Prior to her January 25 performance in Milan, Italy, Lita Ford spoke with Rock Rebel Magazine. The full conversation can be streamed below. A few excerpts follow (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET). On becoming a professional musician: Lita: "It was just the way my life was going to go. It wasn't an option. It wasn't something where I sat down and made a list — 'What do I want to be? A doctor, or a musician?' There just wasn't any other way for me to go." On her early years in music: Lita: "THE RUNAWAYS for me [was] very much a learning process. We were young girls and we had to come into our own. That, to me, was huge — to learn how to be Lita Ford... That was the biggest thing that I got out of THE RUNAWAYS — how to be me, to be a performer." On the band's legacy: Lita: "It's wonderful to be able to be in 2020 and still be able to [hear] the music you played when you were a kid. It's come full circle now, but I knew that in THE RUNAWAYS. We all knew that we were before our time. We were just hoping that eventually, it would come full circle, and I think now it really has." On going solo: Lita: "It was difficult for many reasons, breaking away from THE RUNAWAYS and then trying to create and give myself an image and write songs and learn how to sing. I wasn't a singer in THE RUNAWAYS — I was just a backing singer, so it was a lot of work. Once you get over that hump and do all those things in putting together a band, I think everything else fell into place." On her 1990 album, "Stiletto": Lita: "Herb Ritts shot [the cover], and I don't think he put his name on it. I think he just did the photo shoot and didn't want any credit for it, which was fine. He put me on a rooftop in Los Angeles and he wanted to use sunlight for the lighting, and I was blind. Then he would say, 'Open your eyes'... It was hard, so every time I look at this picture, I think of that sunlight in my eyes... Musically, one of my favorite solos was 'The Ripper'. I love that guitar solo. 'Lisa' was a song I wrote for my mom — she had been diagnosed with breast cancer and she was given just a few months to live. I wanted to give her a song — I wanted to give her a gift. You know [how] some people write songs after the people are dead? I didn't want to do that — I wanted her to hear it, and I wanted her to be there at the video shoot, and she was. That was pretty cool... It's a magic song." On her 1991 album, "Dangerous Curves": Lita: "The title was given to me by my dear friend Sammy Hagar. We started writing a song and never finished the song, so I just used the title. I don't know where that song went — I'll have to check that out..." On her 2012 album, "Living Like A Runaway": Lita: "I broke away from my ex-husband, and I was living like a runaway. We went straight on tour and we never stopped. A lot of the songs in this album are true life stories. [It's] pretty hardcore if you listen to it." On the modern music industry: Lita: "The music industry has changed so much, just like everything has changed over the years. I do miss the old-school, because it was just bigger and better and easier. I'm just happy to be still be out performing now. I feel lucky that we are still able to go out and perform now." On her future plans: Lita: "We've got a great new record. Hopefully we'll get it out by the time we start touring with Alice Cooper in the spring. We're shooting for that time frame. It's a great record. I don't want to talk about it yet — once it hits, then we can talk about it — but I'm very excited. It's been a long time in the making, so there's a lot of substance to the record." Ford's new album — her ninth — will serve as the follow-up to 2012's "Living Like A Runaway". From April through June, she will tour with Alice Cooper.
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