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JOAN JETT is rock solid
Influential artist doesn't have to rely just on hits to make an impact
from: knoxnews.com
by Wayne Bledsoe
When JOAN JETT burst on the scene in the early 1980s, she had goals other than just having hits.
"I just wanted to make it OK for girls to play rock 'n' roll," says Jett over the phone. "A girl playing really sweaty rock 'n' roll is still looked on as weird."
At the time, it didn't seem as weird as it was revelatory. Only a handful of female-fronted acts (most notably The Pretenders, led by Chrissie Hynde) had managed to have solid rock 'n' roll hits. Jett swaggered on to MTV in 1982 with a cover of a song by the British band The Arrows called "I Love Rock 'N Roll" and created an anthem. The song was No. 1 on Billboard's Hot 100 for seven weeks and became one of MTV's most popular videos.
The song's success not only gave Jett a hit album but also rescued her 1981 self-titled debut disc (retitled "Bad Reputation") from obscurity. The rereleased earlier disc provided her with the hit "Do You Wanna Touch Me (Oh Yeah)," a remake of a Gary Glitter British hit. When Jett belted out "Do you wanna touch me," it was not as much an offer as an order.
Jett had actually been in the game for a few years.
"My parents told me at a very young age that I could be anything I wanted to be in life," says the Philadelphia-born singer. "So I started out wanting to be an astronaut, then an actress. Then I started focusing on music."
When she was 13, her parents "indulged" her by buying her a guitar.
"I went to a guitar teacher and said, 'Teach me how to play rock 'n' roll.' He taught me how to play 'On Top of Old Smoky.' I know now that you have to start there, but, at the time, I thought, 'Forget this!'"
Jett quit the lessons and began teaching herself bar chords and copying what she heard off of records.
"Then my family moved to California, and I said, 'There's gotta be more girls who want to do this!'"
Jett formed The RUNAWAYS, an all-girl group whose members were all under 18, in 1975. The band found fame in Japan, but American audiences were resistant.
"At first they thought we were cute," says Jett. "Then they realized we were serious, and people got threatened."
Jett says the group members were regularly called derogatory names. The group's sexually charged image (the members dressed in leather and lace) also became an issue.
"I think sexuality puts the roll in the rock," says Jett. "It's part of it. I think maybe people were threatened because this was girls taking charge of their sexuality."
The Jett-penned RUNAWAYS song "Cherry Bomb" has since been recognized as a rock classic.
The RUNAWAYS called it quits in 1978. Afterward, Jett produced the album "G.I." for influential punk band The Germs and began working on her own solo album with producer/songwriter KENNY LAGUNA. The resulting disc was turned down by 23 record labels, prompting Jett and Laguna to form BLACKHEART RECORDS and distribute the disc themselves. The release took off in Europe. Jett signed a record deal in America, formed the band the BLACKHEARTS, and soon her music was blasting from radios and TVs around the world.
The friendship and musical partnership between Jett and Laguna has remained constant since that time. Jett hasn't had a radio hit in many years, but she's never stopped making music.
"I think when people don't see you having hits on the radio, they assume you're not doing anything," she says.
Jett's 2006 album, "SINNER," sounds no less raw rock 'n' roll than her debut album.
"You always want to keep having fun - that's the main goal from which everything else flows," says Jett. "I'd like to keep putting out records, and I'd like to have another hit, but my happiness doesn't hinge on a hit."
She says it's the "ultimate compliment" when girls or boys tell her that they got into music because of her influence, but it's more than just music that she hopes to have had an effect on. She says it's a hard fight to resist society's expectations of what a young person should become. Jett's example of sticking to her convictions might be an example.
"Sometimes it's difficult to just stay yourself."
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