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Runaway success story
Still drawing crowds after 30 years, JOAN JETT says all a budding rock guitarist needs is a love of rock'n'roll and a guitar that stays in tune
from: guardian.co.uk
by Leonie Cooper
My parents bought me a Silvertone electric guitar for Christmas when I was 13 years old. I was pretty impressed that they got it for me, and spent all Christmas morning making nothing but noise. I remember my dad saying, "Stop with the racket!"
I'm left-handed, and they bought me a right-handed guitar. I knew that, technically, I should flip the guitar over, the way Jimi Hendrix did, but I tried to do it and I couldn't do anything with my right hand on the fretboard because I didn't have any dexterity with that hand. To me, it made more sense to have my left hand on the frets, because I needed to have more dexterity with that hand while my right hand would only be strumming.
I did try to take lessons, but being an exuberant 13-year-old, I figured you could learn everything in one day. I went to the guitar teacher and said, "Teach me how to play rock'n'roll." He looked at me like I had three heads. I quit after one lesson and bought one of those "how to play guitar by yourself" books, which taught me the basic barre chords. Then I sat in my bedroom and listened to records by Free, Deep Purple, T Rex and Black Sabbath because they had big fat barre chords and were slow and easy to play; I learned by ear. Playing with my records didn't seem difficult or like music homework, it was more like fun.
I only did enough practice just to play, not enough to consider myself a guitar player, but when my family moved from the east coast to California, I started to think about forming an all-girl band. I was moving near to Hollywood and I thought: I can really do this. Then I got more serious about playing and practising on a consistent basis. People who start learning often say they have a problem with painful calluses and just blow it off. I tell them not to do that because, once you have those calluses, you're free.
Once I moved to California, I started going to a club called Rodney's English Disco, and they played all the British singles that American kids weren't hearing. The club would play Bowie, T Rex, the Sweet, Slade, Suzi Quatro and Mud. My style grew out of listening to that music, and then from the punk rock scene when that really kicked up.
I knew I wasn't really interested in being a lead guitar player - it wasn't where my head was at at all. I was very much into the rhythm aspect of it. I probably would have been a bass player if I hadn't played guitar. Basic barre chords became my thing - just pure music, not really thinking about technique too much. I'm not into difficult fingerings and style, I just like the feel of the guitar.
You don't need an expensive guitar, just one that stays in tune - or pretty much in tune. Unless you're going to do fancy things or switch between sounds, most guitars have too many knobs. My guitars have one volume knob, one tone knob and one on/off toggle switch, so in the heat of a live performance you can just kick your guitar on and off without fussing with the volume knob. My straight setup is a Gibson Melody Maker double cutaway guitar, and the pickups that I use help to give it a unique sound - they were built 20 years ago, and I bought a whole bunch of them in case they stopped making them. They're the pickups I put on the guitar that played I Love Rock'n'Roll on.
For guitar-playing girls - this is important - don't listen to what people tell you. You may run into people asking you what you're doing, saying that girls don't play guitar. You'd think we'd be way past that now - it's been 30 years since I played in the RUNAWAYS - but that's not the case.
It's easy for men to throw those snide comments at girls to make them question what they're doing, and use it as a way to put girls in their place. Unless you're really confident with what you're doing, it can make you hesitate - but just screw all that and keep at it. It was a nice honour to be in the Rolling Stone 100 greatest guitarists of all time with Joni Mitchell - but hopefully next time they do one there'll be more than two women.
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