If you have ever sat down and read Cherie Currie’s autobiography Neon Angel or seen Floria Sigismondi’s 2010 film The Runaways you will know that Currie is a battler and more importantly a survivor.
Thrust into the world of rock ‘n’ roll at just 15 years of old Currie experienced the highs of the industry with The Runways but she also experienced the lows. With an introduction to sex and drugs at such an early age Currie found herself the victim of sexual abuse and drug addiction.
And while The Runaways came and went Currie continued to battle against her inner demons and since then has taken on a role of helping others with addiction while also carving out a successful solo career – plus of course getting to work with the likes of The Ramones and Glenn Danzig.
A few years ago I had the privilege of getting to meet Cherie and then watch her play live. It was then that I realised that Currie has battled herself to a point now where she can stand on stage and not only perform all the songs of her back catalogue but that she can own the songs that she had to perform in her darkest days and now do it with a smile on her face.
Well this weekend Currie returns to Australia to perform for the final time so this week I sat down to have a chat with her to see what we can expect this time around.
“I’m bring my son this time and he is going to be drums,” screams Currie when I sit down to talk to her and we reflect on her last tour. “You know Sandy West (the Runaway’s drummer) taught him to play drums so it is almost like Sandy is on stage with me when Jake is on the drums.”
“And he such a talented guy,” she says glowing with excitement. “But to have him on drums and his band Morbid Strangers on stage backing me and with Nick Mayberry from Australia it all feels really amazing. So I have these young guys backing me and that brings a whole new excitement to the show and it will be a little different from last time when the guys were more my age. It is just so awesome to have these young… I wanna say kids… because so of them are 21. And they are all good looking so all the girls will have their eye candy. You ain’t coming to watch some old folks do Runaways songs. It is going to be a blast.”
As we talk more about her son and his career I ask whether or not doing a tour like this feels like she has handing the torch onto him now.
“Yes absolutely,” she says nodding. “And that is why I am so happy that he wanted to do this with me. Of course after the movie came out Jake was my rhythm guitar player for a lot of the tours that I did but he never went abroad with me. But now he is happy to and with these final shows it feels special.”
“Dave, it’s not like it was back in the 1970s,” she explains. “It’s not like it was back with The Runaways it is so difficult these days for an artist to be seen. There are bands, and I mean great bands, out there at the moment that will never even be given a shot so to be have Jake and his talented musicians with me makes me feel like I am doing something very positive for the audience and for music in general.”
As we talk more about how difficult it is for artists to be seen these days Cherie admits that is something that she wants to tackle now that she is retiring from performing.
“I am going to go out there and start scouting,” she says. “I think that is something that has stopped happening. In the past there were scouts out there looking for great bands and now it feels like the industry has got really lazy. And then you have TV shows out there like The Voice or American Idol and I think in a way that makes it even more unreachable because I don’t think if Mick Jagger or Bobb Dylan had ever gone on one of those shows that they would have won them because they are so unique. But also I think with those shows they put so much pressure on young kids and sometimes the not so young to just be exceptional with your vocal talent. I think it so sad that so many superstars will just not be part of our lives with their music simply because they will just give up.”
“Look I’ll be honest. I was born to do this but I am not a great singer,” she explains. “I have taught myself to become a good singer but I am not one of these singers that you see that are purely unreachable. And I know will know what I mean – we haven’t done any favours to these kids who have been born to do this by having shows like that.”
As our discussion goes on we talk about how when you go along to a show like Cherie’s these days you end up seeing three or four generations of music fans in the audience.
“That is so wonderful,” she says laughing. “I found that The Runaways movie opened up a whole new generation of young kids to our music and also Guardians of The Galaxy – had they not used Cherry Bomb I don’t know because that turned out to be a true gift to both myself and the rest of the Runaways. But I am so looking forward to this because whenever I do these tours I see multiple of generations there. I see kids that are very young and… kids my age!!! I’m 65 but I still feel like I am in my 30s.”
“But this just feels right,” she adds. “We appreciate just really fun and simple rock ‘n’ roll that everybody can play and that everybody can sing and that is what I love about the Runaway’s music. Anybody can pick up a guitar and anybody can play it and anybody can sing it and that is why I think The Runaways have lasted and have been a nice, cool genre for the kids these days.”
Cherie Currie’s tour kicks off in Melbourne this Friday night.
