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She's back and bad as ever
The original riot grrrl has released SINNER, her first original recording in 12 years. Jett 'never stopped,' she tells Alexandra Gill
from: theglobeandmail.com
by Alexandra Gill
VANCOUVER -- JOAN JETT snarls across the stage in a pair of leather pants slung so low on the hips you can see a slick trail of sweat dripping down her gluteal cleft. It's been 25 years since the original riot grrrl cracked the charts with her breakout single I Love Rock n' Roll. Yet here she is -- a headliner on this summer's Vans Warped Tour (the long-running punk and skateboard festival) with a new CD under her belt -- telling the kids that she still "don't give a damn 'bout her bad reputation" and showing them how it's done.
"It's real easy, all you gotta do is go 'Whoa, oh, oh, oh,' " she coaxes the crowd at Vancouver's Thunderbird Stadium, as they chant along to the catchy chorus from a new song on SINNER, her first original studio recording in 12 years.
One girl hanging over the barricades, who looks young enough to be the 48-year-old's daughter, responded with a lewdly suggestive flick of her pierced tongue.
Jett was about the same age -- 15, to be exact -- when she formed the RUNAWAYS, the seminal all-girl punk band that burst onto the mean streets of Hollywood in 1975, was widely mocked for its kittenish sexuality, but nonetheless blazed a trail for women.
"When Joan started the RUNAWAYS, they were doing it in a vacuum," explains her long-time producer KENNY LAGUNA. "There was no model. There was nobody to compare to. They took a lot of abuse and hits for the home team."
Before the RUNAWAYS broke up in 1978, she famously produced an album with the short-lived but pivotal L.A. punk band the Germs, toured with the Ramones and palled around with the Sex Pistols.
In the eighties, after Jett's solo debut was rejected by at least 23 major labels, she and Laguna released it independently on BLACKHEART RECORDS, making her the first female performer to start her own label. (The label is celebrating its 25th anniversary this year by reissuing all her solo albums with remastered bonus tracks.) A string of Top 40 hits followed, including the anthemic I Love Rock n' Roll, an obscure B-side cover written by a British band called the Arrows that topped the Billboard charts for seven weeks in a row and turned her into a favourite of the MTV set.
After releasing two inconsequential albums in the early nineties (The Hit List and Notorious), she generated fanfare with 1994's Pure and Simple, largely fuelled by the support of a new generation of female rockers that claimed her as an icon.
Now, after more than a decade's absence, she's back with SINNER, which has generated critical praise. Jett, however, will argue that she never really went away.
"We never stopped," Jett explained last week, as she relaxed in the band's trailer before the Vancouver show, sporting her trademark shag haircut and dark raccoon eyeliner.
"We were on the road all the time, we just couldn't get this record out. And if you don't have a record and you're not on the charts, they think you're retired or something. You wouldn't believe the number of times people asked me: 'Do you still play? Are you still working?' "
Despite the stalled release, which she chalks up to administrative changes at her former distributor, Warner Bros., Jett has been busy. In the late nineties, she fronted for the Gits and made an appearance on America's Most Wanted that eventually helped solve the murder of the band's lead singer, Mia Zapata.
She starred in the Broadway production of The Rocky Horror Picture Show, made numerous television appearances (Ellen, Highlander), recorded music for hit films such as Shrek, Charlie's Angels and Monster, supplied the theme songs for the ESPN X-Games, lent her support to the pro-choice movement, campaigned for U.S presidential candidate Howard Dean and now hosts the twice-weekly JOAN JETT Radio Revolution, a Sirius Satellite network spinoff of Little Steven's Underground Garage show.
In recent years, she has performed extensively for U.S. troops overseas, most notably in Afghanistan in 2001, where she took to the stage in a burka and became the first non-combatant to sleep in the war zone. Jett says she hasn't had a chance to present the songs from her new album to the troops, but she says when she does, she'll have no qualms about performing Riddles, an anti-war rant about double-speaking politicians aimed at the Bush administration.
"Sure, I would play Riddles for them," she says, rubbing the tattoos that swirl around ripped biceps. "I've been in a lot of danger situations and I feel I've earned it, as an American. That's what American ideals are supposed to be about. Freedom of speech, if you believe it, includes the freedom to criticize the government and not be considered a non-patriot."
Jett attributes her fierce support of the troops to a very brief moment, after the RUNAWAYS broke up, when she herself contemplated joining one of the branches.
"I was so lost, depressed. I needed a place to be where I wasn't going to . . . kill myself, where I could keep out of trouble. Then I met Kenny, so I didn't have to take that course, but a lot of people do. It's not because they want to kill people. They do it because they're trying to get out of a shitty home life or go to school or travel.
"I never really talked about it because I don't think it should be a publicity thing -- 'Oh, look, I'm playing for the troops.' It's between me and them. I like to go to places that are shitty and people need the morale boost and they're far away from their families. It's tough, but I like to bring 'em a little bit of home. They enjoy it so much."
Privacy is another thing Jett feels she's earned. Several songs on the new album -- Fetish, Everyone Knows and a hook-laden cover of the Sweet's bisexual-themed AC/DC -- hint at her well-known preference for women, but it's not something she'll ever talk about.
Discretion has never put a dent in Jett's bad reputation. And perhaps that's a lesson the young Ashlee Simpsons and Britney Spears of the world, who cite her as an influence, could stand to learn.
"It's not about shame or hiding, it's about having boundaries," Jett explains. "There's this hunger for salacious details and people who are so desperate to be famous are happy to expose everything. I want my private life and I work hard to keep it. I discuss myself in my music and that should be enough."
JOAN JETT plays Park Place in Barrie, Ont., on Aug. 12 and Parc Jean-Drapeau in Montreal on Aug. 13.
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