Cherie Currie Interview, The Runaways

Cherie Currie rocketed to international stardom as the teenage lead vocalist for the now legendary all-female rock band, The Runaways, alongside band mates Joan Jett, Lita Ford, Sandy West and Jackie Fox. After three albums with The Runaways, Cherie went on to record two solo albums, then as an actress, starred in numerous films including “Foxes” with Jodie Foster as well as guest spots on series television. Cherie is the co-author of “Neon Angel: The Cherie Currie Story,” which is considered one of the best rock & roll biographies of all time. The multi-talented Cherie continues to act, record and perform around the world. She also has her own Chainsaw Art Gallery in Chatsworth, California which you can check out at ChainsawChick.com.

MoviesOnline caught up with Cherie at the press day for the new movie, “The Runaways,” which chronicles the groundbreaking, all girl 1970s rock band’s rise to fame. At the core of “The Runaways” is the relationship between Joan Jett and Cherie Currie played by Kristen Stewart and Dakota Fanning. Directed by Floria Sigismondi, the film tells the story of their tumultuous, love-hate partnership on and off stage that bloomed over the course of the band’s meteoric rise, their wild life on the road fueled by sex, drugs and booze, and the eventual dissolution of The Runaways three years and five albums later.

Cherie talked to us about what it’s like to see her story finally hit the big screen, how she worked with Dakota on developing her character, and what she feels is the band’s legacy.

Q: Was the way they recruited you into the band exactly the same as it was portrayed in the movie?

CC: Yes. That is correct. I was at the Sugar Shack in North Hollywood which is an underage dance club and Kim Fowley walked in and approached me and then I had heard about The Runaways. There was this little buzz going on and then Kim and Joan approached me and I was just star struck by her because, you know, when you’re a kid, you hear about this girl, Joan Jett, she plays electric guitar. It was really neat and I was right at that point in my life where I’d had something pretty traumatic happen to me and I was ready to venture out and give something like that a try. So, I was just in the right place at the right time, honestly.

Q: At the height of The Runaways, how bad did the infighting, the drugs and all the drama of being in that group get?

CC: Well it wasn’t pretty. It wasn’t so much… Lita (Ford) was the only one that threatened me physically and I just was not a fighter. Really I wasn’t. And that very last day in the band, when she kicked the door into my dressing room, just scared me to death. But it was the emotional abuse that went on from Kim. You know, we just started losing communication with each other. And when you’re a bunch of young girls, you’re kids, you’re just growing into an adult body. There’s all these insecurities. You can’t expect anything different. And you’re thrown out on the road with no supervision – none for months. I’m amazed we stuck together for as long as we did.

Q: What’s your relationship with Kim Fowley like now?

CC: Wow, it just shows that my planets seem to be aligned pretty well these days. I’d seen Kim a couple years ago at a party and I’ve always been very angry with him. It wasn’t just because of The Runaways, but then after I had left The Runaways and went on and did a record with my sister for Capitol, Kim ended up bootlegging that record and selling it and making a lot more money than I ever did. I had nothing to do with Kim at the time. And, you know, when I became a mom and I saw him at the premiere for Mayor of the Sunset Strip, I approached him and I said “You’re no long stealing from me. You’re stealing from my son now. So this is going to stop.” And I was really angry. Then, when I saw him at this other event, the anger was gone, and I think I just came to grips with the fact that we all have skeletons in the closet. We all have regret. We’ve all done things that we wish we could have done differently. All of us. So, who am I to hold that kind of animosity towards someone? I had come to grips with my own animosity by myself, loathing for the things that I had done to destroy career, really putting my family in a horrible situation. Once I forgave myself, it was really easy to forgive everyone else. And the timing was great. I do appreciate Kim for what he did very, very much so. He did some pretty bad things and he’s the one that’s got to live with that, not me. So, all in all, it’s good.

Q: Of all the things he did, what sticks out in your mind as the final straw?

CC: Well, you know, the movie doesn’t even touch…in my book there’s one chapter called “Kim Fowley’s Sex Education Class.” Trust me, he doesn’t look that good in hundred year old underwear -- let’s just say that – with holes in it.

Q: That’s an image.

CC: Oh yeah. Trust me. Like a human preying mantis in dirty, holey underwear. Not nice. No, not for my virgin eyes.

Q: What went through your mind when that Japanese photographer came to your house for the photo shoot?

CC: Well again, that was a classic Kim Fowley set up. I mean, honest to goodness, I was very protective of The Runaways. I turned down the cover of Rolling Stone magazine two weeks before I left the band because I begged them in tears, “Please do not put me on the cover of this magazine. It’ll be the end of my band.” I was getting too much publicity being the front woman of that band. It was not something I wanted and then Kim calls me and says “You’ve got a photo session today” and then he assures me that all the other girls had a photo session as well, that they just wanted to shoot us individually. I understood that. That had happened before. But I had no idea I was the only one. Had I known that, that session would have never taken place.

Q: How closely did you work with Dakota on her character and do you think she nailed it?

CC: Oh, she nailed it and then some. Dakota, she’s my favorite actress of all time, first of all. She’s just a prodigy. She came to my home. We’d sing the lines back and forth to get the inflections in my voice. I was in the studio with her sitting in the vocal booth when she did her vocals and, when she was shooting, she was constantly saying “Was this the way it felt? They have this or was it that?” You know, just like that. If there was a change or something I wasn’t comfortable with, I would tell her and it was just automatic. She’s brilliant. She’s as brilliant as you think she is and then some.

Q: Was there one particular moment where you were like “Oh that’s me! That’s great!”?

CC: That was when they shot all of us girls on stage in the full costumes, with the corset, and Joan and I sat there and basically wept because, for the first time, we got an opportunity to see what it was like to be in the audience watching The Runaways.

Q: What are your memories of going to Japan and what was that experience like?

CC: Japan was [wonderful]. I didn’t want to leave. I really didn’t. I got to spend a couple months there and I loved it so much. I loved the people. The food is the best. It was all the work and all the hell we had to go through. That was the payoff. Everyone was so kind and it was great to have all the kids embrace us and appreciate what we were doing. It was magical.

Q: Did that phone call to the radio station at the end of the movie actually happen?

CC: No, it absolutely happened.

Q: As it played out?

CC: Yes, except that I had a lot to say. And what I did tell Joan was how proud I was of her and that she deserved it. From the minute I met her, I always knew that that was her calling and I was just so glad and so proud of her. That’s what I did say. Absolutely.

Q: Did they edit it to keep it short?

CC: Actually I don’t think they had anything in there, did they? Basically, it was “Do you have anything to say to Joan, or does Cherie?” and they didn’t have anything to say. But I think what they were trying to say was there was a lot to say, just it didn’t come out in words.

Q: Were you working in a bakery like we see in the movie when you heard Joan on the radio?

CC: Actually it was a linen store that I worked at and then a Lerners. I don’t know if any of you guys were all too young to know about Lerners. But, at that particular time when I made the phone call to Joan, I was a drug counselor for teens.

Q: You heard her come on the radio?

CC: I did. And I picked up the phone and I called.

Q: Do you have a twin sister?

CC: I do.

Q: Is she younger or older than you?

CC: She’s two minutes older.

Q: Two minutes older?

CC: Yes.

Q: And you have another older sister who’s also an actress?

CC: I do. Yes, she is. Sondra Currie. Don’t ask me her age. (Laughs) She’ll kill me.

Q: Were you always interested in being a part of the film industry and one day working in movies?

CC: Well my mother (Marie Harmon) was a great actress. She did a lot of movies with Roy Rogers. But, when I was approached after doing a show by the William Morris Agency, a guy named Dennis Brody just said “Hey, what do you think of acting?” And I said, “Well I consider myself a performer. Why not?” And Foxes was the second thing I went out on. So, it just happened. Everything in my life just seems to happen which is good. But I enjoyed it. I just really screwed it up. I screwed it up with drugs. But I don’t regret any of it though because look where I’m sitting right now. I mean, how could I regret any of it?

Q: What do you think is the legacy of The Runaways and their influence on the bands that came afterward?

CC: Well, no one had done what we did. No one had done it yet. I mean, Suzi Quatro was out there on her own kicking butt and she deserves all the credit for that. And she also, I know, influenced Joan and myself and Lita and everyone. But as far as teenage girls, you know, 15, 16, that’s young getting out there in a man’s world. We were in the battlefields for a lot of years. I say a lot because it seemed like a lot, but it was only two. The legacy, I believe, for The Runaways is that if you have a dream, if you really believe that you have a calling, no matter what it is, whether it’s music, no matter what it is, you stick with it. And I really think the failing would be nil. I just don’t think you could fail.

“The Runaways” opens in theaters on March 19^th.