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JOAN JETT: 'My Lot in Life Is to Battle'
from: nytimes.com
By Melena Ryzik
After 40-plus years in rock, the singer and guitarist is as fierce and defiant as ever. A new documentary charts her pathbreaking rise.
JOAN JETT has worked. That's one message of "Bad Reputation," a documentary chronicling her 40-plus years in the music business, first as a founder of the RUNAWAYS, the seismic teen girl rockers of the '70s, then as the frontwoman and guitarist for the BLACKHEARTS, her enduring band. Her drive was to keep playing, no matter the consequences; even when women were sidelined, she persevered.
"For me, it was all in, completely," she said of being a rock musician. "And I think I knew that young. I didn't have a Plan B." (As Iggy Pop puts it in the doc: "JOAN JETT was nobody's sidecar.")
Her ferocity and defiance have never diminished. At 60, she is still clad in black and leather, with expertly winged eyeliner -- even offstage. Her leather looks are actually faux; she is a longtime animal advocate. The effect is the same though: hot, figuratively and literally. "You should sweat when you're onstage," she said. "Flinging it around! I like it."
The BLACKHEARTS' ongoing United States tour resumes Oct. 19, in Michigan, with Australia on deck next year, and their catalog has just begun streaming.
The documentary, in theaters and on demand on Sept. 28, also uncovers a lesser-known side of Ms. Jett's life: her relationship with her longtime manager and producer, KENNY LAGUNA. Mr. Laguna, who originally made his name on bubble-gum tunes in the '60s, helped her form the BLACKHEARTS, after his wife, Meryl, encouraged them to work together. He brought the pop, he says in the film, and Ms. Jett "brought the menace."
Together, they bicker, lovingly. For a time, Ms. Jett even lived with the Lagunas on Long Island and helped raise their daughter, Carianne Brinkman, now the vice president of BLACKHEART RECORDS. The movie was Ms. Brinkman's idea.
In an interview at the Lagunas' traditionalist Long Island home, Ms. Jett opened a pack of her ever-present gum (Orbit Bubblemint flavor) and, sitting on the patio, discussed her fears, her sexuality and why she once decked Chuck Berry. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.
JOAN JETT I gotta say right off the bat, talking about myself in this way is just strange. It's always uncomfortable for me to assess my place in the world. I'm very shy, in a way.
Well, who persuaded you to do the documentary, then?
Carianne. When I met her, she was three months old. She grew up on the road with us. I think it helped crack something in me. It opened up my heart a little bit. [The Lagunas] made me feel stronger.
Critics were famously tough on the RUNAWAYS as women, and the BLACKHEARTS were initially rejected by dozens of record labels. Do those early denials still charge you?
Definitely. Because I don't think that much has changed, in all this time. In streaming [services], I'm sure the people who make the decision are mostly guys. Not that that really should reflect what they play, but it does. Get more women in decision-making positions, where the money is. If you're not going to give a woman that kind of power, then what kind of power does she have, really?
Female artists still have to sometimes use urinals backstage, because clubs weren't built with women stars in mind.
Oh, I get very friendly with cups. I mean, [expletive] a urinal. That's not clean. I'm just in my dressing room, with a cup. Quick, easy, you don't have to go anywhere. Try it next time! Solo cup. Check that Solo cup before you drink. [Laughs]
Do you still get the same joy from writing a song that you did early on?
I definitely do. But I think I feel more fearful that you're not going to come up with anything. You don't sit down, because if you sit down, then you have to come up with something, and if you don't, what then? Maybe five times in my whole life have I sat down and a song was pretty much there -- idea, melody, riff. Those are such gifts. But basically, I have to remind myself: It's work. You have to sit down and go, this is so stupid, no one's going to listen to this -- that's how it starts.
Was the RUNAWAYS' "Cherry Bomb" one of those immediate songs?
[The eventual frontwoman] Cherie Currie showed up to audition, and she had no song to sing. So Kim [Fowley, the band's manager and producer] said we're going to write you a song. Kim and I went in the other room, and he said, just start playing me something, play a riff. I started jamming on the "Cherry Bomb" riff, and he started with the chorus -- "hello Daddy, hello Mom." I'd say 20, 25 minutes, we came back and said, "Sing this." It was great to be in that creative process, happening right there for a specific person. But it was her representing all of us -- it wasn't just necessarily about Cherie. I was trying to represent all girls.
Kim Fowley launched your career. After his death, in 2015, he was accused of rape by a former RUNAWAYS bassist. Did you think differently about him and what he meant to your life after those allegations surfaced?
It's tough to answer. I never felt threatened by Kim. He never harassed me. I think he would have been afraid to. I lived at his house for a while too. Lita [Ford, the RUNAWAYS guitarist] and I both lived there. If I had felt uncomfortable, or like some guy was going to [expletive] with me, sexually, I would have been out of there, man. Do I think differently about him? I don't like the thought -- if he hurt people, that's not good. It's hard for me to listen to that. But I can't really speak to what they're saying. [Ms. Jett has said she was not aware of the incident when it happened.]
I realize, there's so many nuances. There's so much bad behavior, and of course I've endured many degrees of it, just standing up for myself. I don't know how that manifests for many women. I know what it means for me.
An example: I was working with Chuck Berry once, doing some gigs together. We were on friendly terms. And we were in, I think, St. Louis, playing a stadium, and I was walking to the stage, in the parking lot. All of a sudden I felt somebody grab me from behind, sort of wrap their arms around me. I didn't know who it was, and I went -- [she grunts and throws her arm back]. Elbowed, dead in the head, Chuck Berry. It wasn't even a sexual grab. It's just, my gears are set to punch when that stuff happens. Like, I was taught young and learned from experience. That's just the way I respond.
I think we're all going through a thorny cultural shift, reassessing illustrious artists who also may have demeaned or abused people. In Kim's case, he championed you as a groundbreaking band but also didn't shy away from sexing you up.
I can't totally blame Kim for that. It was about doing what the Rolling Stones did. If Mick Jagger can go out there and ride a big penis on stage, and that's fine, how come girls -- girls want to have sex, girls are sexual. Why can't girls own sex the way boys do? It's not fair. We were getting [expletive] from the feminists, saying, you're using your sexuality. Well, sorry, but we are girls, maybe sometimes we want to [expletive].
Audiences are somewhat more accepting of difference now. Like your friend Laura Jane Grace, who came out as trans and continued to have success fronting the punk band Against Me! With all the battles you faced just to perform, do you ever feel a tinge jealous of artists now?
I think my lot in life is to battle. I don't mean it like you're always tense and fighting. It's the long battle, something you don't win with muscular strength. You win it with mental fortitude, with being able to do what you say you can do. If you're a musician and you claim you can play, I can play. Like Laura Jane is out there saying, "This is me." I love it. I guess I just do mine in my own way.
Do you feel most yourself onstage?
I feel free. Although there have been times I've been really uncomfortable onstage. But when it's clicking, that's probably one of the places I'm most alive, for sure.
There's a touching part in the movie, where you talk about how difficult it is to maintain a relationship -- your primary love has been music, rather than a person.
Yeah, it's kind of sad, isn't it? I watched it, and I was like, "Wow, what a life, man." [Maintaining relationships] is definitely tough. Or thinking that a relationship will make everything O.K., and that's not the case. And then you get fearful, because it's been so long and you don't trust people.
The movie screened at Outfest in Los Angeles, and there was some commentary from the L.G.B.T. community questioning that choice, since you have never been fully public about your sexuality. Do you want to respond?
They don't want the movie there because I don't declare? [Holding up her necklace] What the [expletive] is that? Two labryses, or axes, crossing each other, inside of two women's symbols crossing each other. It's not been off since I got it. And I wear this one every day. [She turns around, lifts her shirt and reveals a tattoo with similar female symbols on her lower back.] I don't know how much more you can declare.
People aren't going to tell me what to do. I'm not going to be told how to live and how I can be myself -- "You must say it." It's like, the more you want me to say it, the more I won't say it. I'll just do it. I'm telling my story every day onstage, loud. And if you choose not to hear it because you want me to do it in the way you want me to do it? Fine, I'm not going to make you happy then. If this isn't for you, bye. But I think I declare every day, all day long.
It's not good enough to say, [singing her version of "Crimson and Clover"] "I don't hardly know her, but I think I could love her"? [Pointing to the necklace] that's not good enough. You know what I say? Eat me.
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