
Loading summary
Jake Brennan
Double Elvis. Hey, Sal. Hank. What's going on? We haven't worked a case in years. I just bought my car at Carvana and it was so easy. Too easy. Think something's up? You tell me. They got thousands of options, found a great car at a great price, and it got delivered the next day. It sounds like Carvana just makes it.
Ad Voice 1
Easy to buy your car, Hank. Yeah, you're right.
Jake Brennan
Case closed.
Ad Voice 2
Buy your car today on Carvana.
Jake Brennan
Delivery fees may apply.
Ad Voice 1
Well, the holidays have come and gone once again. But if you've forgotten to get that special someone in your life a gift. Well, Mint Mobile is extending their holiday offer of half off unlimited wireless. So here's the idea. You get it now, you call it an early present for next year. What do you have to lose? Give it a try@mintmobile.com Switch limited time.
Ad Voice 2
50% off regular price for new customers. Upfront payment required $45 for 3, $90 for 6 month or $180 for 12 month plan taxes and fees. Extra speeds may slow after 50 gigabytes per month when network is busy. See Terms.
Jake Brennan
This episode contains content that may be disturbing to some listeners. Please check the show notes for more information. Disgraceland is a production of Double Elvis. This is a story about transformation. About what happen you don't just play rock and roll when you use it to become someone new, someone louder than someone impossible to ignore. It's a story about five teenage girls who turned identity into a weapon. Who took rock and roll rebellion and pushed it past the point of no return. It's also a story about escape. Escape from the valley. Escape from your parents, escape from polite society. And it's a story about the price of that escape. About the predators who circled and about the exploitation disguised as mentorship. And about how in the most messed up twist of all, transformation was both the trap and the key. This is a story about the runaways. And so naturally it's a story about great music. Unlike that clip I played for you at the top of the show. That wasn't great music. That was a preset loop from my melotron called the Kids are not alright mk1. I played you that loop because I can afford the rights to December 1963 oh what a Night by the Four Seasons. And why would I play you that specific slice of falsetto disco cheese? Could I afford it? Because that was the number one song in America on March 16, 1976. And that was the day that teenagers Joan Jett, Cherie Curry, Lita Ford, Jackie Fox and Sandy west released Their debut album as the Runaways. And nothing in their lives or in the world of rock and roll, would ever be the same again. On this episode, rebellion, escape, predators, exploitation and the white hot cherry bomb that was the Runaways. I'm Jake Brennan and this is Dis Sa. 13 year old Carrie Krause wanted to be someone else. She didn't want this shitty apartment, the latest in a series of shitty apartments. And she didn't want the stepdad with the bad temper either. She didn't want the view of the ocean and the horizon, all this vastness and nowhere to go. Views like these inspired awe in some people. But to Carrie, being here, being in Long Beach, California, it was suffocating. Nothing but the repressions of polite society bearing down on her. She needed an out. But first she turned inward, writing songs inspired by David Bowie, not only her idol, but the template for who she now wanted to become. Bowie was once someone else, someone completely different. And one day he just up and left the man known as David Jones behind. And he escaped. David Jones, and now he was the Starman. He was Ziggy, he was Aladdin Saint. David Bowie gave you permission to escape. Escape from the world you lived in, but more importantly, escape from whoever the world wanted you to be. So Carrie altered the spelling of her first name from C A R R I E to K A R I. And Carrie Krause became Carrie Crome. And then Carrie Crome escaped for real. She stood on the side of the road, stuck out her thumb, hitched a ride and went inland, where she took a long hit off the joint that was being passed around and slung her head back, watching the pink and red and orange neon lights bleed into the night sky. 1975, Hollywood. Down on Sunset Boulevard, latchkey kids from the suburbs were gravitating to Rodney's English disco ground zero for all things glam and glitter and best of all, transgressive Carrie Chrome climbed out of the car, slammed the door shut and watched as the strangers who'd given her a lift drove off into the distance. She had no idea how she'd get back home, but who cared? She wasn't going back there. Not in any meaningful way, at least. This was the place. These were her people. The girls who looked like the boys and the boys who looked like the girls. The rooster hair, the rhinestones, the sequins and platform heels. All of it soundtracked not by Captain and Tenille or the fucking Eagles, man, but by the New York Dolls, T. Rex the Sweet, and that permanent badass of leather Clad rock and roll Suzie Quatro. Carrie took it all in. For the first time in a long time, she felt at ease. But it wasn't enough to simply be there in the crowd. Carrie Chrome would be an active participant. She wanted to be the one to write the songs of tomorrow. The ones local legend DJ Chuck E. Starr would spin for this glamorous crowd. It was a crowd that on any given night included everyone from Robert and Bonzo of Led Zeppelin to Ray and Dave of the Kinks, to the once boy King himself, Elvis Presley. Who knows, she could run into Iggy Pop or Elton John and slip them a page of her lyrics. Maybe even run into Bowie himself. But it wasn't Bowie or Iggy or Elton that Carrie Crome met when she went to Hollywood. Instead, she was introduced to another songwriter and music producer, a man named Kim Foley. Fowley's resume was scattershot but impressive. He'd written for Warren Zevon, Alice Cooper and the Byrds and produced songs by Gene Vincent and Jonathan Richman. But what really mattered to Carrie was that he seemed genuinely interested in her songs. He said she had real talent and, and that with his guidance, she could be somebody, somebody else. And so, on her 14th birthday, Keri Chrome signed a contract with the 36 year old Kim Fowley to write songs for his production company. The $100 a month that she got paid simply to do what she loved was empowering. So was the fact that Fowley loved her next idea, which was to put together an all girl rock band to play her songs. But where Carey saw autonomy, self reliance and girl power, Kim Foley saw something more sinister. The band he would assemble would be marketed not just as girls, but as underage girls. Their lead singer, Cherie Curry, a blonde Valley girl, would be their rock and roll Lolita. Just like Sue Lyons in that Stanley Kubrick movie, along with Joan Jett. Lolita Forward on guitar, Sandy west on drums and Jackie Fox on bass. All of them 15 or 16 years old at the time. The band that Kim Foley soon christened the Runaways weren't just avatars of teenage rebellion and juvenile delinquency. They were jail bait. Okay, so listen up. Before we continue with this story, I need to set the table for just how fucked up this era of rock and roll was. We've talked about this in some detail before, but it needs to be said again. Kim Foley wasn't the only one here being a total creep. This was the same time that Jimmy Page and David Bowie and so many other powerful musicians were Sleeping with underage girls. This is when Ringo Starr had a number one hit song called you'd're 16, which has the refrain, you're 16, you're beautiful and you're mine. This is when a journalist in a cover story for the rock magazine Crawdaddy wrote this about watching the Runaways perform. And I quote, suddenly I am overcome with the urge to jack off against the stage and get my teeth kicked out by a vicious roadie claw my way through a thousand demented teenagers puking cheap wine and looted out of their cerebral cortexes just so I could touch the platform boots of these 16 year old girls. This journalist, by the way, Charles M. Young, he was 25 years old when he wrote this and he went on to become the editor at Rolling Stone. Now, as totally gross as that is, it was 16 year old Cherie Curry, the Runaway's lead singer, who had the idea to buy a revealing corset that she saw in a shop window on Sunset Boulevard and use it as a stage prop. Every show. When it came time to perform her signature song, Cherry Bomb, which Joan Jett and Kim Foley reportedly wrote for her, in 30 minutes she would change out of her silver Lemay jumpsuit and into the corset. In her mind, she was the one in power, not the skeevy journalist dry humping the stage or the manager orchestrating some dirty old man fantasy. In her mind, she was simply doing what her hero, David Bowie had done before her. And if Cherie was Bowie, then Joan was Susie Quatro and Jackie was Gene Simmons of Kiss. And Lita was Deep Purple's Richie Blackmore and Sandy was Queen's Roger Taylor. This is how they saw themselves, as equals to the rock stars who inspired them. From the jump. The Runaways had the attitude, the drive and the chops to keep up with their idols. And with Kim Foley's industry contacts, many doors were being opened for them. Before too long, Cheap Trick and Tom Petty were opening for them. But it was what was happening behind closed doors that was truly horrifying. In her memoir, Cherie Curry writes that Kim Foley once had sex with a visibly intoxicated adult woman in front of the entire band so that they could learn, in his words, quote, the right way to unquote. Jackie Fox later alleged that Fowley drugged and raped her in front of a crowd of people immediately following the runaway's debut show on New Year's Eve in 1975. And Keri Crone was only 14 when she said Folly masturbated on her while Jackie tamped down feelings of shame and disgust and shock over what happened to her. Carrie was not so equipped to compartmentalize, and she spiraled, watching her teenage dream unravel before her eyes. She'd been taken advantage of, sexually assaulted, watched it happen to others too. And now Kim Fyle was taking credit for the songs Carrie had written and was even denying her royalties. So Carrie split, dropped out of school, became addicted to drugs, and like our hero David Bowie, became someone else for the second time in her young life. But this time her life wasn't art. Her life imitated art. Soon Carrie Crone was living on streets, crashing on couches, and Carrie was no longer one of the runaways. Instead, she was simply a runaway. And when her friends in the band soon found themselves in real trouble, far from home, with no one else to turn to, Kim F kept betraying them. And they kept looking for new ways to escape.
Ad Voice 2
A year from today, what would your dream private practice look like? Would you spend less time chasing claims or only working with clients who value your skill set? What if you had a network to reach out to for questions or free continuing education? What if you had more time for yourself? ALMA empowers you to confidently accept insurance backed by an all in one EHR that simplifies scheduling, documentation and day to day practice operations. With a network of engaged providers and free CE resources, Alma makes it easy for you to build the practice of your dreams on your terms. Alma believes that when therapists get the support they need, mental health care gets better for everyone. Learn more About Alma@helloalma.com GetStarted your dream practice is closer than you think. Get started now@helloalma.com get started.
Ad Voice 1
Why choose a Sleep number?
Ad Voice 2
Smart Bed Can I make my site softer?
Jake Brennan
Can I make my site firmer? Can we sleep cooler?
Ad Voice 1
Sleep number does that cools up to eight times faster and lets you choose your ideal comfort on either side. Your sleep number setting J.D. power ranks sleep number one in customer satisfaction with with mattresses purchased in store and online. And now the more you buy, the more you save on beds, faces and more limited time. For J.D. power 2025 award information, visit J.D. power.com awards. Check it out at the Sleep Number Store or SleepNumber.com today.
Jake Brennan
September 1976 England Joan Jett was pissed this time not at Kim Fowley, but at another man who let her down. Robert Plant, Led Zeppelin's lead singer, was as enamored with the runaways as the next jail bait chasing horn dog. In fact, Kim Foley even got Robert Plant his own Runaways T shirt to wear. The girls all wore shirts that had their names printed below the band's name, but for Robert Plant, below the Runaways Runaway's logo, his read Robert Loves Kim. That's not what Joan Jett was pissed off about though. Give Robert Plant a T shirt. Who cares? Give him a thousand T shirts. Whatever would help the Runaways incredible self titled debut album climb higher than number 194 on the billboard album chart, which is where it had stalled since its release a few months prior. So far it wasn't working. UK fans were way more into the record than people back in the States, and even England's own version of the so called manufactured band controlled by a Svengali, the Sex Pistols took notice. Sid Vicious for one, did more than notice. He put his hands all over Joan's body despite her protests. Next thing Sid knew, Sandy west was grabbing him by the lapels and tossing him into the Tim's. The Runaways was all Sandy knew. It was the only stable thing that she had in her life. So if some safety pin wearing punk rocker was going to threaten that Sandy would do what she had to in order to protect it. But I digress. So back to the story. There was Joan Jett along with the rest of the band standing at a dock in Dover waiting for the ferry to take them to Paris, where their manager Scott Anderson told them that the show that night was already sold out. And this is where Robert Plant from Led Zeppelin comes in. Back in Los Angeles, at one of their shows at the Starwood, Robert had shown up in the Runaways dressing room with his locks of Greek God hair and equally godlike smile. The girls were all over him. Joan Jett tried to play it cool, rocking that trademark Joan Jett attitude, the swagger, the ambiguous look that said she was either about to fuck you up or rock your father face off. But it was hard to play it cool, seeing as though the line for the show that night stretched down the block and around the corner and it was hard to keep your cool as Joan demonstrated when some dude put his fat hands on Cherie's legs and ripped her stockings right off. That night, fat handed dude got a face full of Joan's metallic platform boot. And now standing on the shore in Dover, England, exhausted, ready to collapse on the incoming ferry, Joan wanted to put that metallic platform boot to the face of Robert Plant because a police inspector from Scotland Yard had detained Joan and the rest of the band, preventing them from going to France and it was Robert Plant's fault. Flanked by a Couple of officers, the inspector, ordered the girls to empty their bags. Hotels in England were reporting that items had gone missing from rooms that the runaways had stayed in. And British law enforcement, as it had proven so definitively years earlier in its relentless persecution of the Rolling Stones and the Beatles, were eager to put these smug American rock and roll girls in their place. First, Sandy turned over her bag. A hotel hairdryer came tumbling out. And then Joan turned her bag upside down, and all sorts of hotel room keys rained onto the ground. More bags were searched and more keys were found, more than 30 in total. Robert Plant back at the Starwood. Joan had asked him what were the best souvenirs to get while on tour. And Robert had told her all about his ritual of collecting room keys from every hotel he stayed at. And now this little piece of harmless advice had landed the runaways not just in hot water, but incredibly in jail. Joan Jettison was grabbing the bars of her cell, her knuckles white, her face red, trying to shake them loose and screaming at the top of her lungs. She was the oldest in this group and had just turned 18, and she was getting the adult treatment. So while the rest of the band could be together inside a holding room with bunk beds, Joan was freaking out inside a cold, cramped jail cell all on her own. Not that things were going any better. Over in that holding room, tensions were high. The girls had been informed that they'd have to remain behind bars for at least as long as it would take for the cops to retrieve their luggage and search it. The thing was, their luggage had already been put on that ferry over to France, so it was going to be a minute to get it back to England. And when they did, Cherie, for one, was freaking out about what they'd find inside. Because in one of those bags was her makeup case. And inside that makeup case, Cherie had hidden a bunch of cocaine. Technically, the coke belonged to the runaway's tour manager, Scott Anderson. Scott was Joan's age, 18. But those extra couple of years experience over, the rest of the girls were clutch when it came to procure the necessary ingredients of the rock and roll lifestyle. If you needed your cocaine cut up into neat little lines, Scott was your guy. If you needed some prescription subscription grade downers like Placidil, Scott was your guy. Booze, Scott could obviously get that for you as well. The girls were supposed to have tutors out on tour with them. This was one of the many promises that Kim Folly so willfully failed to deliver on. Instead, they had guys like Scott and now Cherie Curry had Scott Anderson's problems smuggled inside her luggage. Cherie was sweating like crazy, doubled over where she was sitting on the car concrete floor. She fell ill thinking about what would happen if those drugs were found. She was in a foreign country and she was only 16. The placidils were wearing off, and now panic, dread, and sickness deep in her stomach began to consume her. She and Scott had been engaged in a sexual relationship on the road, as well as what Cherie thought was a deeply emotional relationship. Surely, as a result of this, Cherie assumed Scott was prepared to do the chivalrous thing and tell the cops that if it was found, the coke was his. But that night, when Scott paid a visit to the girls in lockup, Scott made it very clear that he intended to do no such thing. What he intended, and what Kim Foley also intended, was that Cherie would take the fall and face the consequences. The night felt like an eternity. At some point, the guards took pity on Joan and moved her from her solitary jail cell to the holding room with everybody else. By the time the sun came up, the sickness in the pit of Cherie's stomach was overwhelming. They heard footsteps coming down the hall. All five runaways craned their necks to get a look at who was coming to visit. It was the inspector from Scotland Yard who had originally arrested them. He had news their luggage had been located. Cherie's heart rate spiked. She waited for him to hold up her makeup bag and ask who exactly this belonged to. But the inspector did no such thing. The luggage was clean and they were free to go. Somehow, the cocaine had been overlooked. Cherie breathed a huge sigh of relief. Even though Scott and Kim Fowley had left her up to dry, she still managed to dodge a bullet. That is, until she returned home to the States and discovered the true source of the sickness she'd been experiencing. Cherie curry was 16 years old and pregnant. We'll be right back after this.
Ad Voice 2
Word, word, word. I am your host, Stassi Schroeder. Welcome to Tell Me Lies, the official podcast. What's the most unhinged thing of season three?
Ad Voice 1
Steven.
Jake Brennan
Because he's so evil, I do think he is misunderstood. You see, everyone face consequences.
Ad Voice 2
It's intoxicating. The writers just know how to trick ya. There's always a twist in this show.
Jake Brennan
It's nothing you would expect.
Ad Voice 2
Tell Me Lies, the official podcast now streaming and stream the new season of Tell Me Lies on Hulu and Hulu on Disney.
Jake Brennan
Joan Jett hammered out the opening riff for the runaway song, Born to be bad on her Gibson Melody Maker. Her bright red leather jumpsuit shimmered under the subtle stage lights and her shock of black hair stood defiant as the song's slow start. An unabashed girl group homage suddenly turned into loud slashing power chords that nodded a punk rock, no doubt one of the old girl group genre's many descendants. Sandy came thundering in on the drums with Jackie and Lita close behind on bass and guitar respectively. The stage lights exploded and then Joan belted out the title chorus into the microphone with a sneer. The audience went nuts. Cherie was a killer frontwoman, no doubt, but Joan had that underdog gear. Like Pete Townsend next to Roger Daltrey, Joan had the place mesmerized. And then something caught Joan's eye. First it was was just a glimmer out there in the crowd, one of the lights catching a piece of metal, and then the metal erupted in bright red and orange and the sound of machine gun firing drowned out the sound of the band. People in the audience hit the floor and others ran screaming for the exit. Joan felt bullets rip through her body. She collapsed to the stage floor, crying out in pain, looking around to see if anyone else had been hit. And then she looked over at her guitar lying next to her. It was covered in blood, but it wasn't her blood. She opened her eyes wider to make sure she was actually seeing what she thought she was seeing. It was so clear to her now. The guitar was bleeding, the Gibson's body was riddled in bullet holes and the blood was just oozing from it. Suddenly the pain got worse. It was like she wasn't just experiencing her own pain, but she could feel what the guitar was feeling and it was unbearable. Joan's eyes went wide, wider than before, and she opened her mouth to scream for help, for someone, when all of a sudden Joan shot up in bed, yelling out into the darkness. She was covered in sweat and her heart was practically beating out of her chest. She'd had nightmares like this one before, but never this intense. And though this latest nightmare, like the rest, hadn't been real, she couldn't help but feel that something this crazy and this bloody could potentially be coming around the bend. Being a runaway had become an endurance test as their notoriety grew. Joan and the girls were now being demeaned by what seemed to be an entire world of Kim Follies, by random older men who had no problem calling them bitches, dykes and cunts every day just for being women who dared being in a band with zero Swinging dicks among them. Some days it felt like the assholes outnumbered the real fans. Those same assholes spent their own damn money to buy tickets to the Runaway shows, only to heckle the girls and throw shit at them on stage. It was enough to make you want to ditch the show early, run into the dressing room, cry for hours, and wonder why the hell you were putting yourself through it all. For Joan Jett and also for Leta Ford, the negative experiences only harden their resolve and thicken their skin. For Sandy west, there was simply no way she could give in to the alternative. Go back to a normal high schooler's routine, or even worse, the life of an ordinary young adult. Go back to reality. That was a fate worse than death. But for the others, the stakes were even higher. Cherie had returned home from the Runaways 1976 European tour pregnant with Scott Anderson's child. She was 16 years old, without the means or the ability to raise a baby. So she decided to get an abortion. And while that was happening, Kim Fowley kept the proverbial show on the road. He ushered the Runaways into the Beach Boys Brothers Studios in Santa Monica to record their second album, Queens of Noise, while Sheree was still recovering. Because of this, she only only sang lead on half of the album's songs, while Joan sang the other half. The record was released In January of 1977, the same week the Ramones released their sophomore album, Leave Home, and the same year that the Runaways conquered Japan like they were the second coming of the Beatles. Keep in mind that this was one year before Cheap Trick, the band that used to open for the Runaways, had hit paydirt at Budokan for a few weeks. On the other end of the world, the Runaways finally got the respect they deserved. But unlike Cheap Trick, all that love on tour in Japan didn't translate to a greater love and thus a bigger profile in the States. Because by the middle of 1977, there was no love lost within the ranks of the Runaways. The base was beautiful. It was a white 1960 Gibson Thunderbird, just immaculate, and it sounded incredible. For Jackie Fox, the bass was more than just an instrument. It was a representation of how far she'd come. When she first joined the Runaways, she could hardly play. She was so inexperienced, in fact, that Kim Fowley brought in Nigel Harrison, Blondie's bass player, to lay down Jackie's tracks on the Runaways debut album. Jackie worked hard, hard to get better. And now, in addition to being able to play, she knew from playing Next to Joan and Lita every night. How to strike the right rock and roll pose while doing so. But where she'd once looked up to Lita Ford, these days it seemed all Lita wanted to do was push Jackie around. Maybe it was because Jackie was an easy mark. She was a nerd by trade, a straight A student who, before joining the Runaways, had been planning to skip her senior year of high school so that she could attend UCLA full time. Whatever the reason, Jackie felt bullied from all sides. The girls in the band, Kim Foley, their crew. She could understand the guys. But Lita? There was an unspoken rule that the girls all protected each other. Though Jackie had to admit she hadn't felt very protected ever since Fowle sexually assaulted her. And no one in the band seemed to want to acknowledge it had happened. At least she had the bass. After sound checking at one of the Runaways final shows in Japan, she went to place it on its stand on the stage and noticed that the stand was unstable. She grabbed one of the guys on the crew and asked him to find her a better stand so that the bass wouldn't fall over and get damaged. She knew she shouldn't have trusted anyone on that tour to help her with anything. The roadie didn't listen. No one listened. And the stand was never replaced. And the Gibson Thunderbird tumbled over and the neck snapped. And then Jackie snapped. She went to her hotel room, her head throbbing, her pulse pounding, tears of rage and sadness and panic running down her face. She couldn't keep it all in check anymore. It was all coming to the surface. The pressure and the mental and psychological abuse. The rape. She didn't recognize herself. She had become her worst fear. Someone else. Jackie picked up a Coke bottle and threw it against the wall. It shattered into pieces, just like her Thunderbird. She grabbed one of the glass shards and she jammed it into her flesh. The blood was running now. She dragged the piece of glass in a straight, a jagged line across 4 inches of her arm. More blood. The pain on the outside. Finally a match for the pain on the inside. The room began to spin. She must have been screaming because the door to her room suddenly flung open and Cherie busted in. And then Jackie was in an ambulance on her way to the hospital, where she would begin a long journey back to the person that she used to be. All right, guys, I'll get back to a runaway story in just a second, but real quick, I wanted to mention that we always dig up way more in our research than we're able to include in our full episodes here, like for instance, this week, we uncovered this whole thing about how there is a church out there that worships Joan Jett as a God. Literally for real. It's such a crazy story that we made this mini episode about it. And if you're a member of Disgrace on All Access, you can go listen to that crazy story right now, along with all of our other weekly mini episodes that we've got out there on a ton of artists. All you got to do is go to disgraceandpod.com to find out more and become a member today. All right, back to our story. Sandy west stuck the barrel of the gun down the deadbeat's throat. And the deadbeat swallowed it, his teeth clattering around the cold, hard steel. Now that she had his attention, Sandy passed along the message she'd been hired to deliver. Pay up, fuck stick, or next time this pistol will be the last thing you ever taste. And then, the smell of rock bottomed depravity. The deadbeat had shit his pants. The 1980s were far from glamorous for Sandy west, former drummer for the Runaways. She worked construction, she tended bar, she freebased cocaine and did crystal meth. And at her lowest, she found herself taxiing, which is a term that I was unfamiliar with, but according to to Sandy is the act of collecting drug debts for dealers. It was this erratic and dangerous lifestyle which led to Sandy being arrested multiple times and eventually doing jail time. Surprisingly, perhaps most of all to Sandy was that jail was the first place where she had felt stability in a decade or so since the band had split up. Jail to Sandy was like Jackie's Thunderbird bass or Carrie Crone alter ego. It kept her cool and calm and out of trouble, at least for a short while. Because just like the Runaways, Sandy's time on the inside was finite, a flash in the pan. And so when she got out, she went right back into the fire of an untethered life. She died of cancer in 2006 at just the age of 47. For nearly 30 years, all Sandy wanted to do do was get the band back together. Back in 1977, following a mental breakdown in Japan, Jackie Fox had been replaced on bass by Vicky Blue. Cherie quit soon after, leaving Joan to shoulder the weight and lead the Runaways as a quartet. They made two more albums, but even after they fired Kim Foley, they still weren't able to come together as a cohesive unit. On New Year's Eve in 1978, the rumor runaways played their last show. It wasn't until 2015, the year of Kim Fowley's death, that Jackie Fox went public with her allegations that Fowley had raped her. And it was another eight years in 2023, when Kerry Crome sued Fowley's estate for multiple sexual assaults she says she suffered at the Svengali's hands. Revelations and lawsuits such as these continue to expose the system that enabled men like folly to do what they did. Exploit, corrupt, manipulate and control. But the Runaways were never about Kim Foley. The Runaways were about escape, reinvention, about becoming who you are for real. What Carrie understood when she changed her name, what Cherie understood when she stepped into that corset, and what Joan understood every time she put on that red leather jumpsuit was a rock and roll truth. You get to create your own myth. You get to turn yourself into the thing the world told you you could never be. David Bowie became Ziggy Stardust. Carrie Krause became Carrie Crome. And every girl who heard the Runaways play Cherry Bomb on a shitty AM radio or later saw Joan Jett sing Bad Reputation and heavy rotation on MTV wasn't just inspired to form a band. They were inspired to become whoever the hell they wanted to be to escape the person polite society told them they had to be and instead become the person they needed to be. The Runaways didn't just kick open a door, they obliterated the idea that the door ever existed. That is rock and roll. And rock and roll is no disgrace. I'm Jake Brennan and this is Disgraceland. All right, guys, thanks for listening to another episode of Disgraceland Apple podcast. Listeners, make sure you have auto downloads turned on. Listen guys, I'm wondering for the question of the week this week, obviously. Runaways. Great girl group. Great all girl group, I should say. We want to know here at Disgraceland, which female artists do you want to hear covered in the coming episodes of this podcast? We've obviously covered a bunch. We got a bunch more slated for release this year. But I want to know who you guys are into, who you want to learn more about, who you want us to cover. Let's let me know. 617906-6638 voicemail and text. Hit me up with your answers. We might play them on the after party coming up right after this. Hit me up on social Disgracelandpod Disgracelandpodmail.com to email me. All right, here comes some credits. Disgraceland was created by yours truly and is produced in partnership with Double Elvis. Credits for this episode can be found on the show notes page@gracelandpod.com if you're listening as a Disgraceland All Access member, thank you for supporting the show. We really appreciate it. And if not, you can become a member right now by going to Disgracelandpod.com membership rate and review the show and follow us on Instagram, Tik Tok, Twitter and Facebook Disgracelandpod and on YouTube@YouTube.com Disgracelandpod Rock and roll. He's a bad, bad man. How many discounts does USAA Auto Insurance offer?
Ad Voice 1
Too many to say here.
Jake Brennan
Multi vehicle discount Safe driver discount New vehicle discount Storage discount Legacy how many.
Ad Voice 2
Discounts will you stack up? Tap the banner or visit usaa.com autodiscounts restrictions apply.
Episode: The Runaways: Exploited by the Music Industry, Escape, and Excellent Rock ‘N’ Roll
Host: Jake Brennan (Double Elvis Productions)
Date: January 20, 2026
This episode dives deep into the raw, harrowing, and ultimately transformational story of The Runaways—five teenage girls who exploded onto the rock scene in the 1970s, only to be chewed up and exploited by the very industry they were trying to conquer. Host Jake Brennan examines not only their musical achievements but also the predatory forces that shaped—and haunted—their careers, exploring themes of rebellion, exploitation, escape, trauma, and ultimately, self-invention.
The Runaways’ saga is a microcosm of the peril and possibility at the heart of rock and roll. Their story is as much about autonomy and self-invention as it is about exploitation and trauma. Through both myth and music, they obliterated boundaries—not just for themselves, but for every listener who needed a way out.
For more information, sources, and full episode credits, visit disgracelandpod.com.