|
All news is attributed to the source from which it was received so that readers may judge the validity of the statements for themselves.
Have Joan Jett news to report? Email us at jettfc@aol.com, and please include the source of the information so it can be validated.
JOAN JETT Interview, The RUNAWAYS
from: moviesonline.ca.com
by Sheila Roberts
When songwriter and musician JOAN JETT co-founded The RUNAWAYS with drummer Sandy West, she made history and paved the way for all the women who came after her by pioneering a seminal all girl rock and roll band and inspiring female musicians to pick up a guitar in the formerly male dominated landscape. Her influence continues to be felt today not only in the music world, but also in the fabric of society, penetrating pop culture with her music, her signature style, and her social activism.
In keeping with her pioneering spirit, Joan became the first woman to start her own independent record company, BLACKHEART RECORDS. The label continues to grow, giving emerging artists a chance to succeed. Joan also recently designed with Gibson her signature JOAN JETT Gibson Melody Maker. This is the first signature electric guitar created by a woman, and the JOAN JETT Melody Maker is one of the hottest guitars on the market.
MoviesOnline sat down recently with Joan to discuss her new movie "The RUNAWAYS." The film tells the story of the band's meteoric rise, their wild life on the road fueled by sex, drugs and booze, and the eventual dissolution of The RUNAWAYS just three years and five albums later. JOAN JETT talked to us about her role as executive producer, how she and Cherie Currie worked closely with actresses Kristen Stewart and Dakota Fanning who portrayed them, and what she felt was the band's legacy.
Q: There were a lot of photos during the production where you were on set. You were standing right behind the camera as they were shooting scenes. You were incredibly hands on.
JJ: I wasn't really behind the camera.
Q: You were on set.
JJ: I was on set.
Q: And you had a lot of input into the story. Was that something that was incredibly important to you Ð telling this story, getting the film out?
JJ: I think yeah. I mean, it better be.
Q: Some people just sign off and say "Yes, make a movie about my life. You have source material. Go ahead." But they wouldn't necessarily be coaching the actress as they go into scenes.
JJ: I wasn't actually coaching Kristen doing scenes. It was more an energy, man. You gotta understand what you're doing here. It's a rock Ôn roll band. I mean, source material, that's great. You can watch videos all you want. That's great. But, to live it and to know what it is and what you're trying to achieve, that's a different thing. You can't research that. You have to hear it from the horse's mouth. You know what I mean?
Q: How did you help these actresses get to be who you were two decades ago?
JJ: I think a lot of the credit has to go to the actual actors because they did their own level of research I'm sure, like with any You Tube videos they were able to find of all of us, Kim included. But, for me, I met Kristen about a year and a couple months ago, last New Year's Eve. She came up to see a gig right before she started filming New Moon. We had one day together just to talk and I kind of dumped on her for a few hours about The RUNAWAYS and what it meant to me and how important it was, and just all sorts of little details I might not tell anybody else. I asked her if she was going to cut her hair and she said yes, and right away that gave me a sense of commitment because that's a lot of hair. You're doing a very intense haircut that Ð I can't explain it Ð it's not just a regular haircut. I knew she was going to take shit for it. Let's put it that way. But I thought that it showed a level of commitment. I burned her all the RUNAWAYS CDs.
I burned her several RUNAWAYS bootlegs from live shows in Cleveland in Ô76 or the Whiskey and the Starwood, which is a club here that's gone now, so she could hear the onstage banter and the audience yelling. I gave her some tapes of me talking as a 14-year-old because I had a very Maryland/Pennsylvania drawl. Whether or not she got a chance to utilize that wasn't important. It was about just having that for her own self so she could listen and see who I was. But she also listened to those records and studied on her own. When we finally did get together about 3 weeks before filming started, we didn't have any time so we went to the studio. She had studied everything. Dakota and her took maybe two days to sing all this stuff and the background parts and everything. Then, after that, we went into the rehearsal studios so they could now put on instruments and be on stage and listen and have to now move at the same time you're singing and just kind of feel what it's like to be a band. Ideally, you would have liked to have weeks to do that, but they didn't. They had literally a couple of days. Plus Cherie and I were in there talking to Dakota and Kristen about any moves that we could remember that we would do on stage or any sort of input we could give them.
Q: Can you describe a move that you taught Kristen that you had done?
JJ: It was everything. It was the way I stand. It's how low the guitar is. It's that I play bar chords as opposed to Ð I don't even know what the other kind of chords would be called. I play bar chords so it's a specific look. And, depending on the song, there might have been some choreography, just a little bit of stuff. I might say, "I'd go up towards the audience here and sort of move forward and back as opposed to standing back by the amp" -- just that that would be my nature to go towards the audience, you know, those little kinds of things. And then, we had a little bit of time to read the script. I'd just read through the script. I'd read all the parts and I'd read all the action just so she could hear me talk and move and see how I reacted, I guess. I could feel her watching me and my mannerisms. We're kind of a lot alike anyway in our regular energy so that was very helpful. When you'd see the two of us in the trailer, we'd both be doing the same thing without even planning on it. It was really weird and surreal but in a good way. It was a very pleasant experience.
Q: Did that meeting take place long after she had been cast?
JJ: Yes.
Q: What role did you have in getting her cast?
JJ: My role in getting her cast was Ð not really. All I said to the casting people was it'd be really good if you could get teenagers because I think that makes a difference Ð the energy Ð even though those few years, I think it changes things. Once I heard Kristen was cast Ð this was a few months after Twilight came out Ð I had actually seen her in Panic Room and I know one other thing Ð I can't remember the movie Ð I was not colored by the fact that she was the one in Twilight. I didn't have a preconceived notion of Bella or anything like that. So I was just really into it. I thought it was great, and once I met her, I felt very relieved because I could really tell she wasn't just taking it for a gig, you know, to just get through it. She was committed and really wanted to be authentic.
Q: You mentioned the hair and the hair was a big deal, not just getting her hair cut but in New Moon she has to wear a wig because of that hair cut. Clearly, that freaked out a lot of Summit executives when they found that out. Did that meant a lot to you?
JJ: It did. It did just because it showed commitment. I think it's a lot easier to embody it and feel it when you're in the hair. If you're going to the set every day and having the hair put on, yeah, you'll feel like it. But, when you live in it and you're waking up in the morning and that's your hair, I just thought it's one tiny element that helps. I don't know if it helped her or not but it showed me a level of commitment. It shows me what I would have done had I been an actor, that I would have wanted to do something like that to embody it.
Q: What do you see as the future of rock Ôn roll?
JJ: Oooh, I don't know about that. That's a tough question to answer. I mean, that's really in the hands of probably some of the people that are going to be watching this movie where rock Ôn roll goes because there are kids out there playing in bands and girls too in every city playing music and in bands and really good. So it's just a matter of them finding that way to make the connection and turn it into something big.
Q: You've had such a successful career with your music and now in the film industry. Do you have any unfinished business? Is there anything else you'd like to do that you haven't done yet?
JJ: Probably, but nothing specific necessarily that I want to do. Hopefully, it'll just show itself when it's time. I'm really happy doing what I'm doing. I'm not looking to do anything else. I love what I do. I love music. I love playing. I love touring. So really it's just things come to you. The universe brings things so I just wait for that and I try to project and go "I want this and this is what I want now!" So, the unfinished business? Yeah, I hope there's a lot. I hope there's a lot coming my way Ð unexpected things Ð not just music, not just career, but who knows.
Q: What do you think is the legacy of The RUNAWAYS?
JJ: It's a hard question to answer. The legacy of The RUNAWAYS. I guess I don't really know what that means because there's so much. But, to me, at it's root, it's about following your dreams and that girlsÉI mean, if you want to talk about girls can play rock Ôn roll, girls can play rock Ôn roll. It always never made sense to me when people said, "Girls can't play rock Ôn roll. What are you doing?" And I'm like, "What do you mean girls can't play rock Ôn roll? I'm in school with girls playing cello and violin and playing Beethoven and Bach, so what do you mean that they can't play rock Ôn roll?" You don't mean they can't master the instrument. What you mean is they're not allowed to because roll Ôn roll implies sexuality. It's sexual. It's sexual music.
Think of Led Zeppelin, think of Robert Plant standing there with his shirt open and standing there with the mike down here. Think of the Sticky Fingers album cover with just the zipper there. Think about how sexual that music is, why they wouldn't let people listen to Chuck Berry because they were afraid he'd steal their 16-year-old daughters, why they showed Elvis from the waist up. I mean, it's sexual. And so, when girls now say I want to do this, I want to own it, it's different than pop music which is kind of like "You can do what you want with me." Rock Ôn roll is assertive and people are threatened by that and I don't really get it, you know. I really don't. I thought people were going to be blown away by The RUNAWAYS. So, I think the legacy is Ð I know it sounds clichŽ Ð but it's just to follow your dreams and don't let other people dictate your path, because if you're going to make mistakes and if you're going to have triumphs, make them your own. Don't make them your parents or your friends or your peers that want you to do this or that and then you do this or that and then when something goes bad, you're even more in turmoil because it's not even your mistakes. It's theirs. So, at least if you follow your dreams and it doesn't work out the way you want, you gave it a shot. You won't live with going, "What if I had only tried? What if I had only tried?" You won't get that ulcer and maybe you'll have some great stories too.
Q: Did you enjoy Japan?
JJ: I did very much. I look forward to going back too, definitely.
"The RUNAWAYS" opens in theaters on March 19th.
|
| |
This Week:
No shows scheduled this week.
Click on the LIVE DATES link for upcoming shows |
Item Of The Month:
|
