Classic Rock Revisited founder Jeb Wright recently caught up with LITA FORD to discuss her new album, Living Like A Runaway. An excerpt is available below:

Jeb: Living Like A Runaway is an album of redemption. Do you agree?

Lita: "Yeah, I have risen from the ashes. My girlfriend called me and said I was like the Phoenix. She said she was going to buy me a tattoo of the Phoenix. I had no idea what she was talking about, so I Googled it. When I learned what that was, I related to it because I really did have to dig myself out of my situation and rise again. I am very happy with the record. My manager, the record company and everyone that helped me with the record is happy, too. I can’t wait to start playing these songs live."

Jeb: How important was it to you to make this album sound like you?

Lita: "I had to make it sound like me because I had to bury the last album. The only way I could do that was to make a true Lita album. Gary (Hoey/producer, guitarist) brought the best out of me, on guitar and vocals. I didn’t have anybody squashing me down saying, 'No, you’re doing it all wrong. You’re not playing that riff right.' You know what? I wrote that fucking riff, so I know how to play it. I have really had a lot of freedom on this record and that is what makes it sound so True Blue, because it’s real. There is no doubling the vocals and tripling the guitars and quadrupling this or that. I really went back to basics on this record. We stuck to bass, drums, guitar and vocals."

Jeb: 'Living Like A Runaway' is an autobiographical song.

Lita: "Yes, it is an autobiographical song. It turned out great. We didn’t know what we were going to call the album. At first, we were going to call it Branded, and I thought that was a good title. We, then, came up with Living Like a Runaway. I thought that was a great title. We got on the phone with the record company and I said, 'What do you want to call the album? We’ve got Living Like A Runaway and we’ve got Branded. The president of the record company said, 'We want to call it Living Like A Runaway' in his big Germany accent. I hung up the phone and said, 'I don’t have a damn song written with that title.' I immediately went to work writing the song because I put my foot in my mouth by getting the album named after a song that wasn’t written.

I thought, if I don’t write this song then somebody else will write it; I have to write it. I got on the phone with my lyricist, Michael Dan, and the two of us wrote the lyrics over the phone; it was really wild. I would sing, 'Run, baby, run' and he would go, 'Across New York City' and I would go, 'Run, baby, run' and he would go, 'Through the streets of LA.' We did it over the phone, singing back and forth. At one point in his life, Michael was on the run from the law, years ago. He knows what it is like to be a runaway. I went to Gary’s house and in three days we had the song written and recorded."

Jeb: Would you ever consider reuniting with THE RUNAWAYS?

Lita: "I would love to play with them again…I would love it. I don’t know if it will ever happen, but if it does happen, then now is the time for it to happen. Not ten years from now, or ten years ago, the time is now. They know I want to do it. I hope one day they will call me and say, 'Okay, Lita…let’s go. Roll up your sleeves and write some songs.' I really think it would be a blast. I think we would do really well. It would be a great way to end our career as The Runaways. It really would be a good point of exit."

Go to this location for the complete interview.