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JOAN JETT's rock heart beats on
from: newsobserver.com
by David Menconi, Staff Writer
As the title to her biggest hit declares, JOAN JETT loves rock 'n' roll. And it's safe to say that rock 'n' roll loves her right back.
Jett is the rare rock artist who can claim to be an influence on multiple generations, going all the way back to when she was a teenage guitarist in the RUNAWAYS 30 years ago. The RUNAWAYS' proto-metal made Jett a feminist icon of '80s punk, which carried over to early-'90s female grunge bands including the Gits, Hole and Bikini Kill. And now the torch is being passed yet again.
Jett is headlining this year's Vans Warped tour, where she'll show yet another generation of punk-rock girls and boys how the pros do it. The show comes to Raleigh's Alltel Pavilion at Walnut Creek on Tuesday.
"I feel so blessed," Jett says, calling from the tour bus on her way to the first Vans Warped date in Baltimore. "I know how amazing it is to still be doing this after 30 years, to still have people interested in coming to see us. I feel thankful every day."
At age 47, Jett still looks and sounds like she's hardly aged a day since 1982, when "I Love Rock 'N Roll" hit the top of the charts as an expert confection of metallic thunder, bubblegum pop sense and punk attitude. She's like the cool older sister we all wish we had -- rabid Baltimore Orioles fan, frequent political activist and deejay spinning cool garage rock ("JOAN JETT's Radio Revolution" on Sirius satellite radio).
Not coincidentally, she's also a great guitar player who doesn't get the credit she deserves.
"Joan is a better musician than people know, an incredible rhythm guitar player," says Steve Earle guitarist Eric "Roscoe" Ambel, an original member of Jett's backup band the BLACKHEARTS. "A lot of people think Johnny Ramone was so great. Well, maybe they don't know that somebody else played a lot of those parts in the studio. But nobody else ever played JOAN JETT's guitar parts. She's got an impeccable clock on her right hand. Even just playing a simple barre chord, she comes up with a distinctive voice. Not many people have a sound of their own with their guitar-playing, and she does."
'Tess Turbo' lives
Lack of respect is a recurrent theme for Jett, who was turned down by almost every record label in the free world after the RUNAWAYS broke up (an experience that inspired her 1980 song "Bad Reputation"). Then there was the infamous Britney Spears debacle, in which Spears covered "I Love Rock 'N Roll" in 2001 -- only to misidentify Jett's signature hit as a Pat Benatar song at a press conference.
But where Spears is already on her way to being an irrelevant footnote, Jett is still going strong and can boast a wide and varied career. She's been in movies, on Broadway with "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" and even the comics pages. During her chart-topping days, "Bloom County" cartoonist Berke Breathed immortalized Jett as "Tess Turbo," a misunderstood rock star.
"I actually bought the original artwork of that, and it's hanging in my office," Jett says proudly. "I was honored he chose me to satirize."
What you might not know about Jett is that she's done as much as anyone this side of Bob Hope to buck up the soldiers of the U.S. military. She came to Fort Bragg to visit the troops last year, and she regularly plays USO tours overseas. Recent years have found Jett playing to U.S. troops in Afghanistan, Pakistan and other far-flung countries.
"There was a moment after the RUNAWAYS broke up when I entertained the thought of joining the military," she says. "I felt so lost, I felt like I needed direction. So I contemplated that for a few months. Being in that place gave me a view into the fact that the troops are all people just like me, and I could be over there just like them. It's always pretty intense, an interesting exchange of humanity and connection. People think us liberals don't care about the troops or America, and that argument is baseless."
Messages in the music
There's no mistaking the political overtones of "SINNER" (BLACKHEART RECORDS), Jett's first new album of this century. The opening track, "Riddles," ticks off various examples of political double-talk before Jett hollers, "Wake up, people!" And "A.C.D.C." could turn out to be a hot-button song, what with gay marriage becoming an election-year issue yet again. "A.C.D.C." is a sly ode to playing both sides of the sexual fence, with a memorable video featuring a star turn by Carmen Electra, who recently confessed to having had a long-standing lesbian crush on Jett.
"That one is an old Sweet song," Jett says. "That's what I grew up on in the '70s, when the RUNAWAYS were forming. There was this teenage nightclub I would go to, and the deejay would play Bowie, Slade, Sweet and these other great British bands American kids were never exposed to. 'A.C.D.C.' was the B-side of a single. I just thought it was pretty timely, given that it seems to be a 'Girls Gone Wild' world these days."
"Everyone Knows" also appears to be about the love that dare not speak its name ("I see 'em stare at us / Whenever we're together"). But the best song on "SINNER" is "Naked," even if the title gives people the wrong idea. It's a snarling rock song you could imagine Courtney Love covering.
"Yeah, 'Naked' means something different from what people take from the title," Jett says. "It's more about introspection and self-inquiry. It's about when the excuses you give everyone else and the face you show to the world doesn't fly anymore on the inside, because you know what the truth is in regards to yourself. You have to be naked to yourself and you have to deal with that."
Deal with it she does.
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