CHAPTER 6

GOOD-BYE, CHERIE

Shades of gray don’t fade away, They’re waiting for the night. —“WAITIN’ FOR THE NIGHT” (WRITTEN BY LITA FORD, KARI KROME, AND KIM FOWLEY)

WHEN WE CAME BACK FROM JAPAN, KIM DID HIS USUAL BITCHING ABOUT expenses. Mercury Records released Live in Japan, which was certified gold in Japan. On the night that the album was supposed to be turned in, Kent and the engineer were the only two left in the studio. Me and the rest of the girls were long gone because we were finished recording the album. This is when the engineer accidentally erased Joan’s rhythm guitar part off the song “Queens of Noise.” Oh shit! Kent flipped out. It was the wee hours of the morning and there was no time to find Joan to rerecord her part, so Kent ran up a few flights of stairs to another apartment, where he had previously met a guy who owned a Stratocaster. He woke him up and begged him to borrow the Strat. Kent used that Stratocaster to replace Joan’s parts on “Queens of Noise.” Eureka! It worked! Thank God nobody noticed. Live in Japan was meant to be a Japanese-only release, but it worked its way into other markets and became a huge success for the Runaways. Literally a lot of blood, sweat, and tears went into it.

Now, back home, we had to deal with the loss of Jackie. We needed a bass player: again! An eighteen-year-old girl from Newport Beach named Vicki Tischler was next to audition for the Runaways. Vicki and Kim had connected and she went to see him at Larrabee Studios. He thought she would be a good fit, so two days later we all went to the Studio Instrument Rentals (SIR) rehearsal studio on Sunset Boulevard, a proper rehearsal facility with pool tables and places to hang out. Joan, Sandy, Cherie, and I were lounging on the sofas when Vicki walked in. Nobody said anything at first. We could tell that it was going to take a little bit of work to get her up to par with the rest of the band. She needed to transform into a rock star instantly.

Vicki was joining the band at a bad time, and my heart went out to her. There was a lot of drug abuse and tension between band members, and she had her own issues to work through. One of them was the fact that she was epileptic, which meant she needed to be on medication for her condition, and that medication made her lethargic. This gave Kent a chance to antagonize her during live performances. She was insecure, frightened, and intimidated. Anyone would be at that point. Kent would shoot her with rubber bands and spit wads to get her to move onstage. This really pissed me off. It bothered me that Kent treated her that way. He always found humor in wreaking havoc and causing trouble. Vicki was mild-mannered, and being new to the band, she never said anything to Kent. She would have major epileptic seizures and bite almost clean through her tongue. They were wicked attacks. She needed a stable environment, and the Runaways were everything but stable.

No one in the band wanted to take the time to help Vicki. Joan was completely off in another world. Sandy, being the drummer, was getting sick of all the changes to the rhythm section and had no patience for another bass player. No one else wanted to deal with it, but I wasn’t going to let that girl or the band suffer anymore. We had already been through hell. I roomed with her and took her under my wing. She clung to me because she knew I cared and was willing to help protect her. I worked with Vicki, trying to help her change her style, lose weight, and change her whole approach. I got Kent to stop picking on her, and Vicki started to blossom. She looked and sounded better and started to fit into the band quite well by the time we were ready to shoot the album cover for Waitin’ for the Night.

ONE DAY WE were all sitting around waiting for Cherie. Nobody knew where the hell she was, once again. Two hours later, she finally came strolling in. She looked tired and haggard. I took one look at her and said, “Get yourself together,” as I pointed toward the dressing room, which was behind a frosted-glass door. I was sick of her always being late or completely absent. When Cherie said, “I have to leave early to take my sister to acting class,” after arriving two hours late, that was the straw that broke the camel’s back. I lost it. In my mind, I’m thinking, Why can’t someone else give her a ride? A roadie? Doesn’t she have any other friends? Parents? She couldn’t take a taxi or a bus? A lot of prep goes into the photo shoot of an album cover—for the band, the studio, and the photographer.

She went into the dressing room and closed the door. I followed her into the dressing room and was so angry that I didn’t notice the top window above the door was open, so everyone could hear us. When I started yelling at her, she started to cry and be her usual dramatic self. I blew up in her face. I was finished with her fucking off: “You have to choose between your family and this band.” I meant for that day. Cherie thought I meant forever.

She said, “I can’t do this anymore. I’ve had enough.” Looking back, I understand now that Cherie had a lot of pressure on her. She had to deal with Scott Anderson getting her pregnant, Joan Jett being in love with her and taking over on some of the lead vocals, and Kim Fowley’s demands on her to be the front person that he had envisioned for the Runaways. There were always people clinging to her, and I think that had a lot to do with why she left too. She was young and it was overwhelming for her, and even though I think she wanted me to give her my approval, I was always angry at her. There was demand for her to be at autograph signings, interviews, and other media events, and while she thought that she was doing her best, applying herself 100 percent, she didn’t realize all these other things were getting in her way. She was always late or absent, and it all came to a head that one day at Barry Levine’s studio. I think all of the pressures built up and finally got to her. We were all exhausted, and I didn’t want to fuck around anymore. We went ahead and shot some photos with Barry anyway, without her, and later on one of those photos became the album cover for Waitin’ for the Night. When she left that day, we didn’t know she was going to quit, but that’s exactly what she did.

Now we were out a lead singer. We had two choices. The Runaways could break up right then, or we could keep going. When Cherie walked out, she didn’t realize that she had left her burden on Joan’s shoulders. She had dropped a bomb on Joan. This would change the face of the band. Could Joan fill those shoes? Could she wear a corset? She didn’t have blond hair and bright blue eyes, and she wasn’t as feminine as Cherie. We all looked at Joan and asked her if she thought she could handle taking over as the lead vocalist. She was hesitant at first, but she agreed because for her, breaking up the Runaways at that time was not an option. The rest of us had to step up too.

Joan took over the vocals on Waitin’ for the Night. Even though Joan did a beautiful job on the vocals, I was never credited for cowriting the title track, which was typical Runaways bullshit. This was the first time I had really paid attention to Joan’s voice. She had come into her own as a lead singer. She was under the gun and had to prove herself as a front person. It seemed natural for her, but soon the pressures of being the lead singer of the Runaways would take their toll on Joan too.

AFTER WE FINISHED Waitin’ for the Night, we went to Europe in late 1977. Our first stop was Northern Ireland, during the Belfast bombings. We had a tour bus, and military tanks would stop the bus, come inside, and check for bombs and weapons. After they were done checking our bus, they’d ask for autographs. Bomb-sniffing dogs would check the venues before the audience was allowed in. It was really nerve-racking and we weren’t used to it. One of the hotels we stayed at had been bombed already, so we were staying in the part of the hotel that had been deemed safe. We played for a sea of denim and leather. It was all rowdy, drunken dudes, snow, and alcohol. This was when my consumption of hard liquor increased. It was so cold, and that made it difficult to play guitar. The guitars were cold so the strings wouldn’t bend and you couldn’t feel your fingers. It was so cold at some of the outdoor festivals that I needed to do something to loosen myself up and warm my bones so I could move my fingers on the guitar. Coming from an Italian and British household, liquor was not a foreign substance to me. It was never seen as something that was forbidden. At first I liked shots of the blackberry brandy my mother had given to me before I left for Europe. From there I moved on to Johnnie Walker Black Label, which became my drink of choice.

Up to that point in my life, my alcohol consumption had increased or decreased depending on the company I kept; it came and went depending on the men I was with too. While we were in Ireland, I had a drink with Captain Dirty, who was the head of the Belfast Hells Angels. He really took a liking to us. The Hells Angels literally stood onstage with us while we played and no one, including us, was going to tell them to move, so they became our security guards. They turned out to be really cool guys. Because of them, whatever we wanted, we would have. Vicki saw a belt some young boy was wearing and was eyeing it from the stage. Captain Dirty saw that and ripped it off the young boy and laid it on the stage in front of Vicki.

That night I came into my hotel room that I was sharing with Vicki. It was late so I was trying to be careful and quiet. I went into the restroom and noticed black curly hairs on my hairbrush. Gross, I thought. Who’s been using my hairbrush? As I walked to my bed, I looked around and found two people were rolling around on the floor next to my bed. It was Vicki and, much to my surprise, she was with a guy! But how could anyone refuse the black Irishman she was with: the one and only Phil Lynott from Thin Lizzy. Lucky bitch! I loved Phil! I guess that explained the kinky hair in my brush. I crawled into my own bed and went to sleep. The next morning they were both gone.

That European tour lasted about a month, and then we returned home to start another American tour in early 1978, which we were all excited about because we were going on the road with the Ramones again. It was during that short break that I met the Who’s John Entwistle. He was between wives. We met backstage at a Cars concert. The one thing John Entwistle and I had in common was spiders: we both loved them. We hit it off that first night and we headed over to the Rainbow after the concert, then we ended up at the Riot House. He had about a quarter gram of blow and we were going to snort it, but we dropped it down the side of the pullout couch and never found it again. Things got hot pretty quickly after that, and before I knew it I had stripped out of my clothes and we were on the bed. All of a sudden John looked a little freaked out and he stopped and pointed at my thighs. “What happened to you?”

I had no idea what he was talking about. I looked down and noticed that my legs and inner thighs were black and blue! I was wearing a new pair of jeans and I had been horseback riding earlier that day. My jeans were really tight and it helped cause the bruises. Needless to say, John was looking at me like I was into sadomasochism or something. I tried to explain my horseback-riding story, but he wouldn’t have it. We ended up having sex anyway, so he couldn’t have been that freaked out.

AT THE START of the American tour, Kim Fowley basically bailed on us. I think he was disappointed that Cherie had left the band: he had never envisioned Joan as the lead singer. At the beginning of the Runaways, Kim had wanted Kari Krome to play guitar and be the lead singer of the band. He was more fond of Kari’s looks than of Joan’s, but Kari didn’t have Joan’s talent. Kari was the one who pushed Joan forward. By this point he didn’t care for Vicki, Sandy was a drummer and always in the background, and he was afraid of me. I think we had started to lose some of our audience because with Cherie leaving, we had lost the more feminine front person, and Kim didn’t like that. Kim brought in Toby Mamis to take his place, and I was really confused. I’m not really sure where he came from, but I thought he was ten times worse than Kim in his ability to manage us. He was a very short, round guy with an Afro and Coke-bottle glasses. He lived off the old diet soda Tab. Somehow he never lost weight, though. Everything about him annoyed me. Even the way he drank his Tab. Toby was clueless about us girls. He was an outsider and not creative or fatherly, as even Kim had eventually become in his own weird way. Toby just didn’t fit the group, and nobody really paid much attention to him.

Our first show of the tour with the Ramones was on January 7, 1978, at the Palladium in New York. The dressing rooms in that place were small and I remember seeing Joey Ramone changing his clothes. He had a huge scar down his back and I wondered what had happened to him, although I never asked. He had all sorts of health issues, and he used a lot of nose spray to breathe and eye drops to see. He had a beautiful girlfriend from LA. At the time I wondered how a guy like Joey could get such a hot chick, but when you saw him onstage, you figured it out. I started to love him too. I started to love all the Ramones. I loved the way they all wore matching clothes and moved together strumming their guitars in synchronicity. I knew every word to their set. They were very street, very rough, raunchy, and raw. The Ramones were like street rats with attitude on a rock-and-roll level.

I became friends with Joey’s girlfriend. The only time I shot heroin was with her, when she injected it into one of my butt cheeks. It made me so sick! I threw up on the front lawn of her house. It was a disaster. Never again! I’m definitely not cut out for heroin. It never was my drug of choice.

After the long American tour with the Ramones, the Runaways headed for Europe again. One of my favorite shows in Europe was the Midsummer Festival in Stockholm, Sweden, that the country waited the whole year for. A fair combined with a rock festival, it was beautiful, crazy, wild, and full of all sorts of people: teenagers, families with young kids, and the Swedish Hells Angels. It seemed like the whole country came to this festival. When we stood on the stage, we could see the giant Ferris wheel lit up in the dark, turning in the distance, people screaming from the roller coasters, and thousands of people having fun, listening to music, eating, and drinking all weekend long.

During those two days, I met a journalist named Lars. He had longish, shoulder-length blond hair, blue eyes, and a chiseled face like a young Mick Jagger. He took a liking to me and I took a liking to him. I found him interesting, gorgeous, and sexy. We partied through the entire festival. I went back to his house with him after the show and stayed there overnight since we were off the next day. The following day, Lars took me around town. We went shopping and out on a boat to see these little offshore islands that you could only get to by boat. We cruised the waters and looked at all the houses on an island called Vaxholm.

Our next show was in Oslo, Norway. I told the girls and our British tour managers to take my luggage and go ahead without me—I would meet up with them in time for the Oslo gig. I wanted to stay with Lars and enjoy myself. His house was in an apartment-style building, and his neighbor was Britt Ekland. He cooked for me and told me stories—and as a journalist he had quite a few cool rock-and-roll stories to tell, especially about the Rolling Stones. I told him that my favorite song at the time was “Winter” by the Stones off the Goats Head Soup album. There’s a line in the song that goes, “I wish I been out in California.” When I was homesick, I would listen to “Winter” and it would make me feel better.

Lars was interesting and different. We enjoyed each other so much that I didn’t sleep the entire weekend. I was so tired. But I had to catch the next flight to Oslo. I told him, “I’ll be back soon,” and took off for the Stockholm airport. Unfortunately, it wasn’t a direct flight, so I had to switch planes somewhere. No one had forewarned me about the plane change, so, exhausted and feeling dreamy from the weekend, I passed out cold. When the plane landed in the city where I was supposed to get off and switch to a connecting flight, I didn’t wake up. During that time a whole set of different people got on the plane. As we started for the runway ready to take off again, I opened my eyes and noticed the guy sitting next to me looked different. I sat up quickly and asked him, “Excuse me, sir, did you just get on this plane? Because you weren’t here a few minutes ago, were you?”

“No, I just boarded.”

“Where is this plane going?” I asked.

“Iceland.”

“ICELAND!”

I screamed to the stewardess, “Stop the plane!”

She came running over. I said to her, “I have to get off this plane now! I was supposed to get off when we landed! I fell asleep! I need to go to Oslo!”

The stewardess asked the pilot to stop the plane. I couldn’t believe it, but he actually stopped the plane. The back of the plane opened up and a staircase came down under the tail. I grabbed my stuff and ran for the staircase and onto the runway. I was standing on the fucking runway wondering how to get to the terminal. I was completely turned around. I didn’t even know what country or city I was in. Hold it together, Lita, I thought to myself.

I saw a building in the distance and started walking toward it, hoping it was the terminal, which thankfully it was. I made my way into the terminal and found that I had missed my connecting flight. Shit. I was going to miss the show in Oslo for sure. I went to the desk at the Swedish airline and told them the story. They said, “We have one more flight that leaves for Oslo. It’s the last one for the day.” It put me in Oslo at the same time I was supposed to be onstage. My tour manager must have been freaking, pacing back and forth wondering what had happened to me. There were no cell phones back then. I dug through my purse and found a paper with his phone number on it. I called him and told him I had missed the connecting flight but would be on the next one. He started cursing at me, so I hung up on him. At least he knew I was on my way and not headed to Iceland.

When the plane landed in Oslo, I was already late for the show. My tour manager was at the airport to pick me up. I was so happy to see him, even if he was pissed at me. I think he got a kick out of my devious behavior, though. He gave me a little grin and said, “Did you have a good time, Lita?” We headed straight to the gig, where another sea of pissed-off and anxious, drunken Vikings were waiting to see the Runaways. We immediately jumped up onstage and did the show. We caused such a scene that night because of the delay. We gave them one of our best shows. After we got offstage I headed straight to the hotel for some shut-eye. As I entered the hotel room, the phone was ringing. It was Lars. He had called to play me “Winter” over the phone. And with that, all of my troubles calmed down. After that show, Lars would call me on a regular basis and play “Winter.” We eventually lost touch, but I always think of him when I hear that song.

The European tour lasted two months. You would think from all the touring we would be getting some money by now. Nope. We were all broke, confused, and tired. With the exception of Vicki, who was on medication to manage her own medical issues, we were turning to drugs and alcohol to soothe our young, broken souls.

WHEN WE WERE finished with the 1978 European tour, Sandy, Joan, and I went to live on a ninety-foot navy-blue houseboat in London on the Thames River. We originally went to London thinking we were going to stay there and record our next album with a British producer named Phil Wainman, who had worked with the Sweet. But to be honest, again, no one really told us why we were there. Although I loved England and could have stayed there forever, I didn’t realize we weren’t confirmed to record with Wainman. Joan, Sandy, and I were not the right combo to pull in this guy to produce us. By that point we were all doing too many drugs and hanging out with British punk rockers who were doing too many drugs. We scared him away before we even got started.

The houseboat was next to the Battersea Bridge, off King’s Road, which was full of shops, restaurants, pubs, and cool places. More important, we were right down the street from where the Sex Pistols lived. It was a prime spot for trouble.

We were deep into the punk era at the time, when “God Save the Queen” by the Sex Pistols came out. Sid Vicious, his girlfriend, Nancy, the drummer Paul Cook, and the guitarist Steve Jones would come to the houseboat all the time. Sometimes I loved having them there, but sometimes it made me uptight. It just depended on what drugs they were using, I guess. Sid was frightening and fucked up, although I could see a handsome little boy underneath all the razor-blade gashes and scars.

One time, I was just sitting on the sofa doing nothing and Sid walked in, very angry. He pointed his finger at me and yelled, “You!”

I said, “What?

“You ripped me off!” he yelled again.

“Ripped you off of what? What are you talking about, Sid?”

Sid was in torn clothing with writing on his shirt. His hair was short and going in every direction possible. He was bleeding from where he had carved words and people’s names in his arms and chest. What a mess. He just kept yelling that I’d ripped him off.

“I didn’t rip you off,” I told him. “Are you crazy?”

He pointed to my necklace. “That!” he said. “That’s my necklace.”

“No, it’s not,” I told him. “I’ve had this forever.”

He did have a similar necklace, and he probably lost his. I was nervous as hell because he was not in his right mind. He was so fucked up! For some reason, Sid walked over to Nancy. They sat down, and then he dropped the necklace issue right away. A few minutes later, Sid got up and went into the kitchen to make himself a peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich. We only had peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches that whole summer, and when we were finished with them, everyone would throw the plates out the window and into the river. We never had to do dishes that way.

While Sid was in the kitchen, Nancy was standing next to me. She was gorgeous, normal, and kindhearted. I couldn’t understand what she was doing with Sid at first, but when Sid wasn’t fucked up he was a really kind, gentle soul, so it started to make more sense. Nancy took a step closer to me, and that’s when I realized she was coming on to me. I thought, Oh shit! What if Sid finds out? He’d either kill me or join in. I wasn’t interested in either scenario. I told her, “You’re very beautiful, Nancy. And I like you very much as a friend. But I’m not into girls.”

She dropped the conversation when Sid came back into the room. I was really uncomfortable, so I went downstairs. I was changing my clothes when Paul Cook walked by my room. He must have been using the restroom. I didn’t know he was down there or I would have closed my bedroom door completely. But I’m glad I didn’t, because Paul, a very fair, handsome, blond-haired, blue-eyed drummer, saw me getting undressed through the opening in the door. I saw him and instead of covering myself, I locked eyes with him. He came into my room and I didn’t stop him. No words were spoken, but we started to make out with each other and ended up having sex. Amazing sex. We stayed together a few nights here and there, but mostly we were just friends.

Steve Jones was the most businesslike of the group. He had dark hair and wore a black coat, clean looking, not all cut up like Sid or Johnny Rotten. Steve had written us a song called “Black Leather,” and sometimes he and Paul Cook would get onstage and jam it with us.

Once day, Sid, Nancy, Sandy, and I went over to Johnny’s house, which was within walking distance from the houseboat. When we arrived, I was shocked to see how fucked up his door was from fans who had spray-painted it and carved it up. I felt bad for Johnny. He was a recluse, and I couldn’t blame him. We knocked and rang the doorbell over and over again, but Johnny never answered the door. He might have been asleep or he might not have felt like answering the door. So Sandy, Sid, Nancy, and I left. We walked around the corner to a pub for a few drinks and went back to the houseboat.

The houseboat was a lot of fun but basically a waste of time. The Runaways were beginning to fall apart. We couldn’t get anyone to agree to produce us because there were so many drugs involved at that point. After a month, everyone left the boat and went home. Kim wasn’t around, so the hype around the Runaways had dropped. I stayed by myself a few extra days because I had relatives in London and wanted to see them. The boat felt really weird with no one on it but me. Like it was haunted. The doors would open and close by themselves sometimes because of the tide going in and out. I didn’t like it, so I packed up and went back home to Los Angeles.

About a month later, in October 1978, I heard the news that Nancy had been found dead on the bathroom floor of the Hotel Chelsea in Manhattan. At first I thought she must have ODed, but then I learned Sid had been arrested. More details started to emerge. Her arms had been tied to a towel rack and she had been stabbed. I was heartbroken. The press began reporting on Sid and Nancy, but they got it all wrong. In reality, Nancy was a sweetheart. She was a beautiful, down-to-earth girl next door. She wasn’t looking for anything other than a relationship, and she got sucked in by Sid’s charm. He was out of his mind a lot of the time, but under there, too, was a nice person with a big heart.

I don’t believe he meant to kill Nancy. I know he cared for her very much. Nancy was the love of his life. But Sid was so blown out of his mind on drugs that half the time he didn’t know what he was doing anymore. It may have started as a kinky sex game that went horribly wrong. Who knows what the hell really happened. Ten days later he attempted suicide and was put in the mental ward at Bellevue Hospital. Sid was destroyed when Nancy died, and I knew it was only a matter of time before he’d die himself of a broken heart, which sadly happened a few months later when he overdosed while out on bail.

TOBY MAMIS BROUGHT in John Alcock, Thin Lizzy’s producer, to produce the Runaways’ fourth album. John thought that Sandy and I should be featured a bit more prominently on this record than we had been in the past. He was trying to put a different musical twist on the record by putting forth who he thought were the band’s strongest musicians, me and Sandy. This was about drums and guitars, not vocals. Joan appeared to take it personally, as if Sandy, John, and I had some conspiracy against her. She was wrong. We didn’t. Had she brought this to our attention, we would have eased her mind.

We all loved Joan. But I’m not sure she understood it that way. Although Joan didn’t write everything, she often got credit for it during the Kim Fowley years. This time, because Kim wasn’t around, Sandy and I were able to write and participate more in the creative process. In the end, we still didn’t get enough credit for it. Sandy and I were a strong musical team. On And Now . . . the Runaways, I finally became the bass player everyone thought I was when I first joined the Runaways. To tell the truth, I really should have played bass all along on the studio albums. Sandy and I had the time of our lives working together as a rhythm section, and Joan must have felt left out, but that could not have been further from the truth.

WE WENT ON the road one last time in December 1978. On December 1, we did a show at the Palladium in New York City. Toby was driving us through Manhattan in his father’s Mercedes. I was sitting shotgun. Toby often got on my nerves, and something came over me in that moment. I took my pair of handcuffs (we were the Runaways, we always had handcuffs around, in case you hadn’t noticed), clicked them onto Toby’s wrist, and locked the other side of the cuffs to the steering wheel of the Mercedes. I snatched the car keys out of the ignition and jumped out of the car, leaving Toby stuck in New York City rush-hour traffic. I saw Toby the next week. He never said anything to me about getting handcuffed, but he was irritated. He was usually annoyed at me about something anyway. That was just Toby. I got a kick out of it, though.

Soon after the release of And Now . . . the Runaways, Vicki was replaced by Laurie McAllister. Here we go again with another bass player. Laurie wasn’t as good a player as Vicki, but we really had no choice at that point. When Laurie joined, the Runaways were hanging on by a thread. Jackie, Cherie, Vicki, Scott, and Kim were gone. Joan was fucked up and pissed off. Toby was a pain in the ass. John Alcock had turned into a nightmare. Sandy and I were going through the motions, and Sandy had started to lose her temper easily, which was unusual for her. She was tired and wanted a break. We all did. Laurie couldn’t play as well as us, and we were too beat-up to take time out to help her learn like we did with Vicki. No one cared at this point. Not even me.

We had ten shows in California that December. The pressures of Cherie’s departure and John Alcock putting more emphasis on Sandy and me seemed to be getting to Joan. At this point she was doing way too many drugs and was getting worse by the day. I saw her vomiting and in the middle of a conversation she would nod out. That was the end of the Runaways in a nutshell. One fucked-up person turning to another fucked-up person and wondering who was going to save whom. It was the blind leading the blind.

I could feel the band was done by the time we reached our last show, at the Cow Palace in San Francisco. We all just assumed the band was over. Nobody even said good-bye. The Runaways had fallen apart. It was as simple and as sad as that.

IN JANUARY 1979 I was only twenty. My life had just begun. I think no one really knew what was coming next. Was the band over? I knew Joan needed some stability in her life. It seemed as though all the girls had gone in different directions, and no one ever came back. So I moved on too. None of us ended with any bad feelings, except for Cherie and me.

I was a bona fide rocker by the time the Runaways broke up, which means not only had I grown into my own musical style, but also that I had become numb to the people in the music industry. I discovered they all really don’t care about you. They want to use you. They want your money and they want your fame. And then they spit you out when they’re done with you.

Being in the Runaways had prepared me for the rest of my career as a solo artist. There wasn’t anything I hadn’t gone through with that band. At least that’s what I thought at the time. There was still a long road ahead of me, but I had graduated from rock-and-roll college, and I was ready for a new start.