The Runaways
 Four
teenage girls - all aged 16 except lead guitarist Lita Ford, who at
17 was the "old lady" of the group - formed The Runaways
around Rodney Bingenheimer's
mid-70s groupie paradise English Disco in Los Angeles.
Their first gig was supporting The
Tubes, their second gig was attended by Led
Zeppelin and ELO. It was all over before
any of them had turned 20.
Manager Kim Fowley
played a major part in the shaping of the sound - basic heavy
metal crossed with Suzi Quatro
and a smattering of The Stooges - and
had a hand in writing most of the ten tracks on their self-titled
debut album (1976).
Taking their cues from Aerosmith
and The Sweet, the five girls injected
glitter/glam with a little bit of punk, typified by Cherry Bomb
and American Night from their debut album.
By 1977's Queens Of Noise, their loud and
leery approach - led by Joan Jett and
Cherie Currie - peaked into bratty brilliance, but was still
largely dismissed in the US.
Faring better elsewhere, Live In
Japan proved they could cut it in the flesh (The Runaways were
huge in Japan, where they were treated like The
Beatles).
By 1979, Cherie Currie and Jackie Fox had
departed, but the Joan Jett-fronted four-piece version of the
group brought out the gum-chewin', kick-ass Waitin' For The
Night - their hardest and heaviest music yet. The storming School
Days was the choice of single in most countries, but it failed
to provoke much interest.
The girls parted ways with Kim Fowley in 1978,
turning to Blondie's manager Toby Mamis, and in September 1978 they
recorded And Now...The Runaways! (as it was titled in
Europe - the album was not released in North America until 1981, as Little
Lost Girls).
A growing division between Jett (who wanted the
group to be a punk band) and Ford/West (who favoured Heavy metal)
eventually brought about the band's demise in spring 1979.
After the group ended, Lita Ford and Sandy West
briefly had a band together until West formed The Sandy West Band,
continuing to perform even after being diagnosed with lung cancer
in the early 2000's. She succumbed to the illness in San Dimas,
California, on 21 October 2006, aged 48.
Ignored for years, The Runaways are now recognised
as pivotal by rock chicks from Hole and L7 to The Donnas and
Bikini Kill.
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