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Jett's Back in Black
from: sfgate.com
by Tom Lanham
Scanning her packed concert crowd in Palm Springs a few weeks ago, veteran rocker JOAN JETT gulped and did a head-spinning double take. There in the mostly youthful audience was the last person she'd expected to see -- 63-year-old pop producer Kim Fowley, who was sporting a vintage JOAN JETT T-shirt beneath his elegant dinner jacket.
In 1975, Fowley had shrewdly assembled Jett's sultry teen-chick combo the RUNAWAYS, a move former front woman Cherie Currie still views as exploitative and creepy (judging by her slam of Fowley in the recent "Mayor of Sunset Strip" documentary on Rodney Bingenheimer). Far from being horrified, however, Jett found herself feeling nostalgic, even pleasantly surprised.
Fowley -- who'd shepherded Jett's first RUNAWAYS anthem, "Cherry Bomb" (with its jail bait chorus of "Hello Daddy, hello Mom/ I'm your ch-ch-cherry bomb") -- hadn't seen his old protege since the band's acrimonious breakup in 1979. He'd decided to offer a tentative olive branch, Jett explains, "once he was aware that I didn't harbor those same feelings. I had a different experience in the RUNAWAYS, that's all I can say."
After the show, the two sat down for a let-bygones-be-bygones dinner.
"And I must come to Kim Fowley's defense here," she insists. "I looked at what Cherie said (in "Mayor") and what she's said elsewhere about her experience in the RUNAWAYS, and I thought, 'What band was she in?' Some of the facts may be facts, but if anyone was so victimized they could've gotten the hell out at any time."
The RUNAWAYS may have slithered onstage in suggestive corsets, fishnets and platform boots, but the band also gave Jett her signature look: raccoon-thick eyeliner and spiky black shag haircut. And when the group first toured England in the proto-punk mid-'70s she gained a whole new sense of Converse/leather-jacket style.
"I left America all glittered out and I came back all punked out," she says. "So I can't qualify my RUNAWAYS experience as being abusive or negative. And look, we all make mistakes, we all act in ways that we might find inappropriate later. Maybe Kim did, but maybe the girls did, too. And maybe I did, but I just don't hold any hostility for those things anymore."
How did Jett, at 47, become such a wise old soul? Practice, she says. And she wants to impart her life lessons to her fans on "SINNER," her Zen-like new set with her band, the BLACKHEARTS, released on her own Blackheart imprint -- the label she started 25 years ago when no major company would give her a post-RUNAWAYS chance.
Rather than echo the kitschy sound and sentiment of her signature '82 hit "I Love Rock 'n' Roll," the singer pushes herself into new lyrical territory with the anti-neocon "Riddles," a soul-baring "Naked," an anti-tabloid "Five" and two sexually expressive anthems, "Fetish" and "Everyone Knows," which mock people's fascination with whether performers are gay or straight. ("I'm singing to everyone, and I want everybody to think they've got a shot," Jett says coyly.) Jett ups the ambiguous ante with a cover of the Replacements' "Androgynous" and a bratty send-up of Sweet's old bisexual-themed "AC/DC."
" 'AC/DC' is a great three-minute rock song, and it's a little bit racy and a little bit controversial," Jett says of "SINNER's" first single. "But was it as controversial when Sweet was doing it? They were just kind of commenting on something, but when I do it, it becomes more controversial. And what's that about? Is it because a woman is saying these things? A woman is owning her sexuality, which proves my point -- that women in rock are threatening because rock 'n' roll implies ownership of sexuality. So if a woman is rocking, then she's owning her stuff and she's dictating what's going on, not the other way around. And people are still just uncomfortable with that."
It took Jett six years and three false starts with her old label, Warner Bros., before she finally got "SINNER" right. It wasn't easy, though -- much of that time she was hampered by writer's block, unsure how she should continue.
"As a songwriter, I was trying to grow and change and go beyond just writing about sex and love and partying and getting laid," she says. "I wanted to write about spirituality and politics, but how do you do that without sounding preachy or corny? And I wasn't specifically talking to other writers about that -- it was my own struggle, and it totally shut me down."
Jett's longtime composing-production partner KENNY LAGUNA helped her find her rollicking sound and spirit again. And old riot grrl pal Kathleen Hanna dropped by the "SINNER" sessions to add vocal and moral support on three crackling cuts.
Not that Jett really needs an ego boost. The strict vegetarian, who doesn't drink or smoke, is currently plowing across the country on the Vans Warped Tour, schooling a new generation of punk pups on how it's done. Blackheart will reissue her entire remastered catalog this summer, starting with "Bad Reputation." And for four hours every Saturday and Sunday afternoon she hosts "JOAN JETT's Radio Revolution," a Sirius-network spin-off of Little Steven's Underground Garage.
"I play things from Little Steven's playlist, but I'm allowed to add about 20 to 30 percent of my own," she says of the show she records from her home. "So I play a lot of glitter music and a lot of punk-rock stuff. I was a little hesitant at first because DJ-ing isn't my forte. But it sounded like a lot of fun, so I decided to give it a shot."
To top things off, Fowley is back on board as a prime Jett booster.
"Kim is definitely an acquired taste. He's definitely outside the box, and his motives can seem strange sometimes, and maybe he's too much for some people," she says, "but I always got a kick out of him."
What did the duo discuss during that Palm Springs dinner?
Jett laughs.
"You know what? It's like any friend that you haven't seen for a long time, and certainly people that you go through a lot with -- you just slip right back into it," she says. "It was almost like there was no time in between. And that's the way it's been when I've seen the (RUNAWAYS) girls over the years. I'm still friendly with all of them, and when I've seen them it's been real easy. I mean, there shouldn't be some big, weird energy attached to just saying hello, should there?"
JOAN JETT AND THE BLACKHEARTS perform in the Vans Warped Tour, which begins at 11 a.m. Sat. at Piers 30/32, the Embarcadero, San Francisco. $29.99. (415) 421-8497, www.livenation.com, www. warpedtour.com.
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