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Music publisher played key role in launching Runaways
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Music publisher played key role in launching Runaways
Reuters - Tuesday, May 4
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By Ed Christman
NEW YORK - Back in the days when girls were supposed to be the subjects, not the purveyors, of rock 'n' roll, the Runaways needed a lot more than their looks to rise to the top.
As history now shows, they did have other attributes. While never a big commercial success in the United States, the band recorded a bunch of now-classic songs like "Cherry Bomb," "I Wanna Be Where the Boys Are" and "You Drive Me Wild." And most of its members went on to distinguish themselves in other musical endeavors as well, especially Joan Jett and Lita Ford, who both attained platinum status as solo artists.
The Runaways "were the real thing -- they wanted it bad and they played hard to make it happen," says Ralph Peer, chairman/CEO of peermusic, publisher of the Runaways' song catalog.
Now the band is back for a well-deserved moment in the spotlight thanks to the "Runaways" biopic, starring Kristen Stewart as Jett and Dakota Fanning as lead singer Cherie Currie. Runaways songs comprise the bulk of the movie's music, with director Floria Sigismondi and one of the producers picking tracks and then getting feedback from Currie, Jett and the other group members, according to Jett's longtime manager, Kenny Laguna.
The soundtrack album itself has seven Runaways songs -- three original masters and four remakes. It also includes a Jett track that originally had been intended for the band, as well as classics by acts like David Bowie and the Stooges.
Peermusic's only involvement in the movie was licensing the music. But after the film runs its course, Peer believes his company will be able to exploit Runaways songs in commercials and other licensing vehicles.
The band's manager, the Svengali-like Kim Fowley, says that peermusic "did some tremendous things for us. a great story, and no one has ever written about it."
'EXOTIC UNDERTAKING'
The publisher's offices happened to be in the same Hollywood Boulevard building as Mercury Records, which signed the Runaways. Fowley recalls going to the peermusic offices without an appointment and subsequently receiving a phone call from peermusic executive Mario Conte from peer's New York office. Conte believed in the Runaways "like they were going to be the next Beatles," Fowley says, prompting the manager to sign an "industry-standard subpublishing contract with peer."
Peer, who had just moved to the company's Los Angeles office after spending his first six years at the company in New York, says his recollection is that the original deal was for co-publishing with administration. Eventually, peermusic acquired Fowley's share of the publishing.
"Peermusic believed in the Runaways at a time when an all-female rock band was considered outside the box," Peer says. "At the time it was a pretty exotic undertaking whose time had come. I took an interest in the project and shepherded it through."
Peer subsequently spent many nights at the Whiskey A Go-Go and in the studio with the band.
"Mercury was not getting any traction in licensing the record to its affiliates around the world," Fowley recalls. "But each peermusic local office contacted the Mercury affiliate in their local markets and said, 'Why aren't you releasing product on this band? We are behind them.'"
The result, Fowley says, was that before the band's self-titled debut album had charted in America or the Runaways had played outside Southern California, Peer had helped secure a global release of the "Runaways" record.
In Japan, the fan reaction to the band was immediate and akin to Beatlemania, Peer says. "We got exposure in Japan through an appearance at the Tokyo Music Festival, through our association with Japanese music publishing firm Nichion," Peer says.
Fowley says he admired Peer for being "a gentleman and a copyright scholar who could quote arcane copyright law from 50 years ago." He can appreciate peermusic's global reach, having written or co-written songs that have been recorded by everyone from the Byrds and Cat Stevens to the Runaways.
"I have 5,000 songs with four accountants, five attorneys and eight other publishing companies in three different countries," Fowley says. "And no one has ever paid me royalties from Ecuador, except for Peer. It's not much, but as they say in the publishing business, 'Every penny adds up.'"
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