Runaways

Girls have got balls. They’re just a little higher up, that’s all

(Joan Jett)

It's the beginning of 1975, and Joan Marie Larkin, then just sixteen years old and known today as Joan Jett, has a dream tucked away: to pick up a guitar and play (and live) rock 'n' roll, in a world that has always told her women simply aren't allowed to. Whatever pitfalls and price might come with the choice of throwing herself into the fray of an industry dominated entirely by men holds no weight at all. And it's on the strength of this conviction that, following a party thrown by Alice Cooper, her friend and fellow songwriter (thirteen years old at the time) Kari Krome introduces her and her bandmate Sandy West, widely regarded as one of the first notable drummers in punk, to the slippery, unscrupulous manager and producer Kim Fowley. To grasp exactly what's at stake here, you need only picture the scene: a shark sniffing out the potential of an all-teenage-girl rock band, eager not to miss their chance to become active players in music history and to write one of its most sordid chapters (by the standards of the time). Accounts of abuse, violence, harassment, manipulative behavior and much more on his part would gradually surface in the years that followed, though they were hardly a secret to anyone who moved in those circles.

We live in the streets

In the alleys of screams

Cause we’re the queens of noise

The answer to your dreams

After countless auditions, trips around Los Angeles's night-clubs, and sudden line-up changes, the fledgling Runaways settle into a lineup built around Jett's grit (rhythm guitar and vocals) and Jackie Fox (bass), West's technique and precision (drums), Lita Ford's heavy metal attitude (lead guitar), and blonde bombshell Cherie Currie as frontwoman. Currie immediately shapes the band's image, strutting the stage in provocative guêpières and corsets, and this (together with Fowley's connections) helps the band land its fateful signing with Mercury Records between January and February 1976.

Within a couple of weeks, the debut "The Runaways" is recorded, finished and ready for release. The re-arranged songs are drawn mostly from the demo EP "Born To Be Bad", while the cover features Currie alone, a detail that immediately sparks one of the first of countless frictions among the quintet's members. Another fact uncovered later and confirmed by multiple sources concerns the bass parts on the record, which apparently don't belong to Fox — credited only "on paper" and pushed out by the manager — but to Nigel Harrison (already a member of Silverhead, and soon to join Blondie).

Written and improvised in half an hour in the rehearsal room, the powerful, catchy "Cherry Bomb" leaves no room for doubt as the band's signature song, the one that would make them huge overseas, especially in Japan, though not in the States: five teenage girls singing about life on the road, made of wild nights of sex, booze and drugs, represented an endless string of taboos for the era. Jett's raspy voice and slashing guitars are at the core of "You Drive Me Wild", where the artist's boundless admiration for Suzi Quatro shines through, while the spotlight returns to Currie amid the blazing riffs and driving bass of "Is It Day Or Night?", which leans toward Kiss territory, and "Thunder", which merges the spirit of David Bowie's "The Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars" with sharper-edged sounds. Another highlight comes courtesy of the raw, driving rhythms of "Rock N Roll", a Velvet Underground cover, before moving on to the pop-streaked glam-punk of "Lovers", buoyed by light, sweeping drumming.

The record continues with the piano, festive guitar riffs and choruses of "American Nights", and the merciless heavy rock 'n' roll of "Blackmail", partly inspired by the work of Deep Purple. Closing out the album in style are the double life told in "Secrets" and the longer "Dead End Justice", sung by Jett and Currie, which initially echoes the sound of the opener before shifting into a kind of dialogue carried by drums in the background and exploding into a guitar solo toward its climax.

Justice, justice

Don’t want your law and order

Justice, justice

Or worldwide disorder

Constantly bullied by Fowley and his associate Scott Anderson, the Runaways would push themselves to the limit, enduring a grueling tour supporting Cheap Trick, Van Halen, Talking Heads and Tom Petty And the Heartbreakers across America, through dive bars and squalid motels, all the way to the European leg, by then in the grip of alcoholism and drug addiction. What would make the difference and boost sales — initially hampered by scant radio play and lackluster, unflattering publicity — was the show at New York's legendary CBGB's. All of this happened far from their parents' eyes, who nonetheless knew the situation was spiraling out of control, yet were powerless to stop it.

Reassessed with hindsight and placed alongside major productions like those of Aerosmith and Led Zeppelin, "The Runaways" stands as one of the first steps taken by an all-female project in the world of glam rock and punk, and together with the sophomore effort "Queens Of Noise" is the record that helped cement the Californian band's legacy. A launching pad in particular for Jett and Ford, who, following the Runaways' breakup in 1979, would go on to solo careers, the album would go on to inspire countless bands, from Germs (whose superb debut "(GI)", a hardcore punk milestone, was produced by none other than Jett) and the Go-Go's, to, even more so, the entire riot grrrl movement of the nineties and its neighboring territory, led by Bikini Kill, 7 Year Bitch, Babes In Toyland, L7 and Hole, all the way to the sharp songwriting of Alanis Morissette and the grit of Alison Mosshart.

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09/06/2024