, now 57, still misses the good old days, and says if The Runaways want to do a reunion almost 40 years after they broke up, she’s all in.
“If we ever get that phone call, if there are any hard feelings or anything bad that ever happened in the past, I’m willing to bury any hatchets to be in The Runaways again,” Ford said.
One big problem seems to be fellow band member Joan Jett.
“She’s busy and hard to get hold of,” Ford lamented.
Since the Runaways, Ford has enjoyed a successful solo career and been romantically linked to several of heavy metal’s most famous names, including Motley Crue’s Nicki Sixx, Jon Bon Jovi, and Black Sabbath’s Tony Iommi. Ford is now known as the “Queen of Metal,” and tours with her own band to packed houses, where one of the things she enjoys most is seeing women in the front row of her concerts.
“It’s a whole 360 from what it used to be in The Runaways where’d you’d just look out and see all dudes, and in the corner there’d be a couple of girls that looked like they’d be scared to death,” Ford said. “Now the front row is three girls and then a couple guys, and another six girls, and a couple guys. So we’ve got the women now in the front row cheering me on, and it’s so great to see.”
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