Neon Angel

by Cherie Currie

  I glared at him. Jackie had always hated Kent. I couldn’t help but think that I saw a sly, satisfied smile on his lips when he made the announcement.

  To be honest, we didn’t talk much about what happened with Jackie. There was too much work to be done. We still had to finish tweaking the Live in Japan album (Kent would end up filling in some bass overdubs), and we still had a huge show coming up that we didn’t want to pull out of—the Tokyo Music Festival. As bad as we felt for her, we were still majorly pissed that she had left us stranded in the middle of our most successful tour. We would have to play as a four-piece, and that meant that Joan would have to switch to bass guitar and learn all of Jackie’s parts. It was a hell of a lot of work, but somehow we managed it.

  After that show, the Japanese tour was over. It ended far too soon, as far as I was concerned. I thought that Japan was a wonderful country, and I loved the people. What was not to love? The national dish, sushi, was my favorite food, and we were treated like superstars. When we had to leave, I cried. It was the only time I have ever cried upon leaving a country. The silver lining was that given the level of success that we had already achieved, we would definitely be back to play again.

  Little did I know that the final show we played in Japan would be my last as a member of the Runaways.

  Chapter 22

  The Last Straw

  After the dizzying highs and lows of the Japanese tour, I spent the next four weeks in a haze of drugs and exhaustion. As soon as we’d touched down on U.S. soil, a new girl had been found to replace Jackie. Vicki Blue was a better bass player, but immediately the chemistry in the band changed. Bands are not like washing machines; you can’t just remove a part of it and replace it with a new one, and expect it to work the same as it did before. A band is a family—in the case of the Runaways, a highly dysfunctional family—but a family just the same. My own family managed to function after Mom and Donnie left, but it was never the same. Vicki may have been a decent player and a cool girl in her own right, but something changed when she joined the band. There was a new cynicism about the Runaways, a jaded don’t-give-a-shit feeling that to me signaled the beginning of the end.

  Two weeks earlier, Kim had called to say that Rolling Stone had wanted to put the Runaways on the cover of an upcoming issue. Of course, I was ecstatic, until I found out that they wanted to use a solo image of me on the cover. Relations in the band were so strained at the time that I became convinced that it would be the end of the Runaways if they used that image. There was no way Lita would stand for it. For months she had been railing against this perceived bias when it came to the media. Especially after the fiasco with the promo pictures in Japan, I felt that putting my picture on the cover of Rolling Stone would be the last straw. I was literally on the phone with Rolling Stone begging them not to use my picture on the cover. They were pretty taken aback, but finally agreed. I guess in their line of work they weren’t too used to having to deal with people begging not to be put on the cover. So they went with some other band, and that is one decision that I regret to this day.

  Everything came to a head during a photo shoot with renowned photographer Barry Levine. Barry had made his name as the still photographer on the Woodstock movie, and was at that time the photographer of choice for the band Kiss and many other members of rock royalty. We had worked with Barry before on the cover of the Queens of Noise. As I walked into his vast, white studio, I felt tense, even though none of the girls were there yet. I had just gotten my driver’s license, so I drove myself, arriving early. As I helped Barry set up for the shoot, I explained to him that I needed to leave on time. Marie had an acting class later on, and we shared the car.

  “No problem, Cherie!” Barry said absently as he tinkered with his camera.

  “Okay, good. Just so you know.”

  Marie had already paid for the class and had warned me about half a dozen times that morning not to be late.

  We discussed his ideas for the shoot. I pretended to be interested, but I wasn’t really. Barry asked my opinion of the backdrop, and the colors he wanted to use. We were taking some test shots when Joan arrived. She sat down in a corner by herself, barely acknowledging us. She looked different. Older. Hell, we all looked that way. When she looked up and said hi to me, she sounded tired, irritable.

  In a little while Sandy walked in, but there was still no Lita or Vicki. An hour passed, and we all sat around, impatient and irritable. I was surprised that Vicki would be late for her first shoot. Jackie’s absence was barely filled by Vicki, who at rehearsal was probably looking around at all of us as we bickered and argued and wondering just what in the hell she had signed up for. Vicki looked so much like Lita that they could have been sisters, and that really pissed Lita off. When we first met her, Kim had commented in his usual tactless way on their likeness. Lita looked her up and down, scowled at her, and said, “Why the hell don’t you dye your hair or something?”

  “Remember, Barry, I can only stay till six-thirty,” I reminded him as the time dragged on. “I have to have the car back for my sister . . .”

  Barry laughed. “You mean to tell me that Cherie Currie doesn’t have a car of her own? Man, I thought you’d have a silver Vette or something!”

  I shrugged and gave an embarrassed smile. The truth was that I barely had enough money to afford a motor scooter. I didn’t tell Barry that when we got back from Japan, with the huge concerts, and the sold-out arenas, and the live album that we were putting together in the studio, Kim had handed everybody a check for a mere twelve hundred dollars apiece, after “expenses.” When everybody started going crazy, he gave us the usual spiel about how we incurred a lot of costs, and how we still owed the label a lot of money. If you believed Kim’s stories, you’d think that being a rock star was a worse-paying job than working in a fast-food joint. At least my sister used to get sick days and holidays. Jackie used to be the one who tried to get us a better deal from Kim, but every promise he’d make to “look into it” with the label came to nothing. With Jackie gone, it didn’t feel like anybody in the band had the smarts or the motivation to push him on this any further. Even after the amazing success we’d had in Japan, the band was just too tired to keep on fighting.

  “Sure.” Barry smiled. “No problem. We should be done before that. That is, if the other girls ever show up! Does anybody know where Lita is?”

  I shrugged. Joan shook her head. “No idea.”

  Joan, Sandy, and I sat around and waited. Nobody had very much to say. It seemed less like we were waiting to do a photo session, and more like we were all strangers stranded together in the dentist’s waiting room from hell. We looked anywhere but at each other. I was studying a particularly fascinating spot on the blank wall when Sandy announced that the Live in Japan album that Kim had rushed to market had just gone gold in Japan. She was the only one who seemed excited about it.

  “The next one is gonna be platinum!” Sandy announced, trying, I guess, to pull us all out of the funk we were in. The comment just hung dead in the air. I thought of Jackie, stumbling toward me with the blood dripping from her arms and a look of total and utter despair in her eyes. The memory made me shudder. Then I thought of Vicki. The poor girl had no idea what she was in for.

  Lita finally arrived two hours late and Vicki with her. She stormed into the studio, slamming the door behind her and complaining about traffic and her damned car. She didn’t apologize, of course. Once she was ready, like the rest of us, Lita fell into an icy silence. For two hours we posed for a cold, uninspired photo shoot. Toward the end even Barry had given up on trying to drag us out from behind our self-erected stone walls.

  “So, uh, you’re the new bassist, huh?” he said at one point, trying to break the ice.

  Vicki nodded, and smiled.

  “Cute,” he said. “Man, Lita, she looks just like a sweeter version of you.”

  Lita put on her sweetest face, and gave Barry the finger.

  As the session dragged on, I kept looki
ng at the clock. At five-thirty I started to panic. The shoot wasn’t winding down yet; we still had three costume changes to get through. The mood in the room was so poisonous, that I was scared to remind Barry, who seemed to have completely forgotten about his promise, that I’d have to leave soon. With everything that had been going on at home, I knew that the very least I could do was keep the promise I made to my sister.

  “Barry,” I finally said, pointing to the clock, “it’s almost six. Remember?”

  Before he could answer, Lita snapped, “What is she talking about?”

  Obviously exasperated by the photo shoot, Barry sighed and put down his camera. “Cherie has to leave at six-thirty,” he said. “Apparently her sister’s acting class is more important to her than this shoot.”

  “Oh, like hell it is!” Lita screamed, turning on me.

  Suddenly all of the simmering tension in the room boiled over. I felt that Lita had been waiting for an excuse to blow up, and Barry had just handed it to her on a silver platter. She stormed over to me, almost knocking Vicki down in the process, and got right in my face.

  “Who the fuck do you think you are? We’re professionals here!” she screamed. Then she sneered at me at and added, “At least most of us are!”

  Suddenly all of the pent-up frustration and anger of the past few months could no longer be contained. Instead of turning and walking away from Lita as usual, I gave it right back to her. “You’re the one who was fucking late! If you had been here on time, this wouldn’t be a problem! You know I share a car with my sister. I promised that I’d have it back for her by seven!”

  Joan and Sandy stormed off, throwing their hands up in exasperation. They were both sick of Lita, and they were both sick of me, too. The good times that we’d had on that first U.S. tour were long forgotten, and now the simple fact was that nobody could really stand each other. Joan and Sandy looked like they were done with all of the fighting. Vicki just stood there like a deer in the headlights as it all played out.

  “I don’t know about you, Lita, but I have a family that I care about!” I screamed. Then I turned to Barry, hurt by his betrayal. “How could you? You knew I had to leave!”

  Suddenly Barry turned and smashed his camera to the ground with a yell of frustration. Crunch! The thing just broke into a hundred pieces.

  “Oh, now THAT was professional!” I sneered at him.

  I stood there in shock for a moment, looking at the ruined camera. Then I turned and headed for the dressing room. I wasn’t taking any more bullshit from Lita, or any damn photographer who needed to break a camera for dramatic effect. What an idiot! I closed the door behind me and started changing my clothes. With the door closed, I could barely hear Lita’s ranting and raving in the next room. Everything was calm for a moment.

  Then . . . BOOM!

  Out of nowhere there was a blast against the door, which made it buckle inward. Like somebody was trying to break it down with a sledgehammer. I screamed, and jumped away from it. Outside, I could hear Sandy yelling at Lita: “LEAVE IT ALONE, LITA! Leave her ALONE!”

  BANG!

  For a second time Lita’s foot smashed against the door, causing it to burst open. The door crashed against the wall, almost taking it off its hinges. I saw Lita’s silhouette filling the entire doorway, teeth bared, hands balled into fists. She stormed inside, stopping within inches of me. I was terrified. I had never seen her this pissed off. She raised her fist like she was about to give it to me full in the face, but she stopped herself as Sandy barreled through the door. Lita pointed a finger dead in my face.

  “You listen to me, you little bitch!” she spat. “When we joined this band, we all made a commitment! We put the band first, and all of the other bullshit second! You’re gonna make a fucking choice, RIGHT NOW! It’s your fucking family or US!”

  “Then it’s my family . . .” I squeaked.

  For a brief moment, I was back in the locker room with Big Red, staring down her pointed finger, paralyzed in terror. I closed my eyes and braced for the impact . . . but it never came. Instead, Lita stormed out of the dressing room, slamming her fist against the already mangled door. What a finale! Vicki stood there with her mouth open, clearly intimidated and shaken. Joan and Sandy were peering into the room with shell-shocked expressions on their faces, while I just stood there, stunned.

  Without another word, I grabbed my stuff and fled the studio. I couldn’t think straight. All I wanted to do was get the hell out of there. I needed to go home. Take something to calm myself down. I wanted to be anywhere except in this stupid fucking studio with the band.

  I knew then, as I got into Marie’s car and took off with a screech of brakes, that the Runaways for me were over.

  Kim was already on the phone with my aunt Evie when I made it back to the house. “Honey, it’s for you. It’s . . . Kim.” The way she said it, it was as if Satan himself had decided to call me up. I picked up the phone. “H-hello?”

  “I just heard what happened. My, that Lita is a feisty one, isn’t she?”

  “It’s over, Kim,” I said. “I can’t take it anymore. I’m leaving the band.”

  Instead of the avalanche of abuse I was expecting Kim to lay on me, he said, without missing a beat “No problem, Cherie. To be honest, I’m surprised the band lasted this long. I have another project lined up for you—a solo album. You’ll do your album, and if they decide to stay on, they can do an album of their own. Then everybody’s happy, yes?”

  “So—so I still have a record deal?”

  “Yes! We’ll talk tomorrow.”

  Despite everything I had been through with Kim, I was so tired, so upset, and so confused that I just wanted it all to be okay. Even though I couldn’t stand him, Kim was telling me that everything could just go on as normal. More than anything in the world, that was exactly what I wanted to hear. Despite myself, I actually felt kind of optimistic when I hung up the phone.

  “Honey,” Aunt Evie said when I was finished, “what on earth happened?”

  I shook my head. “I quit the band,” I said. “I can’t take it anymore . . .”

  “Oh,” Aunt Evie said. “So . . . what now?”

  “I’m going to cut a solo record. It’s gonna be fine. Don’t worry.”

  The words sounded so strange coming out of my mouth, but the past few years had been so strange that I barely even noticed it anymore. Without another word, I walked straight to my bedroom, took a quaalude, and collapsed onto the bed before falling into an exhausted, drugged sleep.

  Chapter 23

  Beauty’s Only Skin Deep

  My first solo record, Beauty’s Only Skin Deep, was recorded in a rush, only weeks after I had quit the Runaways. What I’d wanted was a chance to take some time off and actually decide what my next step would be. In the Runaways I constituted a fifth of a band that had a domineering manager who forced most of the big decisions on us while keeping us totally in the dark about everything. Any attempts at influencing Kim’s “vision” were met with threats and insults. Despite being the lead singer of the band, I was expected to shut up and perform, just like everyone else in the Runaways. Having your own opinions or ideas was unacceptable Kim.

  Kim had no respect for us as artists. He felt he knew what would sell, and felt that he had dominion over us because he had a proven track record. He would constantly go off on long tangents about all of the records he had made. One of his favorite lines was, “When you’ve made as many records as I have, then I’ll listen!”

  While the Runaways had never achieved the kind of wild success in America that we had in Japan, we still had name recognition. I knew that a solo Cherie Currie record was my best chance to define myself, and put my career on the kind of trajectory that I imagined it should be on. But I would need time—the right sound, the right songs, the right feeling. I didn’t want to rush into anything.

  It didn’t work out like that.

  There were contractual obligations, and Kim and I had to deliver a new album for
the label right away. That’s what he told me. There was no time for me to go away and write songs, or “find myself,” or any of the other stuff that I needed to do back then. I had to go straight into the studio and start cutting tracks. I can only liken the album to a shotgun marriage: I didn’t want to work with Kim anymore, but in a way, his presence was a comfort. It was what I was used to. It was the mentality that keeps a wife with a violent husband; even though Kim mistreated and demeaned me, the very fact that I had his full attention now was gratifying. Looking back, I can only think that this was a symptom of just how damaged I had been by my experiences in the Runaways. Kim had no interest in managing me over the long term, but we had to pack and deliver one final album together so we could finally end our relationship. It’s no surprise that the album turned out nothing like I had wanted it to.

  If any phrase sums up most of Beauty’s Only Skin Deep for me, it was the one that Lita tossed at me a lifetime ago when I’d tried out for the Runaways with Suzi Quatro’s “Fever” as my audition song: “middle of the road.”

  When we went to work on the album, Kim’s attitude of “father knows best” was unrelenting. He played on my love of “MOR” and all of the songs that he brought to me or was having written for the album were in that vein. From the very beginning, I was unhappy with the direction that the record was taking. If I didn’t like the songs—which was the case with most of them—Kim would shut me down. There was no time to argue, he told me. “You’ll have plenty of time to get it right on the next record!”

  We cut the album at Larrabee Studios on Santa Monica, in West Hollywood. Kim showed up with a bunch of songs from the various songwriters he was managing (just to make sure that he squeezed every last potential cent from the royalties). He had hired an Englishman called David Carr, who was formerly in an English beat group called the Fortunes, to coproduce. He was a nice guy, and a talented keyboardist and singer. He had a nice vocal range, and sang with a slight lisp. Part of his job was to do layers and layers of harmonies. He was patient with me, which was something I wasn’t used to. Some of the sessions were just David and me, and it was nice to be able to relax a little away from all of the madness I associated with Kim. I added lyrics to a few of the tracks. It didn’t matter whether I liked the songs or not: I was expected to just show up and sing.