LITA FORD IS BACK!

After a long self imposed hiatus, the Queen of Heavy Metal is back! Lita Ford, the beatiful legendary guitarist who began with the all-female rock band The Runaways, returns with a fantastic hard driving album "Wicked Wonderland" which is being released today! Lita was gracious enough to chat with me from her home in the Caribbean...
MICK: Congratulations on the release of your new CD "Wicked Wonderland" ! Hard to believe it's been 14 years since your last album. Did this new CD take long to record?
LITA: Actually, it took about a year to record including the writing, the recording, everything. We got on a roll writing songs and it was never ending. We could have wrote two albums! We didn't use anything from the past, everything is brand new. We started writing in September of last year [2008]. I remember because it was around my birthday. We listened to our first track that we recorded in September so that's when it all came about. Before that, it's not like we accumulated songs over the last 15 years. We didn't. We didn't write anything in that time.

MICK: I love the CD, especially the song "Patriotic S.O.B.". What is your favorite track?
LITA: I love "Patriotic S.O.B."! That and "Crave". There's so many cool things on the album. "The Inside", "Indulge", "Sacred". These songs really take you somewhere. Jim [Gillette] worked hard on the production. Jim and Greg Hampton out in California. They worked hard as a team on the production. They did weird things producing it. He got his ideas from a lot of different people, exactly who I'm not sure. Just listening to different records to get ideas, backward stuff and little details on things that you don't normally hear. It's a straight ahead rock album! I think it all worked well. The artwork is very detailed as well. It's something you don't want to download. You don't want to lose any of the highs or lows or lose the artwork. It's something worth buying and having in your hands so you can see the pictures while you listen to the album.

MICK: You must be excited about the upcoming tour with Queensryche. How did this all come about?
LITA: This tour is going to be awesome. We've got 26 shows in 31 days [Oct 15th-Nov.14th]. That was just something that was offered to us through our booking agency. They also book Queensryche. Susan Tate, who manages Queensryche, had been talking to Jim about it. They are excited about it. We are excited about it. It just adds a whole different dimension to their show. Not to confuse audiences but we are actually on stage with Queensryche. It's sort of like Queensryche is my backing band! I don't want to confuse everybody to think we are playing at separate times. We are on stage together! Geoff Tate will probably help sing "Close My Eyes Forever". That should be cool!

MICK: I am very impressed on how "Wicked Wonderland is being promoted with advertisements on nearly 17000 movie screens nation wide, a 15 minute feature on Delta Airlines in-flight program and also featured in Delta's in-flight magazine "Sky". That's incredible promoting!!
LITA: It's Lita October! Lita-Tober! I don't see how you can miss it. There's also the X-Box game coming out "Brutal Legend". They are going to have some huge promotions for that. They contacted me through My Space. They needed somebody to play the Queen. So who else would they choose but the Queen of Heavy Metal! They asked me if I would play the queen and it was my honor to! You will be able to hear the voices of Jack Black, Lemmy [Kilmister], Ozzy, me. If you go online you can pull up brutallegend.com and you can see the trailers for the game. It's on the X-Box, X-Box 360. Everything except Wii I believe.
The trailers are bad to the bone. There are about 100 songs on the game! It is huge!

MICK: You and your family must also be very excited about being involved in the new comic book 'The Gillettes: Family Business"
LITA: Yes, we are very excited about that! How cool is that! The kids get to beat up zombies and I'm a super hero in it so it's a really wonderful book. We are so honored to be a part of that. These people had originally wrote the comic Amber for "The Amber Alert". They are a cool Dad and son team. The son is 14 years old and he worked with his father on this project. They are good people and the comic is amazing. I have my two boys in it and they're very happy about that.

MICK: After 1985's "Black" CD, you took time off to be with your family on an island in the Caribbean. I've read that you even grow your own food?
LITA: We do! There's an acre of land and we've planted all kinds of fruits and vegetables. We catch fresh fish which is amazing. The fish doesn't taste the same as the kind you buy in the grocery store. We have lobster at certain times of the year. We've been here for 9 years now.

MICK: Do you take your kids on tour with you?
LITA: Our kids go on tour with us. We don't leave them with nobody. They have one friend that they stay with. He's a 6'6" security guard. They hunt, they fish. Our security guard is like a kid. Whatever the kids want to do he's into it..let's go to the zoo, let's play with snakes, let's go fire a few rounds! They are really into whatever Chris [security guard] is into.

MICK: What are your long range plans?
LITA: We are going to do a remake of "Close My Eyes Forever" and a remake of "Kiss Me Deadly". I'm not sure who the other singers are going to be on it yet. That's something we are going to do in the future. We will do another tour next year for this album. We're going to work this album more. We're not done. The Queensryche tour is just the beginning. The icing on the cake.

MICK: What do you do in your leisure time?
LITA: Watch TV, go shopping. I really don't have much leisure time. Let Jim tell you;;
JIM GILLETTE: She hasn't had any leisure time in 15 years! The only time she gets a minute is if she's sick. She never sits down to rest, that's the truth!
MICK: Great job on the CD Jim!
JIM: We are really happy and proud of it! It was a labor of love! We had a couple of talks about it and had to be sure if we want to let people know what's up! It's our private lives, are we sure we want to open the book? We've been gone for the last 14 years! We disappeared..not quite off the planet but out of the country on an island in the middle of nowhere!

MICK: Are there any artists you would like to work with?
LITA: We are trying to figure that out now because if there is somebody we want to work with, we will use them on "Close My Eyes" and "Kiss Me Deadly". Right off the top of my head, I can't think of anybody I'd like to work with. We're not really into listening to modern music, we are just into our own thing.

MICK: Last question..tell me something that even your biggest fan would not know about you.
LITA: I'm going to let Jim answer this one...he knows me better than anyone!
JIM: She has delicious feet!!! Seriously, she's the most amazing mother I've ever seen in my life. I don't think her rock star image would lend itself into her being such an unbelievable mom. That's just where we are man. We are just being a family, raising the boys. She's their school teacher. The boys are home schooled. She wakes up and makes us bacon, eggs, toast, massive amounts...it's not cereal! Omelets, pancakes, eggs , bacon, sausage..a massive breakfast. Then she'll home school the boys. Then it's a massive lunch! Then the boys train for a few hours every day. Then it's dinner...lasagna, pasta, meatloaf, fish, vegetables..just huge portions. We get three massive meals every day! She's a damn school teacher! She hated school, barely made it through high school and now she's an awesome teacher! And her toes are delicious!!

You can catch Lita Ford, along with Queensryche, at the Capital One Bank Theater in Westbury on Sunday, Oct.25th!
http://www.myspace.com/litaford
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lita_Ford