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Runaways’ Cherie Currie and Lita Ford Reconnect After Three Decades

[Photo: Runaways Facebook]

A three-decade-old rock’n’roll rift has officially been put out to pasture. Per Blabbermouth, Runaways singer Cherie Currie announced via Facebook last night that she and lead guitarist Lita Ford have reconnected thanks to a hookup from their former bandmate Joan Jett. In the quite dramatic post, she described the reunion as “joyful, sometimes tearful, yet so exhilarating and full of love,” and goes on with excitement about having chatted about their kids (you know, mom stuff) and — wait for it — about “doing together again what we had done so well as kids.” Considering Jett herself made the Currie-Ford meeting happen … well, we don’t want to jinx it, but a Runaways reunion would just about complete the recent batch of American bands doing revival tours this year.

Let’s look at the likelihood (or at least the overall potential) of this reunion: Ford, for the less metal-inclined, has continued her badass rock career since her days in the Runaways. She’s putting out a new album, prophetically titled Living Like a Runaway, this upcoming May, which follows 2009’s Wicked Wonderland. (Before that, her last album was back in 1995). She’ll no doubt be on a record cycle and possibly touring for her solo work, but the potential for crossover is strong.

Currie, who SPIN interviewed back in 2010 about her side of the story depicted in the Kristen Stewart and Dakota Fanning-starred biopic The Runaways, also continues her badassery, as a chainsaw artist. Not exactly axe-shredding (or tearing up the mic), but still probably readily available, given this heartfelt Facebook post (she said it was her dream to be reunited with Ford, for heaven’s sake).

Bassist Micki Steele went on to play in the Bangles and probably make a ton of money off the success of “Manic Monday” and “Walk Like an Egyptian,” but they’ve long since dissolved, after a brief revival album back in 2003 (Not sure how the band’s Sweetheart of the Sun, out in September, got past us this morning!). At least we know her chops are fine!

If not, there’s always Jackie Fox, the bassist who eventually replaced Steele and was with the band until the late ’70s, who is now (according to the somewhat reliable Wikipedia) an entertainment lawyer in L.A.; there’s also Vicki Blue, who appeared later in Spinal Tap and went on to direct Runaways documentary Edgeplay. She is still a film and television producer in southern California, and as far as we can tell, isn’t doing a whole lot. Lord, this is a getting-the-gang-back-together montage waiting to happen.

Joan Jett is obviously still in action, too, with the Blackhearts; the band made the late night rounds as recently as November, is on tour, and was recently named in a probably-false leak of the 2012 Lollapalooza lineup (per Huffington Post). She might be the deciding factor here, but again, she made the Currie-Ford connection happen recently, and has never made any public statements about not wanting to get back together. Not to mention the fact that one of her biggest gigs coming up, if the Lollapalooza lineup does end up being crap, is the Long Beach Grand Prix.

Original Runaways drummer Sandy West, sadly, died of lung cancer in 2006, so the lineup would never be truly complete (though, as a fan on Blabbermouth points out, Edgeplay includes footage of Sandy begging the women to reunite). But any reunion is better than no reunion, and clearly, it’s not like it’s totally impossible, right?