April 2022 News

by Lyndsey Parker | Editor in Chief, Yahoo Music




JOAN JETT may have just released two JOAN JETT AND THE BLACKHEARTS 40x40 graphic novels to commemorate the 40th anniversaries of her landmark Bad Reputation and I Love Rock 'N' Roll albums - but the rock 'n' roll superheroine insists that she's not quite so badass, "mean," or "scary" in real life. In fact, she says much of her reputation, bad or otherwise, is the result of her "armor," which she "preemptively" built to protect herself during her fraught teenage years with trailblazing and controversial all-girl band the RUNAWAYS.

"If you're a naive, trusting person - which I tend to be - you gotta watch your ass," Jett tells Yahoo Entertainment.

But now Jett is showcasing her softer side on Changeup, an unplugged album that can be traced back to the well-received acoustic shows she and the BLACKHEARTS played at the L.A. and New York premieres of her 2018 documentary, Bad Reputation. The album features acoustic remakes of some of her biggest hits ("Bad Reputation," "Fake Friends," the RUNAWAYS' rallying cry "Cherry Bomb") as well as deeper cuts, with many of the lyrics taking on poignant new meaning against the stripped-down arrangements. Jett says with a smile, "This is kind of really stepping into the unknown for me and the band, but we're having a great time."

Jett really stepped into the unknown in 1975 - a time when she "could feel that there was this threat in the air" over what the RUNAWAYS were doing, and a time when they teen band even "took s*** from feminists" for using their sexuality. "I didn't really get it, because we're just girls playing rock 'n' roll. We're not hurting people! I didn't really get what was sort of threatening, initially," she muses. But nearly a half-century later, Jett is still pushing herself artistically, taking control of her post-RUNAWAYS narrative, and embracing change.

Here, the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductee discusses Changeup, the media's unfair treatment of the RUNAWAYS, the RUNAWAYS' bonkers seven-minute mini-musical "Dead End Justice," and what is the biggest misunderstanding about her.

Yahoo Entertainment: You just released your first-ever acoustic album, Changeup, featuring acoustic versions of your classic songs. So, I'm gonna start with the obvious question, which is why you decided to revisit your material in this way.

JOAN JETT: So, this past year, last year and this year, is the 40th anniversary of both the Bad Reputation and I Love Rock 'n' Roll albums. In a way to try to give fans some extra material, some things to listen to that might be interesting and different, we thought, "Why don't we try and record a few songs and see, to give to the fans?" And once we got in the studio and started recording stuff, we just kind of kept going, and we recorded pretty much everything that we could do live. And it came out, it sounded great. We did the hits too, but we didn't necessarily want to revisit that specifically on this new album.

What is the one song you would say is the most transformed in that way, when you do it stripped-down?

I would say "Victim of Circumstance," only because if you know the melody, it's an obvious change. Right away, it hits you, when the melody starts, that it's different. So, to me, that's dramatic. But something like "Cherry Bomb" is really fun and different, and I love the way it came out. ... And it was just really, really interesting for me and different, because I'm usually very... I like to stay in a pattern that I know and I'm familiar with. So, this is kind of really stepping into the unknown for me and the band, but we're having a great time.

by Lyndsey Parker




JOAN JETT looks back on her successful career, from her early band The RUNAWAYS, to her acting roles to her big solo hits. She talks about some of the bigger misconceptions about her and why she thinks The RUNAWAYS were threatening to people when they first burst on the scene in the late '70s. She also talks about her new acoustic album, Changeup.

LYNDSEY PARKER: So you just released your first ever acoustic album, "Changeup." It's acoustic versions of your classic songs. So I'm going to start with the obvious question of why you decided to revisit your material in this way.

JOAN JETT: This past year- last year- and this year, is the 40th anniversary of both "Bad Reputation" and "I Love Rock and Roll" albums. [INAUDIBLE] in a way to try to, you know, give fans some extra material, some things to listen to that might be interesting and different. We thought, why don't we try and record a few songs to give to the fans?

And once we got in the studio and started recording stuff, we just kind of kept going. And we recorded pretty much everything that we could do live. And it sounded great. We did the hits, too. But we didn't necessarily want to revisit that, specifically, on this new album.

LYNDSEY PARKER: What is, like, the one song you would say is the most transformed in that way, when you do it stripped down?

JOAN JETT: "Victim of Circumstance," only because it's an- if you know the melody, it's an obvious change. Right away, it hits you when the melody starts that it's different. To me, that's dramatic. But you know, something like "Cherry Bomb," it's really fun and different. And I love the way it came out. It was just really different because I like to stay in a pattern that I know and I'm familiar with. So this is kind of really stepping into the unknown for me and the band. But we're having a great time.

by Jon Zimney




She loves Rock and Rock and she's coming to the Blue Gate Theatre this fall.

JOAN JETT AND THE BLACKHEARTS will perform on Thursday, September 22nd. Tickets for the show go on sale at 10 a.m. on Friday, April 29.

Besides "I Love Rock and Roll" JOAN JETT is known for such hits as "Bad Reputation," "I Hate Myself For Loving You," and "Crimson and Clover."

With a career that has spanned music, film, television, Broadway, and humanitarianism, JOAN JETT remains a potent force and inspiration to generations of fans worldwide.

by Jim Shahen Jr. | Photo: Rob Tringali/Getty Images




JOAN JETT AND THE BLACKHEARTS with Soraia Top-five coolest living person JOAN JETT rocked the Palace with the BLACKHEARTS on Saturday. The most interesting part wasn't the rafter-rattling renditions of "Bad Reputation," "Coney Island Whitefish" or "I Love Rock 'n' Roll;" it was the five-song acoustic show-closer. Jett asked the audience for patience, as playing acoustic is new to her and makes her feel "exposed." With her legacy intact and persona solidified, challenging expectations is bold and deserves kudos. She also pulled it off nicely, even if audience reaction was mixed. Opener Soraia, indebted to Jett's classic sound, played loud and trashy hard rock. They were glorious. Rating: 9 out of 10

by Sam Kemp | Photo by Alamy




JOAN JETT has always been a force of nature. With her first group, The RUNAWAYS, she bought an icy charm to the girl group format, helping the punk band to upset notions of propriety and expand the role of women in the music business. As a performer in her own right, she became one of the most revered female musicians in America, going on to record hits like 'I Love Rock 'n' Roll' and founding her own label, BLACKHEART RECORDS, which produced riot grrrl groups like Bikini Kill and L7.

While her performance style with The RUNAWAYS was a lot more pared-back than her lingerie-clad bandmate Cherie Currie, Jett never shied away from bringing a certain theatricality to her songs and stagecraft. The exuberance of tracks like 'I Love Rock 'n' Roll' highlights the influence of glam stars like Marc Bolan and, of course, the great David Bowie

When asked to list her top ten favourite albums, Jett was quick to name T. Rex's 1971 album Electric Warrior. Filled with churning, anthemic riffs, it served as the blueprint for an entire generation of heavy rockers and hair metallers in the early '80s. But for Jett, there is one album that makes all others look insignificant in comparison: David Bowie's 1970 LP Diamond Dogs.

Of the Ken Scott-produced album, Jett said: "Theatrical rock and roll, head and shoulders above the rest. Bowie is always stretching the boundaries." She's not wrong. One of Bowie's greatest talents was his ability to transform rock music into an immersive experience where imagination was given free rein. The theatricality Jett so fell in love with was a direct result of one of Bowie's earliest passions: musical theatre.

We take it for granted that Bowie arrived fully formed, but his elaborate shows wouldn't have been possible if he hadn't first explored other avenues outside working as a performing solo musician. As he noted in 2004: "When I was around 17-18, what I wanted to do more than anything was write something for Broadway - I wanted to write a musical," he began. "I had no idea how you did it or how musicals were constructed, but the idea of writing something that was rock-based for Broadway really intrigued me I thought that would b a wonderful thing to do."

You can feel that original passion pulsing through albums like Diamond Dogs, the promotional tour for which saw Bowie utilise a stunning array of props, costumes, and lighting effects. Check out his rendition of 'Candidate' live at the Universal Amphitheatre below.

by Gabriela L. Laracca | Photo by Mark R. Sullivan




Do you love rock 'n' roll?

JOAN JETT does, and she's playing Friday at the Count Basie Center for the Arts in Red Bank with her band the BLACKHEARTS. The rock icon has just released an album of acoustic songs called "Changeup." It looks like she may throw a few in at the end of the show.

Her social media shows her playing an acoustic guitar under the heading "Rehearsal."

"Bringing something special to the end of the set," Jett said.

Jett is playing theaters through June, then she's on a stadium tour this summer with Motley Crue, Def Leppard and Poison. No matter what she does, nothing will diminish her "Bad Reputation." The Basie show was previously scheduled for 2020 and postponed several times until now due to COVID.

The Hackensack Meridian Health Theatre in the Count Basie Center for the Arts is at 99 Monmouth St. Tickets are $49 to $99. For more information, call 732-842-9000 or visit thebasie.org.

by California18s




Mexico City.- In rock with a social cause, in the lyrics that question reality, in the stories of women without prejudice, JOAN JETT found her purest and most genuine form of expression, the same one that made her a legend and gave her the title of feminist. and rebellious without caring what they would say.

A true rock standard of the 70s and 80s, with a career spanning almost five decades and already inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame with his band, The BLACKHEARTS, the interpreter of the number one song "I Love Rock 'n ' Roll" said she was proud to have made her way in an industry run by men.

"There may be an evolution, but women never lose that stigma that age is a disadvantage. A man matures and nobody says anything about his appearance; a woman grows up and everyone has an opinion.

"Since I started, there were men giving their opinion of what I sang without understanding women, and I feel that there has been significant progress. I have earned my place for who I am, for what I represent and because I fought against all kinds of stereotypes" , sentenced Jett by telephone from his home in New York.

With her newly released acoustic album Changeup, the 63-year-old star said she doesn't know what to do with the compliments, as stars like Billie Eilish and Miley Cyrus often cite her as a major influence, though she likes that because it brings her into the conversation. of today's youth.

"There are bands outside of the mainstream who refer to me and praise me, and girls like them make me feel very valued. I think that in the industry I have not been recognized as much as I should be, although, honestly, I have never been motivated by awards.

"I feel like there's a lot of respect for me, but in the awards conversation, I'm almost never there," said the nominated for only one Grammy, for the song "I Hate Myself for Loving You."

It was in late 2017 when Jett was filming profile interviews for her documentary Bad Reputation, directed by Kevin Kerslake, that she reflected on the songs she's made in her career that have referenced her as a rock mainstay.

by Rachel Roberts




Rock legend JOAN JETT has spoken about the sexism she faced early on in her music journey and spoke out about the abuse faced by The RUNAWAYS

Guitar goddess JOAN JETT has recently spoken out over the sexism she's faced since picking up a guitar for the first time at 13-years-old.

In an interview with The Guardian, the Bad Reputation rocker revealed she would cry backstage after gigs with The RUNAWAYS as people would call them sluts, spit and throw bottles at them.

She stated, "No one gave us any credit that we could play at all," and told of how people saw them as a gimmick, adding: "And that was really galling because we played better than a lot of the bands we opened for."

The RUNAWAYS were set up by Jett and drummer Sandy West, with the addition of Jackie Fox, Cherie Curie and Lita Ford and went on to be one of the most renowned all-female rock bands, with hit songs such as Cherry Bomb earning the band a respectable name for themselves.

The RUNAWAYS respected reputation in music has even earned them a biopic film with the same title as the band name, starring Kristen Stewart as JOAN JETT which was released back in 2010.

But Jett's first experience of sexism within rock music dates back to her first guitar lesson at just 13. She told The Guardian how she expressed an interest in wanting to play rock 'n' roll but her teacher replied, "'Girls don't play rock'n'roll. Let me teach you On Top of Old Smokey instead.'"

by Liza Lentini




A definitive "no way" was JOAN JETT's response when asked if she'd always planned to record an acoustic album. "You had to remember, when I was a young girl wanting to play a guitar, people told me, 'Girls can't play electric guitar. Girls can play rock and roll,'" Joan says. "I wanted that electric guitar and I did not want to even see an acoustic guitar. I had no use for it throughout my career."

Joan tells me she was "repelled" by the acoustic guitar, based on the biases surrounding women in music: "I said, 'You have plenty of girls playing acoustic guitar. You don't need me. You need more playing electric guitar.'"

Enter Changeup (released March 25), Joan's first-ever all-acoustic album that came about, as she explains, by doing extra tracks for fans. "A couple of years ago, we did a documentary called Bad Reputation that was in theaters for a little bit," she says. "We were asked, at the L.A. premiere, to perform a few songs from the film. We couldn't really set up electric, it was just an impossible task, and so we decided, the whole band will be there and we'll just try to do some of these acoustic."

She continues: "We did Bad Reputation and a few other songs and it felt good. It went over well, and so I didn't fear it as much. I wasn't looking to do something necessarily. Now, last year and this year, are both the 40thanniversary of the Bad Reputation album and I Love Rock 'n Roll album. We wanted to figure out a way at it, 'What can we do to give the fans some extra bits or something? Maybe we'll record a few of these songs acoustic.'" After being on the road in August 2021, Joan and the band started recording Changeup in November.

The 25-song-playlist includes fiercely intimate, reinvented acoustic favorites, including "Bad Reputation," "Crimson and Clover," "Cherry Bomb," and "Light of Day."

Joan went on the record with us about making Changeup.

by Newsdesk




JOAN JETT is determined to "connect with and support" young female artists.

The 63-year-old star is close to the likes of Miley Cyrus, and Joan is always keen to offer advice and support to up-and-coming artists.

She explained: "I always try to make sure that I connect with and support [young women] in any way I can.

"Most of the time they're going through the same things that I've been through many times over."

However, Joan feels a bit uncomfortable talking about her own legacy in the music industry.

Joan - who is best known as the frontwoman of JOAN JETT AND THE BLACKHEARTS - told Guardian newspaper: "When people say "punk queen", I'm, like, you got Patti Smith, man, you can't compete with that.

"I want to be 'a' one rather than 'the' one, otherwise the only way is down. There's this Maya Angelou quote which says: 'People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did but people will never forget how you made them feel.' I just wanna make people feel good."

by Haley Ferran




After 40 years of playing together, Rock and Roll Hall of Famer JOAN JETT AND THE BLACKHEARTS released their first-ever all-acoustic album, ChangeUp, in March. (Nine years have passed since their last album, Unvarnished, in 2013.)

Jett, 63, wrote about the new album ChangeUp: "It's pretty cool to be able to find a new way of doing the thing that you've done your whole life, and experience it in a completely different way."

The album ChangeUp, which runs 1 hour and 22 minutes, includes 25 songs including fan favorites "Crimson and Clover," "Bad Reputation," and "(I'm Gonna) Run Away," among others. The only obvious hit song missing from the all-acoustic album is the 40-year-old single "I Love Rock and Roll."

Brody Dalle of The Distillers replied to the news: "I Love you Joan, can't wait to hear the badassery." Another fan replied: "The master shows that she still has the mojo."

And another wrote: "We often hear her more fiery, explosive side when it comes to her music, but listening to her play and sing in a more relaxed state is so refreshing. To me, it also shows there's some versatility to her style. She can speed it up or slow it down, and still make a awesome jam!"

By KATHERINE YESKE TAYLOR




With Changeup (released March 25 via BLACKHEART RECORDS), iconic rockers JOAN JETT AND THE BLACKHEARTS are breaking new ground: for the first time, they're releasing an acoustic album. On it, they give 25 of their most beloved songs the stripped-down treatment, including hits such as "Bad Reputation," "Cherry Bomb," "Fake Friends," and "Crimson and Clover."

This was, Jett tells American Songwriter, "just something that organically happened" because of the 2018 documentary about her life, Bad Reputation. "We were doing the premieres for that, and one of the theaters wanted us to do a few songs. We couldn't really set up electric, so we thought about trying to do acoustic tracks, and it happened to go down really well in front of people. So we knew that we could do this."

Then, 2020 and 2021 marked the 40th anniversaries of Jett's first two albums, Bad Reputation and I Love Rock 'n Roll. To commemorate the occasion, Jett and her band decided to record a few of these acoustic versions to release as bonus tracks, but it soon became clear that this should become a full album release of its own: "Once we got in the studio and started recording, we just kept going because it sounded really good."

Still, Jett admits, it took some time to adjust to this quieter sound after a lifetime of rocking out full blast. One of the biggest changes, for Jett, was "Definitely, my vocals -I had to pull back a bit. I couldn't sing as hard as I would to some of these songs normally because it didn't match, energetically, with the music. So I had to look for other ways to approach it, whether it was changing the melody or changing my vocal style a little bit by not singing as loudly."

In the end, she and her band are pleased with the conversion. "We thought it didn't diminish anything -it didn't take away from the songs at all. In fact, I think maybe it added some nuanced things: the song can show you different parts of itself." For example, she says, "I found that the lyrics sort of jumped out. I guess they're a lot more audible or understandable."

This is especially important to Jett because, she says, "I think a lot of these songs, for whatever reason, the lyrics get overlooked a lot. So I'm very proud that everyone can hear them [on these versions], and that many of them seem as relevant today as the day I wrote them."

Jett has certainly proven that she knows how to create songs that resonate with people. In the 1970s, as a member of the group The RUNAWAYS while she was a teenager, she helped redefine what a female rock musician can do. After first striking out as a solo artist, and then forming JOAN JETT AND THE BLACKHEARTS, she created some of the most memorable songs of the 1980s. Since then, she's become recognized as one of the most revered figures in popular music, as proven by her induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2015. Even so, Jett remains modest.

By Fiona Sturges | Photograph: Shervin Lainez




Forty years after topping the charts with I Love Rock'n'Roll's snarling menace, Jett is still rocking out. She talks about the sexism she faced, nurturing today's female stars and her dad sneaking into her early gigs.

When JOAN JETT was 13 years old, she had her first lesson on the electric guitar her parents had given her for Christmas. "I went in there all excited and said to the teacher: 'I wanna play rock'n'roll,'" she says. "And he said to me: 'Girls don't play rock'n'roll. Let me teach you [the folk song] On Top of Old Smokey instead.'" Jett never went back for a second lesson - instead, she bought a book and taught herself to play. It wouldn't be the last time a man tried to put her in her place: "It's the hand in the face telling you 'You can't do this' or 'Don't do that'," she says. "And it's not just in rock'n'roll, it's everywhere."

This year marks 40 years since I Love Rock'n'Roll, JOAN JETT AND THE BLACKHEARTS' cover of a song originally by the Arrows, reached No 1 in the Billboard Hot 100 and stayed there for seven weeks. The BLACKHEARTS were Jett's second band; her first, the RUNAWAYS, in which she played rhythm guitar, had barged their way on to the Los Angeles punk scene in 1976, making their debut with the raucous single Cherry Bomb. By 1979, they had split up. Since those heady, chaotic early years, Jett has barely stopped. At 63, she continues to release albums on her label, BLACKHEART RECORDS, and, pandemic notwithstanding, tours relentlessly. As the decades have passed, veneration of Jett as a feminist pioneer and all-round force of nature has grown. In 2010, Kristen Stewart played her in the biopic The RUNAWAYS (with Dakota Fanning as the band's singer, Cherie Currie), while in 2018, Bad Reputation, Kevin Kerslake's documentary named after one of Jett's signature songs, traced her rise from snarling teen to rock'n'roll grande dame.

It's late afternoon at Jett's Long Island home when we speak via video call. In a low-ceilinged room illuminated with fairy lights, she is relaxing after a late night playing her first concert in months. "Excuse my casualness here," she says, slumped in an armchair, iPhone propped up on her knees. Dressed in regulation black vest and jeans, she is toned and athletic-looking. Her hair is just as it ever was: dyed black and heavily layered in the classic rocker's shag cut. Liza Minnelli in Cabaret was among the inspirations for the teenage Jett's look. "I loved the androgyny, or the gender-bending thing or however you want to put it," she reflects. "My image was my armour. It's not like I went around punching people, but people were intimidated and that was purposeful."

Also on our call is Jett's longtime manager, producer, co-writer and best pal KENNY LAGUNA. As a keyboard player in the 1960s, he performed on a string of bubblegum hits including Mony Mony by Tommy James and the Shondells. He and Jett have worked together since 1979, when the RUNAWAYS fell apart and she graduated from rhythm guitarist to lead singer of the BLACKHEARTS. As Laguna puts it in the documentary, he brought the pop while she "brought the menace". Their relationship is entirely platonic - it was Laguna's wife, Meryl, who suggested he seek out Jett after reading about her in the British music press. Nonetheless, they sound just like a married couple with their bossing and bickering. "Lift your head up, Kenny!" Jett barks at him, when he lets his camera slip. "We can't see your mouth. It's very unnerving."

Jett spent much of the pandemic at home going stir-crazy, so she couldn't be happier to be back on stage. "It's the longest I've ever gone [not performing] since I started in the business. There's this song that Kenny and I wrote many years ago called You Don't Know What You've Got, and that's actually the case. It was pretty distressing, but then it was a gift in other ways. It forced you to slow down, and a lot of people have trouble with that, me included."

Along with a tour, there's a new album, Changeup, a collection of acoustic versions of old tracks including Crimson and Clover and Bad Reputation. Jett loves to find new ways to play old songs - "You find all these nooks and crannies that you didn't know were there," she says. When I ask if she feels she might go mad if she has to crank out I Love Rock'n'Roll one more time, she looks appalled: "Not at all. For me, you're playing it in front of new people every time, so it's new. It can never be the same. I don't want to have a lackadaisical attitude about these things. I don't ever want to fake it."