In a new interview with Axe Lords, Lita Ford spoke about her “reinvention” after her departure from her former band, iconic 1970s rockers THE RUNAWAYS. She said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): “ It was a total reinvention. I mean, coming out of THE RUNAWAYS, THE RUNAWAYS were all girls, teenage girls. We were just finding ourselves in THE RUNAWAYS days. We just were following our legends. Cherie [Currie] thought she was David Bowie, and Joan [Jett] thought she was Suzi Quatro, and I loved Ritchie Blackmore. Of course, I didn’t look anything like him. But when THE RUNAWAYS broke up, I really had to become a solo artist. And then I thought, ‘Well, I can’t continue doing the same thing as what I did in RUNAWAYS days,’ because THE RUNAWAYS, to me, were really like going through college to learn how to be the real deal. When you’re in college, you look and dress and act, and you’re learning stuff and you’re learning a lot of things about yourself and who are you and what do you look like and what do you wanna be, what do you wanna be for the rest of your life? And so I thought, ‘I need to figure out who is Lita Ford. Who is she? What does she look like? What does she wear? What kind of guitars does she play?’ And we’re searching for Lita kind of experience — the hair, the clothes, those guitars. And B.C. Rich [guitars] came into my life at that point. And that was it. I was sold.”
This past June, Lita spoke to Ray “Boom Boom” Mancini of The Boom Boom Room about the infamous 2010 biopic on THE RUNAWAYS, which stars Kristen Stewart as Joan Jett, Dakota Fanning as Cherie Currie and Scout Taylor Compton as Lita. She said: “I felt that THE RUNAWAYS movie was all about Joan, and the stories that they told about Joan were just not accurate. They really made her to look larger than life. And I just didn’t agree with any of it.
“I love Scout Taylor Compton,” Lita clarified. “I thought she did a fantastic job playing Lita and that she’s a really great person and great actress. And I love that they picked Scout for that role. And Scout had reached out to me multiple times, ‘Lita, help me with this’ and ‘help me with that’. And then, of course, they had Kristen Stewart playing Joan Jett. And Kristen Stewart is not one of my favorite people, and neither is Joan Jett.
“The movie is just kind of, for me in my book, I glanced over it when it first came out and just thought, ‘Okay, I’ve seen it. I’m done. I don’t ever wanna see it again,'” Lita added.
“Yeah, I would’ve done it different. But maybe I will one day.”
Before “The Runaways” was released 15 years ago, Scout praised Lita, saying: “Lita Ford is an icon of rock and has always been a personal hero of mine. I can’t wait for her to see the film. I put my heart and soul into portraying her and to find out she is such an amazing person was truly a blessing for me. It’s something I’ll never forget.”
The first true girl band of the 1970s, THE RUNAWAYS toured internationally and made a dent in the charts before calling it quits at the end of that decade.
In November 2018, Ford told the Daily Mail that a reunion of THE RUNAWAYS will probably never happen. She explained: “Joan Jett is very much in ‘Joan Jett land,’ I guess you could say. Will she ever come out of Joan Jett land? I don’t think so. I think her manager controls that and it’s really up to him and her. It seems to me like Joan Jett‘s manager just runs her life in every way, shape, or form. He’s very controlling and he has a real problem with me. He has a real issue with me. He sees me as a threat, which is ridiculous, because she’s like my sister and I love Joan. It’s ridiculous, it’s uncalled for, and it’s caused a little bit of rivalry between her and I, which is totally uncalled for. It’s his fault.”
Ford claimed that Jett‘s manager has prevented her from even talking about a RUNAWAYS reunion with Jett.
“The hard part is just trying to communicate with Joan without her manager involved,” she added.
“We had dinner a couple of years ago, what was supposed to be a girl’s night out, and she brought her manager with her.
“So it’s like, “Dude, answer the question. I’m trying to ask you a question. Are you interested in putting THE RUNAWAYS back together?’ She never answered the question.”
Ex-THE RUNAWAYS singer Cherie Currie told the “White Line Fever” podcast in 2016 that RUNAWAYS came close to reuniting three decades ago. “Lita had reached out to us to convince us, me and Joan, to do a RUNAWAYS reunion. And we did, with Kenny Laguna basically at the helm, he secured a tour and Lita, she just basically doesn’t get along with Kenny and she just walked away from that.”
In a 2015 interview with the WHMH (Rockin’ 101) radio station, Lita explained that she decided against a possible RUNAWAYS reunion in the early 1990s because “NIRVANA was just kicking in, and it was really bad timing; it wouldn’t have worked. People would have just turned their nose up at it.”
