For well over 30 years, Lita Ford has been a staple in the hard rock and metal world. From her work in the legendary Runaways to her successful career as a solo artist, Lita Ford has lead rocky, turbulent life. After a lengthy hiatus, becoming a mother, and surviving and escaping an abusive marriage, Lita has made a comeback to the music world only to find that her fans hadn’t gone anywhere and welcomed her back with opened arms.
I’ve been a fan of Lita’s ever since hearing her Dancing on the Edge album and have followed her career of ups and downs. It was a real treat to have the opportunity to speak with this legendary artist about her return to the music industry, her upcoming live album The Bitch is Back, and how seeing Black Sabbath in 1971 changed her life forever. I really enjoyed chatting with Lita. She’s a truly funny, warm, and engaging person and I could’ve talked to hear for hours. I hope you’ll enjoy this interview as much as I did conducting it.
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Hey there Lita! Thanks so much for taking the time to do this interview today.
Hey there Don. Thank you so much for having me.
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I’ve said this before to some of my past interviewees but I wish I could go back in time and tell my 14 year old self that I would be talking to you on the phone today.
[laughs] Oh god that is too funny. Thank you Don.
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Lita, as a longtime fan, it’s so great to see you back in the game and to see you back with so much fire! How does it feel to be back?
Don, it feel s great to be back. I missed the music industry and it went through such a severe change when the grunge scene kicked in. Everything just seemed to get messed up and turned around. It was the perfect time for me to bow out and have my kids. Now that I’m back I feel like I’ve got all of this built up animosity and I just want to fucking rock. Man, I’ve been wanting to rock for years [laughs]. I wasn’t really able to because of having children. I always put my children first before anything but I did miss the music industry and it does feel good to be back.
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I feel like your excitement really shows with your latest album “Living Like a Runaway.” It’s a really fun and great album and it sounds like you haven’t missed a step. Matter of fact, it almost sounds like you picked up where you left off.
That is so awesome to hear, Don. It does feel that way to me too when I listen back to it.
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So now you are about to release your first ever live album, “The Bitch is Back.” Why a 
live album after all these years?
It was just something we wanted to do. It wasn’t something that was in our contract or anything like that. We wanted to dedicate something back to the fans and I thought that a live album was appropriate. We had just come off tour with Def Leppard and Poison. The band was hot and I thought, “Now is a good time.” Our manager Bobby actually picked the Canyon Club. It’s in our home town, it’s easy to mic, it’s a small room, and we could capture the intimacy of the crowd. When you listen to the album, you feel like you’re in the club. You feel like you’re really there. That’s what I really wanted to capture. I wanted people to hear all the noise of people talking, people rocking out, the guitars just grinding and all that shit.
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I absolutely love the live album but in all due respect, it’s not a perfect album. This album is live in the truest sense of the word. Was this your intention to capture a show, warts and all and not go into the studio and pretty it up?
Absolutely. Why not just record a whole new album if you’re going to go in and do all of that? I mean, like I said, we had no obligations to deliver an album to the record company. We just really wanted to make a live album and make it live. Our engineer was wonderful and he made sure that we didn’t lose any of the intimacy of that show. We didn’t take a song from this show and a song from that show and piece it all together to make one live album. This album is just one, full, straight through show.
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You toured the hell out of Living Like a Runaway. Are you going to be heading back out again to tour behind this live album?
I think 2014 is going to be a very busy year for us. I’m really looking forward to it. Right now I’m taking the holiday to finish my book. I have a book coming out for Harper Collins and it’s a lot of work. I’m working with Marissa Mateo who is the co-author of the book and she’s been wonderful. We’ve been digging through all kinds of old memorabilia and having a lot of fun along the way. We are going to be working through the holidays so I can finish the book and have it ready for March 2014.
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Back when I first started listening to Lita Ford, aside from Doro Pesch, I can’t remember another female based metal act. Now it seems that female based bands are becoming more prevalent. Are there any particular acts that you look at and say, “Yeah, they’re doing it right”?
Honestly, I think that anybody who’s out there and performing is doing it right. There’s no wrong way or right way to go about doing it. That’s what I love about rock n’ roll. There’s really no rules so long as you get your royalty check in the mail [laughs]. You really can do it any way you want. It’s still rock n’ roll.
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How about the female artists who rely more on sex as an image than their actual music? Do you feel these women set things back a bit for those that are trying to make a voice with their music?
I think that the image is part of being a rock band. I mean, it’s cool to have some kind of an image. I mean, look at Wendy O. Williams. Remember her image? She had a Mohawk, wore hardly any clothes, I think she even wore duct tape on her boobs if anything. She had an awesome image. It’s distracting and it can take away from your music though but at the same time, if you have a great body you should show it off. Its sex, drugs, and rock n’ roll. It all goes hand in hand. Look at David Lee Roth. On that last Van Halen tour he was ripped to shreds [laughs]. Why not show it off?
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I remember back in the day RIP magazine did a spread on you and Doro Pesch 
hanging out. Was there a connection made between you two and if so, how was it hanging with her?
Oh wow. Yeah, Rip Magazine was run by Lonn Friend. Lonn Friend was the only one in the music world that had the balls to put a female on the cover of a rock magazine. At that time, there was nobody else who would put a female on the cover. There might be a little picture down in the corner of the magazine but never on the cover. When we did that photo session, that was a huge statement in rock n’ roll. They flew Doro into the US and we did that photo session with Gene Kirkland. We just had a blast. Doro was just such a wonderful, kind hearted soul and I was so happy to have spent the day with her. We really did bond and there is nothing I could say about her that is negative. I’ve loved her ever since that day.
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Lita, what was the turning point that made you want to be a musician in the first place?
Honestly, I didn’t really have one. I always wanted to play guitar and it was never something where I really had a turning point. I had played guitar for two years prior to going to my first rock concert which I guess I could say was my turning point.
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What was your first rock concert?
It was Black Sabbath. I think it was 1971 because I was 13. It was ferocious. I walked into Long Beach Arena in California and saw Black Sabbath playing and I said, “That’s what I want to do with my life. This is it. This is what I want to be.” I wanted to make people feel the way that audience was feeling that night when Black Sabbath was on stage.
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If you could play for any band for just one night who would it be?
Oh boy. Probably the Rolling Stones. I just love Mick Jagger. I’m a huge Jagger fan. I would love to see how they conduct a show. I mean, they know each other so well they just look at each other and they know what’s coming next. I would just love to just go on stage with them.
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If Hollywood was to make a movie on your life, who would play you?
I know in the Runaways movie they picked Scout Taylor Compton and she was amazing. I didn’t actually see the movie but I love Scout. I got to meet her and talk to her about the film and she filled me in on a lot of what the film was about and how they worked through it. I just loved her as human being. If it wasn’t Scout, I really don’t know. We’d have to hold auditions [laughs].
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Looking back on your releases, when album do you feel best encapsulates everything that Lita Ford is all about?
They all do to. It would be easier to answer which one doesn’t to be honest. They all do except for the Wicked Wonderland record. That was an album that was done as a project by my ex-husband. That would be the only one that I would say is not really a true Lita record and it doesn’t capture the real me. I’m sure my fans would agree just by listening to the music that you can tell that it’s not a Lita record.
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That’s funny because that’s the only album of yours that I don’t have.
[laughs] That’s funny. That’s great. That’s going in the book [laughs]. I actually had a bunch of them in storage. I had a huge storage locker full of these damned records and CDs and I threw them all away. Just tossed them [laughs].
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Lita, is there anything that you wish you would’ve done differently?
Nobody’s life is perfect. I guess there are people that have better luck than others but nobody ever does everything 100% right. We all have those things that we wish we would’ve done differently. Is there one that sticks out in particular? No. I have had my share of good and I’ve had my share of bad.
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Do you remember your first tour?
Oh yeah. Our first tour ever was with The Ramones. We did three months with The Ramones in the US and it was brutal. I hadn’t even gotten my high school diploma yet. We were out playing to punk audiences. We had to bring Jackie’s mom with us because we were underage and there were a lot of venues we weren’t allowed to play in without adult supervision. We couldn’t play certain venues if they served alcohol there. We were so young [laugh].
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Of all the tours you’ve done, which tour do you feel like was the time of your life?
This last tour was amazing. We are just kicking ass and coming back into the music industry after being gone for so long is just awesome. I’m just so happy that the fans are still here and a whole new generation of fans too.
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That must rock your world to now see a third generation of Lita Ford fans out there.
It really does. Sometimes I’ll up on stage and I’ll look out into the audience and I’ll see kids on their father’s shoulders or squished up at the front of the stage and I can look into their eyes and I know what they’re feeling. I know what they’re feeling because I’ve been in their shoes before. It’s so awesome to watch them watch me and I get it. I know the excitement and it’s such a cool thing to watch. I’m glad I’m around to see that and I’m glad to be one of the only women in rock to inspire our next generation. I never had that when I was a kid growing up. I didn’t have any women role models to look up to that were my super heroes. My super heroes were guys like Ritchie Blackmore and Jimi Hendrix. I didn’t have a Lita Ford or a Joan Jett or anybody like that.
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What a great message to be delivering to the young people, especially the young girls in your crowd. I mean, not only are you doing but you’re doing it as a grown up and that’s extra cool for them to see. This idea that you can ever be too old to rock seems to get proven wrong more and more.
Oh yeah. It’s pretty retarded [laughs]. I mean, look at Mick Jagger. How old is he? 70-something? Holy shit. I mean, that guy is going to die on stage and what a way to go. Dying is inevitable. Getting old is inevitable. We all get old and we’re going to die. I don’t know who these people think they are when they say, “Oh, you’re too old to rock n’ roll.” That’s like saying, “Girls don’t play guitar.” It’s in that same mentality. Rock n’ Roll keeps me going and it keeps me young.
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Is it as fun now as it’s ever been?
For me it is. I hate not being on the go. I have to be on the go and I have to keep moving. When you come off the road after having been gone a while, you just pace. You’re in go mode and then all of the sudden everything stops and you come home and you just pace around. It takes a good week to just wind down and realize that you’re not going anywhere right then and there. I can’t even sit down [laughs].
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Lita, thank you so much for taking the time to do this interview. It’s been a real honor and I can’t say enough how great it is to have you back.
Thanks so much Don.
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