Lita Ford.
Let's be honest, you need to be over a certain age to remember this name.
Gather around kids, sit down and listen, because today I want to tell you a piece of her story, about how she went from "Lita who?" to "OH MY GOD IT'S LITA FORD!".
Cow Palace, San Francisco, New Year's Eve 1978.
The Runaways are playing their last concert. In the last couple of years a mix of disagreements about almost everything, led to an unhealthy environment. They weren't happy, despite the hard rock lifestyle. Joan, the singer, wanted the band to change style, to be more on the glam rock/punk rock side. It was the end of the 70s after all.
Lita said "no". She wanted to keep the hard rock mood that she was enjoying. You can tell she loves the heavy metal style: with her guitar she is capable of transmitting that power that she feels inside, to the whole audience.
But this doesn't matter anymore, because by April '79, The Runaways are no more a band.
Lita wanted to put together a new band with her former drummer Sandy West, but they weren't able to find suitable elements, so the project failed. After working various jobs outside of the music industry, she eventually met Eddie Van Halen. Like, you know, it happens every day to meet Eddie Van Halen. Well, the wise man said "You're wasting your talent here, you have to go back making music". He wasn't wrong.
She then formed a new band, but despite her efforts she wasn't able to make it to the charts.
That was about to change.
But not so fast.
At the time Lita was living with Mötley Crüe bassist Nikki Sixx.
She started her new solo career signing a contract with Mercury Records (which at the time had names like Kiss, Def Leppard and Scorpions) and came out in 1983 with "Out For Blood".
The album was good. I mean, really good.
Just look at the cover:
Lita, in front of a spiderweb made of chains, with a bloody guitar ripped in half. How can you be more hard rock than that? It was so "outrageous" that they had to tone it down a little. Regarding the album itself, what to say? Heavy metal tracks, clean sound recording and abrasive, aggressive vocals.
However, due to a poor advertising by the label, this record flew under the radar, and that was a shame.
The year after, she came out with a new album, "Dancin' On The Edge".
This one received a better treatment than the previous: a less heavy style to please a wider audience, an highly professional production and most importantly a good advertising job, involving Lita opening the European tours of Rainbow and Black Sabbath, her youth idols. She saw her first concert when she was only 13, and their style had a huge influence on her.
There was a third album in the making, called The Bride Wore Black, but PolyGram Records decided to scrap it because it was "too heavy". Lita said "F**k you, and good bye".
So, in 1988 finally it happened. The change that Lita needed to make her career take off. And this time for good.
She hired her new manager, Ozzy Osbourne's wife Sharon, and she gave her an advice: make an album, in your style, and feature as many famous rock artists as you can.
She listened to her advice.
Ladies and gentleman, this is Lita.
Produced by Mike Chapman (known in the industry as Suzi Quatro's producer throughout the 70s), the album had a melodic sound, defined drums and nice guitar solos, to please at the same time the hard rock fan and the first time listener.
Myron Grombacher at the drums, Don Nossov at the bass and David Ezrin at the keyboards recorded all the tracks in studio, but it's the "featuring" section that was jaw-dropping at the time: names like Nikki Sixx (of course), Ozzy Osbourne and F**KING LEMMY KILMISTER. Enough said.
9 tracks, full of of emotions, each one telling a different story.
The first track is "Back To The Cave". Honestly, not a great one. I mean, it doesn't suck, but if you never listened to it, you didn't miss a lot. Let's say it's perfect to warm up the needle and set up for the next one.
Turn up the volume a notch. This is "Can't Catch Me". It's fast, it's hard, and it's written with Lemmy. Nothing else to say, just BOMB.
Now, take a deep breath and relax with the next one. "Blueberry", an almost sort of kind of love song. Meh.
Track number 4 is probably one of the most famous Lita's songs, "Kiss Me Deadly", deemed 76th best hard rock song of all time by VH1.
Closing side A of the 33rpm record is "Falling In And Out Of Love" with Nikki Sixx, and you can tell that this song is SLIGHTLY autobiographic. Just a little bit.
Flip the disc, side B.
"Fatal Passion", the story of a young girl taking her revenge on the man she loved. "When I was 18, you know, I fell in love with you, but you were the b*tch babe". Wow.
In "Under The Gun" Lita tries to comfort a friend with a broken heart, by telling him "now the time has come, it's your turn to die". Oh thanks, great advice, now I feel really better.
We're almost there, next one is "Broken Dreams": after blatant misandry and incited an heart-broken friend to suicide, she becomes a warm lover, talking about rainy nights and misty skies. I call this "bipolar disorder", but I'm not a doctor.
And finally, closing this album, there's THE most famous song by Lita.
"Close My Eyes Forever" needs no introduction, nor explanation.
In an interview with Metal Underground, she told: "Close My Eyes Forever was a mistake. It was just me and Ozzy and Sharon hanging about in the recording studio. They showed up one day and had a housewarming present for me: a life-size duplicate of Koko the gorilla from the San Diego Zoo. It was freaking huge – I had to strap it in the front seat of my jeep to get it home. Ozzy stayed, Sharon got bored and left, and me and Ozzy had a couple of drinks and we were jamming. We started singing, messing about and we wrote 'Close My Eyes Forever.' Next thing I knew the sun was coming up. I looked at him and went, 'Uh-oh, we're in trouble.' Sharon had been waiting all night. We were a long way from where Ozzy had to go. He said, 'Can you drive me home?' I said, 'No, I can't.' We were stoned out of our minds. He got into a cab and I strapped Koko into my jeep and drove home – just barely made it. And then we had this hit song".
The album did so well that allowed Lita to play in tour with the Poison in the U.S.A. and with Bon Jovi in Europe.
The video of her playing in front of a full Wembley Stadium (UK) in 1989 is part of the history of rock.
And this, my kids, was the story of "Lita" by Lita Ford, from 1988.
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