Lita Ford Carving a Niche in a Metal Man’s World

“This is my tramp image,” said rock singer/guitarist Lita Ford, laughing as she sashayed through an elegant restaurant to her table. All eyes were on her--and she knew it.

A pretty woman in a low-cut, strapless top and leather pants that, as she boasted, seemed sprayed on--how could you miss her? If the outfit didn’t grab you, then the large tattoo on her right shoulder did.

Ford eagerly cultivates that biker girl, heavy-metal-mama image, which fits her raunchy music. But until her new album, “Lita”--her first for RCA Records--her music was less interesting than that image. However this album, featuring her Top 15 single “Kiss Me Deadly,” is her first hit. None of her several previous solo albums on PolyGram were big successes.

This image is nothing new for her. Now 29, Ford first surfaced in L.A.’s all-girl teen band the Runaways back in 1975. Again, their tawdry image was more provocative than their amateurish music. Sex does sell, but it wasn’t enough to push this band into the big time.

Since her days as a titillating teen guitarist, people have been asking the same question about Ford: Is she for real? Is there a saintly young lady underneath that biker get-up?

Judging from the combination of four-letter words, sexy smile and suggestive one-liners, it’s obvious that Ford has an affinity for raunch.

Defending her somewhat sleazy image, Ford snapped, “Listen, rock ‘n’ roll ain’t church. It’s a nasty business. You gotta be nasty too. If you’re goody goody, you can’t sing it or play it. Kids don’t pay to see nice. They want aggression, they want anger--and some sleaze too. They want rebels.”

What’s a rebel without a cigarette?

“May I have a cigarette?” she asked. After puffing on it briefly, she tossed it in an ashtray.

“Yuukkk,” she sneered. “I don’t really like to smoke. I don’t know why I ever do it.”

The way Ford tells it, her new album wouldn’t be a hit without producer/composer Mike Chapman. “I was in a hole,” she said. “I needed a good producer, a good songwriter--somebody to get the best out of me. Mike did it all.”

Her previous solo albums suffered from so-so songs and mediocre production.

“Those other producers would get me mad and uptight,” she griped. “They didn’t know what to do with me. The songs needed good production and I wasn’t getting it and I knew it, which made me even madder. They had me screaming, not singing. I can scream well but I’m not supposed to be screaming all the time.”

Ford decided that Chapman was going to be her musical guru. He was part of the new regime that was guiding her career. In 1986, she scrapped the old machinery--manager, band, accountants and record company.

“I had the wrong people around me,” she said. “I wasn’t getting anywhere. I wanted to see what new people could do. I even dumped my boyfriend. He was wrong for me too.”

The most significant recruit, she said, was Chapman. “First of all he brought me ‘Kiss Me Deadly,’ which turned out to be my first big hit single. And he pulled good vocals out of me in the studio. No one else had done that.

“Mike knew just what to do and when to do it. Sometimes we had to record in the early afternoon and I wasn’t quite into singing some rock song then. He’d give me five bucks and send me down to the corner bar to get a shot of tequila. I’d come back raring to go.”

Ford’s biggest contribution to this album was composing some quality songs. Though used to writing alone, she wrote part of it with metal masters Ozzy Osbourne, Motley Crue’s Nikki Sixx and Motorhead’s Lemmy Kilmister.

“It’s agony writing by myself,” she said. “I get impatient and lose my temper. It’s nice to write with other people occasionally. I’ve written with other people before, nothing as good as this.”

“I’m a guitar player,” Ford announced. “That’s my first love.”

Born in London and raised mostly in America, Ford has been playing guitar since she was 11. “I used to take my guitar in my bedroom and learn Black Sabbath riffs,” she recalled. “Yes, I was a weird kid.”

At 16 she was skilled enough to be invited to join the Runaways, an all-girl band masterminded by entrepreneur Kim Fowley. “We weren’t very good,” she admitted. “Being an all-girl band was a gimmick. We got a lot of media attention because there was no one else around like us.”

In 1979, the band split up. “We weren’t going anywhere,” Ford recalled. “It was stupid to continue.”

Though she and former Runaway Joan Jett have been supposedly feuding ever since, Ford insisted, “There’s nothing to those rumors. I like Joan.”

However, they’re not that close. “In the years since the Runaways split up I’ve seen her once--in 1984,” Ford said. “But we hugged and we were very friendly.”

Until recently, Ford’s post-Runaways career had never really taken off. But being a woman, she insisted, hasn’t hampered her. “Women proved long ago that they can rock as well as men. If you have the talent, the songs and good machinery behind you, that’s all you need--whether you’re a man or a woman.”

The only problem with being a female rocker, she said, is attacks by the occasional sexist heckler. “Those big mouths just make me work harder. But I’ve got a big mouth too. They learn not to mess with me.”

Ford, who recently toured with Yngwie Malmsteen, will be on the road with three even bigger metal acts later this year--Poison, Bon Jovi and Ozzy Osbourne. But she doesn’t plan to be an opening act for long.

“It’s OK for a while, but I’ll be headlining next year. I want to be huge-- huge . I want to headline the biggest and best places.”

Impatience, though, is one of her problems.

“I want it now ,” she said, working herself into a frenzy. “I want to be a superstar now . I don’t want to wait much longer. I get so enthusiastic I want to scream. But I have to keep a lid on it. I have to keep a lid on myself. That gets harder and harder to do.”