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For JOAN JETT, music's all about connection
from: omaha.com
By Kevin Coffey
If you go:
Heart with JOAN JETT AND THE BLACKHEARTS
When: 7:30 p.m. Wednesday
Where: CenturyLink Center, 755 N. 10th St.
Tickets: $33 to $148 via Ticketmaster
Info: centurylinkcenteromaha.com or 402-341-1500
JOAN JETT has been a star since she was 16.
She's in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. She has enduring monster hits in "I Love Rock 'n' Roll" and "Bad Reputation." She is an icon.
And she's coming here.
Jett called us during a break in her tour with fellow Rock Hall members Heart to talk guitar, the music industry and connecting with her fans through music.
Q. You started playing guitar at 13, and you were in the RUNAWAYS a few years later. Did you always want to be a musician?
A. I wanted to be so many different things when I was young. At age 5, I wanted to be an astronaut. I wanted to be an archaeologist. In junior high school, I started with chorus class and things like that, and I dreamed about doing plays. I guess it was about that time I started noticing guitars on the radio.
I remember hearing the band Free and their song "All Right Now." It was out of tune. I knew it felt great. That's what guitars sound like. I asked for an electric guitar for Christmas, and I made a lot of hideous noise.
My parents, they encouraged me. It's not like they expected me to be in a band. Girls didn't ask for electric guitars. Back then, it was completely out of the realm of what girls thought about.
Soon after that my family moved to California, and being in a band came true.
A couple of years after learning to play guitar, I was standing next to Jimmy Page and Robert Plant from Led Zeppelin. That kind of stuff is mind-blowing. They were so nice to me. It was really cool.
Q. Everyone talks about the music industry changing, so what has that been like for someone who has been inside of it for pretty much her whole life?
A. It is really different. None of the structures that existed when I started exist any more except for these loose things we call record labels. A musician used to be able to make money on writing and publishing and getting their music played on the radio.
I saw the breakdown the other day, and it's nonexistent as far as an artist making any sort of living being played on the radio. That was a way people made money. My RUNAWAYS publishing money kept me alive for a couple years. I don't know that that would be possible now.
Q. Now touring is such a bigger piece of the pie. How have you kept your live show engaging to keep people coming out?
A. To me, it's really about connection: Musician eyeballs to audience eyeballs. You connect. You see each other. You recognize that vision. You smile. There's contact. There's understanding. I know what you're talking about and you know what I'm talking about.
To me, that's the whole point of music. All of us are so different, but there are places where we totally come together, and music can be that connection. To me, that's what it's about.
There's nothing like it when someone tells you your music has changed their life in ways you can't imagine because you know music has done that for you.
It's really humbling.
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