Vividly! Like it was yesterday! I remember painstakingly setting up our high school garage bands attempt at being Rock Stars. You know...pawn shop purchased guitars, drum sticks that looked as if a set of Lincoln Logs had slept with Lego blocks and horribly cut hair made to resemble attitude more than what the parental figures allowed; which meant keeping it ear lobe level in length.
Posters hung from every wall: KISS, Zeppelin, Leif Garrett for the girl in the band and a couple of new groups called Van Halen and The Runaways.
Joan Jett and Lita Ford caused more fights within our ranks than admitting we had boring teenage angst lyrics that said nothing to anyone outside a great bass beat or broken guitar string.
Tony, Gary and I wanted the Runaway poster off the wall. Neil and Bart fought back. They looked like wanna be Rocker's and not hardcore ear porn fit to piss off anybody with authority.
At least with Van Halen...while dragging the point in downtown Billings, Montana the cops would pull us over for playing the 8-track tape too loud. The last thing I wanted was for a man painted in blue to yank our feet from the street only to sing along with the song.
Well crap! Guess what's about to bust free from lost history? KISS keeps coming back. Zeppelin was just honored at the Kennedy Center and Van Halen with Diamond Dave did cruise thru Charlotte during the year of twenty twelve. What the hell would keep the Runaways from making their way back into the annals of former boy teens now old and gray men? Joan Jett!
Classic Rock Magazine reports Lita Ford says she’s done all she can to make a Runaways reunion happen – and it’s all down to Joan Jett now.
The former bandmates, along with Cherie Currie, settled their differences during the summer, after Ford arranged dinner dates with each of them.
It was the first time she’d spoken to Jett since the band split in 1980. She said at the time: “We had a nice dinner – it was real friendly, like seeing your sister.”
Now the guitarist tells Bravewords: “I can’t get a yes or no out of Joan, so I’ve kind of thrown in the towel.
“It’s now or never. I would love it, but for some reason – I don’t know why – it’s Joan’s camp. The ball is in her camp. It’s up to them.”
Jett and her band the Blackhearts were this year nominated for induction into the Rock And Roll Hall of Fame, although they were unsuccessful.
Meanwhile, Ford is continuing with her solo career, working on a live album and an autobiography.
One story that might feature in the book is the night Robert Plant and Jimmy Page came to see the Runaways in the 1970s – and Plant asked her to replaced John Paul Jones in Led Zeppelin.
She recalls: “They came to the Starwood. They came upstairs and went back to the dressing room. They shook everyone’s hands and a huge crowd gathered around us, and we took photographs.
“Robert Plant says to me, ‘You’re really good on guitar. Would you like to play bass for Led Zeppelin?’
“I thought, ‘Yeah, right.’ I shook it off like it was a joke, but I don’t think he was joking. I didn’t even try to pursue that one. I love John Paul Jones – he’s one of my favourite bass players. I just couldn’t imaging me replacing him.
“But the fact that they thought about a female in their band was pretty cool.”
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