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Women in Music: JOAN JETT
The rock 'n' roll legend says bring on the butterflies
from: elle.com
by Candice Rainey, Photo: Retna
JOAN JETT - arguably the hardest-working woman in rock 'n' roll - talks to ELLE about her forthcoming greatest-hits record, what makes a good cover, and why the original riot grrrl still gets nervous before a gig.
ELLE: You're planning to release a JOAN JETT AND THE BLACKHEARTS greatest hits record soon with possibly some new material on it. Any new covers we can look forward to?
JOAN JETT: That's hard to say. I'm not necessarily planning on it, but you never know what comes up. It's a touchy thing to do because sometimes songs are just so classic. So on the one hand, you want to cover it because you love it so much, but on the other hand, sometimes they shouldn't be touched because you just can't. It's not about copying it, it's about doing a version that you can live with.
ELLE: How do you always seem to pull it off?
JJ: Well first of all, I probably don't think about it too much. It's something I've always liked to do, so a lot of them tend to be favorite songs of mine, either when I was growing up or just things I come across. "I Love Rock N' Roll" was something I never heard before. It was a B side of an English single, and when I was on the road with the RUNAWAYS I just happened to hear it and bought a 45, thinking, Wow that's a great song; I'd love to cover it sometime. And the RUNAWAYS never did it. A lot of it has to do with the guitar I wanna play.
ELLE: You founded BLACKHEART RECORDS in 1980 and released your first solo album on it. Was that the plan all along?
JJ: No, at the time we wanted a [record] deal. Nobody wanted me. We still have all the rejection letters. And we got 23 [labels] interested, but they all were like, "You need a song search; no hits here; tell her to drop the guitar."
ELLE: Someone actually suggested that you not play the guitar?
JJ: Yeah. Nobody heard the hits. Now, you're not talking about one song, you're talking about four songs ["I Love Rock N' Roll," "Bad Reputation," "Crimson and Clover," and "Do You Wanna Touch Me?"], one that was one of the biggest hits of all time. But anyway, we did want a deal at first, and we couldn't get one, and the only choice we had if we wanted to get the music out was to print up the records ourselves. And as we were building our career in the New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Pennsylvania area selling records out of our trunk, we had great radio support and all the local radio stations were playing us and doing interviews with us; it was just a ground swell at the right time. Now in retrospect, I'm so happy because I own all my music, and I have a record company that's successful and I'm very proud of what we've done.
ELLE: You're on the road consistently. Have you ever taken off a year or two from touring?
JJ: I've never done that to take time off to enjoy the fruits of my labor. It's really dangerous to me. I think you lose your edge, you take yourself out of it and you come back two years later and you're out of the flow. And I mean, people can do that, but for me, I don't think that would work. The thing I get out of it is the connection. I remember going to shows as a kid and meeting eyes with the people in the band, and knowing they are meeting eyes with you, and that moment, that smile, and that's your moment. I want to create millions of little moments for other people.
ELLE: Do you have a preshow ritual?
JJ: I leave for the show at least an hour ahead, and I do some vocal warm-ups, and that's pretty much it. Some stretching, but it's not really any sort of mental mind thing. Just try to warm up my voice, mostly, and make sure that I'm a little nervous.
ELLE: JOAN JETT still gets nervous before a show?
JJ: Oh, yeah. You want to have butterflies in your stomach, because if you don't, if you walk out onstage complacent, that's not a good thing.
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