The Runaways singer Cherie Currie recalls her tortured teens as she tours Australia for the first time

BEFORE her 20th birthday, Cherie Currie had endured a lifetime’s worth of hell. The Runaways singer counts the cost of teen rock stardom as she tours Australia.

Cherie Currie from the 1970s all-girl rock band The Runaways is back making music and touring Australia. Picture: Toby Zerna

BEFORE her 20th birthday, Cherie Currie had endured a lifetime’s worth of hell during her first 15 minutes of fame.

The singer of teen proto-punk female rock band The Runaways, which also starred Joan Jett as its guitarist, had been raped by her sister’s ex-boyfriend, harassed and abused by their manager, scored a hit with Cherry Bomb and kidnapped and sexually assaulted by a crazed fan.

When she left the band two years after being plucked out of a club to front the group at 15, Currie was a casualty of the adult world of sex, drugs and rock’n’roll.

Currie started getting offers to perform after The Runaways biopic screened in 2010. Picture: Supplied.

Four decades later, she is a survivor, her story immortalised in the 2010 film The Runaways starring Dakota Fanning and Kristen Stewart.

She has acted in film and television and is a chainsaw artist who makes wood carvings.

And now she is back in the music business, touring Australia for the first time after releasing her Reverie solo album last year.

Cherie Currie said she’s lucky to be alive and now she listens to that warning voice in her head. Picture: Supplied.

“It’s totally different now. I was 16 then and I am 56 now. Back then we were just so young and still finding ourselves and we put on a show that had a really tough attitude. Now, for me, it’s all enjoyment,” she said in Sydney on Tuesday.

The Runaways biopic, her updated memoir Neon Angel and promoting her latest musical endeavours inevitably resurrect her painful past but Currie said she has made her peace with all of it.

She appreciates young female artists today are still subjected to abuse and harassment in the industry.

Joan Jett (left) and Currie (centre) and their band mates were only teenagers when the band exploded. Picture: Supplied.

“But I do think women have come so far since my teenage experiences,” she said.

“With my kidnap and rape, they approached it all like it was my fault in the courtroom and they don’t get away with that anymore.

“Women can kick ass, they should be paid the same as men but they must stop with the victim mentality.”

Currie copped flak when she said she took responsibility for the mistakes she made in her life. She said one of those mistakes was getting into the car of the man who kidnapped her, .

“A lot of people were really awful about that. But there was a voice in my head saying ‘don’t get into that car’. I listen to that voice now,” she said.

Currie says she plays for enjoyment now as she kicks off her first Australian tour. Picture: Toby Zerna

“This guy was up for the murder of six people, he incarcerated me at his home for six hours, I tried to climb naked out of a window and stab him with a knife and all of these things could have brought me to the end of my life.

“I am lucky to be alive and I don’t look back on it all as ‘poor me, I am a victim’ because a lot of women don’t come out of it. I am grateful to be alive.”

Cherie Currie performs at The Triffid, Brisbane on Thursday, Manning Bar, Sydney on May 27, The Corner Hotel, Melbourne on May 28, The Gov., Adelaide on May 31 and The Rosemount, Perth on June 1.

Originally published as The Runaways singer Cherie Currie recalls her tortured teens as she tours Australia for the first time