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ELLE film critic Karen Durbin talks to JOAN JETT, Cherie Currie, and director Floria Sigismondi
from: elle.com
by Karen Durbi/Photo: Getty Images
Karen Durbin: Why did you decide to executive-produce this film?
JOAN JETT: Initially I really wasn't into having the RUNAWAYS' story told, period. I don't know if it was out of protection, because the RUNAWAYS was, you know, my baby. I started the band with Sandy West. I felt that the only things that could happen with a movie would be bad. But the new movie got started off by my partner KENNY LAGUNA, who was trying to help Cherie Currie get her memoir [Neon Angel] published and he couldn't find a publisher. So we were banging around and eventually Kenny hired J.T. LeRoy to write a screenplay of it, and then when that whole situation turned out to be a fraud, somehow Kenny hooked up with [movie producers] Art and John Linson and River Road Entertainment. River Road did Brokeback Mountain and Art Linson has a long track record of successful movies, so I decided to take a leap of faith and hope the rock Ôn' roll god is looking out for me.
KD: What did you do on the movie?
JJ: Some of it involved making sure we had the proper history, the proper songs, to recreate the atmosphere of the time. I was also there as a resource for Kristen if she wanted me. I was willing to stay away as well, but she did want me around so I was ever-present: if she wanted me to do a line reading or ask me a question about the guitar, whatever it was--a mannerism or any little thing, I just wanted to make sure she had the total toolbox.
KD: Did you work with her on the music?
JJ: We were in the studio together, but I didn't have to tell her what to do; she'd already worked by herself on sounding like me. Early on, they sent me a test recording of a song called "I Love Playing With Fire" that I sang in the RUNAWAYS, and all I could hear was me on the track. And I'm like, You have to send me another one with Kristen's voice on it--I didn't hear her. So they send me another one and it sounds exactly the same, and I'm like, It's me again, I can't hear Kristen. And they're like, No, it is Kristen. She had mastered my inflections, how hard I would hit words, every aspect of how I'd sing the song.
KD: I was involved in women's liberation in the 60s and 70s. Were you influenced by women's lib in regard to your aspirations and your music?
JJ: I can't speak for the other girls, but I was totally aware of the movement and certainly embraced it. From a very young age my parents had always told me that I could be anything I wanted, so I never thought about barriers. I wanted to be an astronaut, an archaeologist, a whole host of things before rock Ôn' roll. So, yeah, I felt that maybe the movement would be supportive of the RUNAWAYS. But we got a lot of backlash from women, from feminists who didn't like that we used our sexuality. What I'd say to that is this: Women are sexual, if you cut off half of them that's not cool and that's not liberation. I didn't appreciate that feminists didn't get that we were trying to take it back and use it in a strong way.
KD: Not all feminists felt that way. There were real differences within the movement, with some of the fiercest about sex and sexuality and what I would call a more puritanical perspective.
JJ: So you were one of the horny ones then?
KD: Yep. I heard that the academic term for us in women's studies is "pro-sex feminists." All cultures try to curb and control women's sexuality; on some level, it's terrifying. Sometimes it was terrifying for us but exhilarating too.
JJ: I can imagine. And the mass media gave voice to the prissy side as opposed to the pro-sex side of women's liberation, so maybe the prissy was more acceptable. It's easier to sit there and say you don't like feminists because they don't have a sense of humor.
KD: I've read that you worked with Bikini Kill and that the members of Riot Grrl movement in the '90s saw you as an inspiration.
JJ: It was an absolutely reciprocal experience with a lot of those women. All those girls in Bikini Kill--well there was one boy--were just great. There were so many bands in that whole scene out of Seattle. Bikini Kill was kind of split, they were out of Washington and Washington DC, both were really fertile for underground music. I loved working with Bikini Kill and Kathleen [Hanna], I was lucky enough to write some songs with her. I consider her very outside the box, which I sometimes would consider myself as well.
KD: Were you the first woman rocker to start her own label?
JJ: I believe that's true. It was 1979-1980, and it was because I couldn't get signed by any other label. I wanted a major deal, so KENNY LAGUNA took his infant daughter's college fund, which was a few thousand dollars, and we printed up a few hundred records of JOAN JETT AND THE BLACKHEARTS' album and sold it out of the trunk of our car. That was the first BLACKHEARTS' record.
KD: Floria [RUNAWAYS director] gave me a description of band manager, Kim Fowley, she said he walks with a cane and has bright green hair.
JJ: Yeah, sometimes it's pink. He's a wild and eccentric guy, but I was always very close to him. To me he wasn't scary, I really got a kick out of him.
KD: That's good to know. Michael Shannon played him so entertainingly, but it's easy to imagine him as a fulltime monster.
JJ: They actually got to meet. We asked Kim Fowley where he wanted to meet Michael and he said, "Denny's! Where else would the RUNAWAYS meet?" So we met at a Denny's out in the valley --Kristen and I and Michael and KENNY LAGUNA went--and Kim walked in with his green hair, flinging his cane around. He was with some girl all dressed up to act out a scene, and she comes right up to Michael Shannon like he's Kim Fowley and starts acting. He was crazy, so Michael got a lot of fertile material just from our two-hour dinner at Denny's.
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