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Let’s face it; when pioneering ‘all girl teenage Rock group’ The Runaways unceremoniously disbanded in 1980, few--myself most definitely included--could have accurately predicted what the future held for the quartet’s enigmatic lead guitarist Lita Ford. However, as 1988’s Platinum Lita and 1990’s criminally-underrated Stiletto would ultimately prove, there was a staggering array of Pop-tinged Hard Rock still coursing through the curvaceous guitarist’s veins. Now, fourteen improbably long years after the release of 1995’s oft-overlooked Black (and, more importantly, following a well-deserved sabbatical highlighted by a marriage to multi-octave ex-Nitro frontman Jim Gillette and the birth of two children), Ford has finally returned with a blood-thirsty vengeance, unleashing the mighty Wicked Wonderland…
Todd: In hindsight, what were the main motivations behind your ‘un-retirement’? Was there a particular incident or a scenario that prompted, or perhaps even compelled, you to once again resume your musical career?
Lita Ford: “I guess I got the itch (laughs). I started this when I was really young. I had my first album out when I was seventeen (1976’s The Runaways) and I started when I was sixteen. By the time I was thirty eight years old, I had given birth to my first child and had just kinda gotten bored and wanted to focus on being a Mom. I had never held a baby before, ya know? It was like ‘Wow! What is this thing? What are you supposed to do with it? It doesn’t have any guitar strings and doesn’t come with a manual’. I wanted to raise my kids to the point where they were ready to travel because I didn’t want to leave them at home. We Home School our kids and I didn’t want to leave them at home. I just wanted to wait until they were ready to travel. Also, the music scenes had changed. Everything was Grunge and it just made me want to chill out for a while.”
Todd: Was the overall heaviness ‘…maintained…’ throughout Wicked Wonderland a truly calculated decision?
Lita: “Yes, it was. Absolutely. After being gone for so long, I didn’t want to come back and play what I call ‘hairy armpits and sandals music’. I didn’t want to play Hippie stuff. I wanted to Rock. I wanted to play stuff that was up-tempo, heavy and sexy. I think adding my Husband Jim Gillette, who is probably the greatest singer on the planet, helped with that. He hits his lower range quite a lot. He has a six octave range, ya know?”
Todd: Creatively, how large of an impact did producer Greg Hampton ultimately have on Wicked Wonderland?
Lita: “Greg Hampton worked very well with my Husband Jim Gillette. We all wrote the record together, but Greg had quite a big impact in regards to putting us together with some new ideas as well as with the artwork. He hooked us up with Piggy D., Rob Zombie’s bassist, who is a phenomenal artist. Greg had this huge impact.”
Todd: Regarding the formation of JLRG Entertainment, had you simply found yourself frustrated with the industry as a whole? One could only surmise that you would have had several rather lucrative potential suitors.
Lita: “We just wanted to have control over what we’re doing. I’ve worked with record companies my whole life and Jim has worked with record companies in during his musical career. It’s hard to get money out of them and it’s hard to have complete control over your situation. For me, I’ve always had people telling me what to do. ‘Don’t wear so much blush. It makes you look older’, ‘Don’t play such heavy guitar. It’s not Punk’. But I ain’t no fuckin’ Britney Spears, ya know? I’m Lita and I wanna be Lita. Having my own record company allows me to do whatever the fuck I want…and have complete control, so that’s why we decided what we did.”
Todd: In the early stages of your solo career, did you ever feel pressured to dress or act more provocatively than what you were comfortable with or were the various risqué looks you achieved of your own individual designs?
Lita: “Oh, man. I used to get so much crap from everybody. You wouldn’t even believe it. The managers used to slip letters and notes underneath my hotel room door. There’d be like three pages of ‘Lita don’t do this, Lita don’t do that, Lita, please stop doing this’. I would just tear them into little pieces and throw them into the trash. Then I would get shtick from the record companies saying ‘We don’t like the looks of this picture. This is not what we wanted’ and I’d be like ‘Well, then you signed the wrong person because this is who I am’. So yeah, I did get a lot of shtick (laughs). …They wanted a little Pop star, ya know? But I’m not a little Pop star. I like Heavy Metal, I like Hard Rock. I like to rock. In hindsight, I think it was just me being before my time, ya know? Even in the Runaways days, we were before our time. It just wasn’t proper for a group of sixteen and seventeen year old girls to dress in corsets, go out in front of an audience and shake their asses. It was jailbait, ya know? Anybody that touched us…it was like Child Molestation. So I think, even in the Runaways days, we were before out time. In 1980, when The Runaways broke up, I went solo and I went heavy. And that’s one of the reasons the Runaways broke up. (Guitarist/vocalist) Joan (Jett) wanted to play Glitter Rock. She liked David Bowie and Sweet and I did, too, but that’s not the kind of music that I wanted to play. I wanted to play big, beefy guitars and slammin’ drums. ...The record companies really didn’t know what to do with us.”
Todd: As most reading this most likely already know, you are currently on tour with Queensrÿche, playing a total of three songs per night. You are also utilizing the members of Queensrÿche as your personal ‘…backing band…’. Had you initially planned on playing additional material or perhaps touring with your own musicians?
Lita: “No, it’s just a teaser (laughs). It’s just a three song teaser. We play “Crave” and “Patriotic S.O.B.” (from Wicked Wonderland) and because Queensrÿche is their American Soldier tour, “Patriotic S.O.B.” goes over very well. Then (Queensrÿche frontman), Geoff Tate comes out and we sing “Close My Eyes Forever”. Singing “Close My Eyes Forever” with Geoff Tate is just haunting. It works really, really well. When he comes out onstage, Geoff says ‘This is my favorite part of the show’ (laughs). He’s so humble. …It’s wonderful. It’s really nice. It sort of leaves you wantin’ for more, which is a good thing. We’re enjoying ourselves. Its fun, it’s easy and the Queensrÿche guys are very hospitable towards us. They treat us well and are incredible musicians, so it’s a nice tour. …We could have (brought our own musicians), but it’s a lot easier to just use Queensrÿche (laughs). …They’re so good; it’s absolutely no problem for them to just switch gears.”
Todd: Had you considered having Jim sing “Close My Eyes Forever”? He definitely has the prerequisite range.
Lita: “No. Jim didn’t want to. He only wants to sing the new stuff. Jim does come out onstage with me and sing “Crave” because it’s got that one part in it where it goes ‘I Am The One You Want’ (laughs). He comes out with his massive Mohawk and sings that and then he comes out and sings “Patriotic S.O.B.” and then Geoff comes out and sings “Close My Eyes Forever”. It’s pretty cool. It’s entertaining, ya know? It keeps the show moving. Queensrÿche also have a soldier that comes out and sings a song and gets the audience all riled up, so there’s actually quite a lot going on during the show. I’m just happy to be a part of it because it’s so awesome.”
Todd: From an ‘insiders’ point of view, does it appear that the average Queensrÿche audience is indeed appreciative of your efforts? Musically, I can imagine them not understanding what you are looking to achieve.
Lita: “Yeah, it really does. It does. And the ‘Welcome Back’ response has been overwhelming. It’s almost as if people are seeing a ghost or something, ya know? It’s weird. We walk out onstage and people are in awe. It’s like ‘Lita? Is that really you?’ (laughs) ‘Are you really back?’ And then we only play three songs and we’re gone. People are just left mesmerized, and it’s just this really good feeling. …I think there’s probably one or two people in the audience that are like ‘Queensrÿche, Queensrÿche, Queensrÿche’ and everybody else is diggin’ it. We’re on Queensrÿche’s side. We’re not fightin’ them. We’re not like ‘Oh, they suck and we’re better’. I actually say onstage after we do the first song ‘Is Queensrÿche badass or what?’ and everybody goes ‘Yeah!’ (laughs). We’re on the same team and it’s not a situation where we’re competing against each other, so it really does work. People are having their doubts. They’re like ‘Lita is in the middle of a Queensrÿche show? That’s really weird’, but then they see the show and like I said, they’re just so mesmerized, which is very cool.”
Todd: Once you are afforded the opportunity to properly tour in support of Wicked Wonderland, what type of set list will you be working with? More importantly, what, dare I ask, will you be occupied with in the interim?
Lita: “If I could do it my way, really, I would do all of the new songs because I love all of the new songs. We are gonna do a lot of the new songs and of course a few of the old songs as well. There’ll be a combination, starting with “Gotta Let Go” and “Kiss Me Deadly”, continuing with “Crave” and “Patriotic S.O.B.”. It’ll be a nice combination, but it’ll probably be 2010 before we actually get out and do that. From what I understand, after Queensrÿche, I’m going to go and do some work with Alice Cooper, so that should be fun. …To tell you the truth, I’m not really sure what we’re gonna do. I know I wanna sing his songs and he wants to sing my songs, so (laughs), so I was thinkin’ “Only Women Bleed” would be great. It’s one of my favorite songs on the planet. I did a remake of that, as you probably know. “I’m Alive” has always been one of my favorites. The best show I have ever seen was on the Welcome To My Nightmare tour. I warm up to (the Alice Cooper classic) “Eighteen”. My twelve year old plays it on guitar and I use it as a vocal warm-up every night before we go on.”
Todd: Realistically, what are your expectations, critically, commercially or otherwise, for Wicked Wonderland?
Lita: “Commercially? Well, so far, “Crave” seems to be the one song that radio has picked out and when we play it live, everyone mouths the words. I really don’t know. We’re waiting for Piggy to get done touring with Rob Zombie. I would like to do a video for “Crave” and I think if we do the right video for VH1 or MTV or whoever wants to play it, I think that commercially, it could be something really fabulous because the artwork Piggy did is incredible. …If he can make a video as good as the artwork, then I think we’ll be off and running.”
Todd: Fourteen years later, how do you feel in regards to (1995’s) Black? Musically, it would seem you had been in search of a few new directions or perhaps even a ‘restart’. Retrospectively, do you feel this is accurate?
Lita: “Black was sort of the ending for me. I really liked the CD. There are a lot of special songs on that CD. That’s when I met Jim. I wrote the song “Loverman” for him. The song “Black” defines my state of mind at the time. It was like falling into a black hole that I just couldn’t get out of, ya know? That’s just how I felt. I really wasn’t happy at that time. I wanted to get out. I wanted to take a break, reabsorb everything and let the Grunge go by, ya know? I wanted to have an outside look at things. That’s when we moved to the Caribbean. Let me tell ya, when you sit on a deserted island for ten years, you end up doing a lot of thinking and a lot of observing. Things become a lot clearer and you can put things into perspective. …After Black, I had some different projects. I tried to do this with this singer and that with this guitar player, but nothing was clicking. After getting married to Jim, we just looked at each other and said ‘Let’s get the hell out of here’ and it was fine and we were okay. I had been touring since I was sixteen and I had gotten married when I was thirty four, so it’s not like I’m seventy two years old (laughs). I still have quite a way to go, ya know? At age thirty four, most people are just getting their first hit records, so I’m probably one of the youngest living legends (laughs).”
Select Discography
Wicked Wonderland (2009) **
Platinum And Gold Collection - The Best Of Lita Ford **
Black (1995) **
The Best Of Lita Ford (1992) **
Dangerous Curves (1991) **
Stiletto (1990) **
Lita (1988) **
Dancin’ On The Edge (1984) **
Out For Blood (1983) *
The Runaways (1976) *
Queens Of Noise (1977) *
Live In Japan (1977) *
Waitin’ For The Night (1977) *
* as a member of The Runaways
** as a solo artist