September 12, 2024 - I'd been working on a project focusing on the rise of ladies in metal music, and there will be many other interviews from those sessions you'll see here at Unearthed Metal.I'd already interviewed the inimitable Lita Ford once in 2009 for Dee Snider's House of Hair Online as she was mounting a comeback with her Wicked Wonderland album.
Lita's life had changed greatly in the time between that interview and a deeper, more intimate chat she gave me for my personal work.She had been promoting her Living Like a Runaway album (her autobiography of the same name came four years later), when I exchanged a record review for this incredible sit-down.Lita gave me a generous helping in recollection of her life as a Runaway prior to her breakout success as a solo rocker.
Special thanks to my man, Jon Freeman of Freeman Promotions, who'd done me a super solid then.
Rock...
RAY VAN HORN, JR.:What do you think it was about the Runaways that made them successful in the beginning (particularly overseas) and then struggling to maintain after Queens of Noise?Do you feel the Runaways were treated like a novelty or taken seriously by your peers and fans?LITA FORD:Probably a little of both.They were very, very before their time.They weren't taken serious by a lot of people, but then we had a lot of devoted, hardcore fans.There were a lot of people who just wanted to see the band since we were a novelty at the time.We were girls.It wasn't that we were women, we were girls!Young girls playing guitar.That's where the difference comes in, and people wanted to see it.Some just wanted to go to the show and laugh at us or point their fingers at us.But then we had a lot of people in Japan and other places overseas that were really hardcore fans, maybe even more so than the United States.
So it was good in certain places where it took off-maybe more so now than in 1975 or 1978.Back then, people were sort of in denial, like, 'Oh, girls don't play instruments!'Sandy (West) could play the drums like nobody else, and she was just a freaking teenager!She wailed on the drums, and then there was me on the guitar.The two of us got along great.She was like my sister.
RVH:With your most recent solo album Living Like a Runaway, we get a glimpse into you as a teen, heading off and diving into rock 'n roll.There's a fantasy element to a girl breaking away from home and working into one of the hardest professions there is, historically a rougher way to go for women.Would do you think is so ideal about the concept of running away to be a rocker?LF:I think a lot of people do it because they want to be in Hollywood or Las Vegas.They want to be where the action is.They might feel that living in Springfield, Illinois isn't quite getting it!Not that there's anything wrong with Springfield; it's just not a rock 'n roll capital!It helps to be in a place where you can put on a showcase for a record company or a management company.So I think that's why people run away; they want to be where the action is.
RVH:Was there a fear factor of being in the Runaways being so young or was it like, "You know, I'm just going to do this and the let this chips fall where they may?"LF:I never really had a fear factor.I was always the one who pushed everybody.I would be like, "Come on, let's rock!" or "Let's stop fucking around!"You know, "You're late!" or "Let's get it together, let's play and take this serious!"I think I was the one who did a lot of pushing rather than being afraid.If somebody told me off, I'd tell them to go fuck themselves.If someone would say, "Now you listen to me young lady!"I would be like, "No, fuck you!I don't listen to anybody but myself!"
I had a vision, you know?I saw it all.I saw my life unfolding before me and I didn't want anybody to guide me in a different direction, like the record company.They would say "You're wearing too much makeup!Rub some of that eye shadow off!"or "Put on a pair of jeans that don't have holes in them!"I would do the opposite!I would put more holes into my jeans!I was such a rebellious little bitch!
RVH:Were there any male executives or A&R at Mercury Records who were trying to tame the Runaways into what they might've had a vision of versus the vision you ladies in the band had?LF:There were people who tried to tone us down and control us a little more.I was like, "This is who I am!This is who I want to be!I'm not going to be who you want me to be."I mean, I'm not Britney Spears!Nothing against Britney Spears, but that's not who I am; that's not what I'm made of.That's not the kind of music I'm into.I've heard "Oh, Britney's sold more records than you!"Well, good for her, but that's not who I am!This is who I am.I play guitar and I play guitar like a dude! Sorry, but this is who I am!
There weren't a lot of women who could play guitar at the time when I first started playing.Even that was a novelty!"Wow, this chick plays guitar!Say what?She does?"
RVH: During the early stages of your solo career with Out for Blood and Dancin' On the Edge, did it feel like an uphill battle to establish your identity outside of the Runaways?LF: You know, when you're younger, you don't really think about it as much, because you have so much fight in you.In my late teens/early twenties, I had so much fight in me.I still do, that'll never go away, and I think it's because I'm Italian!But you've got to jump a lot of hurdles and at least I did.People would always go, "Oh, that's not her playing guitar!That's got to be the other guy on the stage!The other guy on the stage is wearing a bass; it's impossible for her to be playing guitar!"Or I hear, "She's a dude!"Now you'd think they'd put two and two together.They're standing there watching me play, they see my fingers moving on the strings.Some people even went so far as to say "There's somebody behind the curtain!"
I've watched some of my old videos and every time the solo comes up, they'd put the camera on the other guy in the band!So when Out for Blood came out, I had to remove the other guitar player so there was no other guitar player than me.I didn't want to give anybody else to look at other than the drummer and bass player onstage.So it was like a Hendrix three-piece kind of band where I was the singer and the guitar player.There was nobody else to point their finger at and say "She didn't do that; he did!"There was no he; he didn't exist!
Out for Blood made a huge statement.I got to wear what I wanted to wear.We changed my look from the Runaways days.I cut off my hair, I changed my clothes, I developed a style of leather and studs and gauntlets, leather G-strings.I came up with this ferocious, heavy metal-looking outfit and then I switched my guitars from the Hamer Explorer models I was playing, which I still have and love.But I wanted to change my overall image, so I went for BC Rich.I'd met Berni Rico, Sr. and he turned me on to a red Mockingbird, which I'm playing in the "Out for Blood" video.I still have that guitar today.It's fucking sweet!It sings and screams; it's just so powerful!
RVH:Even then, I can imagine it being a serious task gathering an audience.My buddies and I passed those cassettes around our school and were well into you then, but obviously the "straight" kids were clueless.When the Lita album broke out, all those "straight" kids got on board with you and Motley Crue.Part of that duplicity was hard for us metalheads to digest, but we were all happy for you.Did it seem strange to see your audience expand into the mainstream?LF:Yeah, there were a lot of people who wanted me to not play such heavy music.I mean, my music is not that heavy.Compared to music today, my music isn't like the vomit metal of today, you know, like Slipknot?That kind of stuff didn't exist back then.But there were a lot of people who wanted me to play very conservative, melodic-type music.At the same time, when I came out with Dancin' On the Edge and Dressed to Kill, I had to compete with other artists like Crissy Hynde of The Pretenders and Pat Benetar, who had the golden voice, or the Wilson sisters.
Here I am, trying to establish myself as a female behind the guitar and I had to compete with Crissy, who is so sexy, the way she sang.What a time for that music and mine to come out at the same time!I was doing my own thing, and I stuck to it, and it paid off.We got signed in a flash!We played a few shows, and the companies looked at me...we got signed instantly.We were off and running.We got put on the Rainbow tour with Ritchie Blackmore.That was a trip, my favorite guitar player-and Tony Iommi, of course!It's pretty bizarre how I ended up with these guys, because I didn't know them when I first started.It was meant to be!
RVH:What makes this industry and style of music such a boys' club in your opinion, and why do ladies want in?LF:You know, I never really looked at it as a boys' club until somebody told me that girls don't play guitar.I went, "Oh really?Am I not supposed to be doing this?Sorry, but too bad!I'm not going to put it down because you think I shouldn't be doing this!"Everything is pretty much male-dominated.It doesn't really matter what it is.Still, behind every king is his queen and sometimes she's more powerful than the king.
I never looked at it as though I'm a girl and shouldn't be doing this.It just never entered my mind.If you feel it in your heart, then do it!If you see it and you have a vision of who you are and what you want to do, who you want to be, then do it!Just the other day, we were sitting on a plane ready to take off, and the pilot came on and it was a female.It freaked me out at first!I was like, "There's a chick flying the plane, holy shit!"Then I thought, "Wait a minute, that's cool"A female pilot, how cool is that?Then you get on the plane and the fans go "Oh my God, Lita Ford's on the plane, I've gotta go say hi!"They'll talk to you for a while. It's pretty cool.I just think women in general have come so far since the mid-to-late Seventies.
The Runaways, we'd play to a sea of denim and leather!There might've been one female in a corner, scared to death, and that would be it.Now, it seems like most of the front row are females, and they're all throwing their fists in the air.Some of them I look at and think, "Oh shit, I wouldn't want to get into a fight with one of them!"I mean, they're seriously going at it and really rocking out!
RVH:Do ladies have a certain image to uphold in metal and hard rock, in your opinion?LF:I think they just need talent.A lot of women can get dressed up and look pretty and act like they can play an instrument or sing, but I think the proof is in the pudding, so to speak.You need to show it off musically with a great album or a great voice or great instrument playing.You get guys who do the same thing, who can't play or sing, so they make up for it in other ways by wearing outrageous clothing or some weird masks, or something.
-Ray Van Horn Jr
