Neon Angel: A Memoir of a Runaway

At the tender age of fifteen, groundbreaking lead singer Cherie Currie joined a group of talented girls—Joan Jett and Lita Ford on guitar, Jackie Fox on bass, and Sandy West on drums—who could rock like no one else.

Arriving on the Los Angeles music scene in 1975, The Runaways catapulted from playing small clubs to selling out major stadiums—headlining shows with opening acts like the Ramones, Van Halen, Cheap Trick, and Blondie while riding a wave of hit songs and platinum albums, and touring the world.

A shocking, funny, and touching re-creation of a bygone era of rock and roll that chronicles the Runaways' rise to fame and ultimate demise, Neon Angel is also an intensely personal account of Currie's struggles with drugs, sexual abuse, and violence in a decadent, high-pressure music scene—a world of uncontrolled excess where she and her unsupervised bandmates had to grow up fast and experience things that no teenage girls should.

Cherie Currie, with her signature Bowie haircut and fishnet stockings, was the groundbreaking lead singer of '70s teenage all-girl rock band the Runaways. At the tender age of fifteen, she joined a group of talented girls—Joan Jett and Lita Ford on guitar, Jackie Fox on bass, and Sandy West on drums—who could play rock like no one else.

Arriving on the Los Angeles music scene in 1975, they catapulted from playing small clubs to selling out major stadiums, headlining shows with opening acts like the Ramones, Van Halen, Cheap Trick, and Blondie. Currie lit up the stage with the provocative teen-rebellion songs "Cherry Bomb," "Queens of Noise," and "Born to Be Bad," riding a wave of hit songs and platinum albums, all while touring around the world.

On the face of it, Currie's is a riveting story of girl empowerment and fame. But it is also an intensely personal account of her struggles with drugs, sexual abuse, and violence. She and her bandmates, runaways all, were thrown into a decadent, high-pressure music scene where on the road, unsupervised for months at a time, they had to grow up fast and experience things that no teenage girls should. Neon Angel exposes the side of the music industry fans never get to see, and chronicles the group's rise to fame and their ultimate demise.

Shocking and inspiring, funny and touching, Neon Angel stunningly re-creates a bygone era of rock and roll, all the while providing an inside look at growing up hard under the relentless glare of the public eye, and chronicling one tough woman's fight to reclaim her life.

Boston Globe

“Unflinchingly honest.”

Cherie Currie has been described as "the lost daughter of Iggy Pop and Brigitte Bardot." Shortly after the Runaways disbanded, the rock star landed a coveted role in the Jodie Foster movie Foxes, and later went on to appear in a number of other films. Currie is still performing, writing, and acting, and she continues to take on unorthodox endeavors. One of the most prominent chain-saw carvers in the world, she placed in two major competitions in 2005. She lives in California with her son, Jake.