September 2022 News

By Jordan Potter




JOAN JETT hit the stage during the recent Taylor Hawkins tribute concert in Los Angeles to join the surviving members of Foo Fighters with Blink-182's Travis Barker on Hawkins' stool.

The dream team performed renditions of two of JOAN JETT's classic hits, 'Cherry Bomb' from 1984's Glorious Results of a Misspent Youth and 'Bad Reputation' from her self-titled 1980 album. The latter has been covered several times in the past during guest appearances involving Foo Fighters and JOAN JETT.

One of the most memorable of these 'Bad Reputation' performances took place on Late Night With David Letterman in 2011 when Foo Fighters, including Hawkins, invited Jett to join the stage with them for their go-to cover.

At present, official footage from the Taylor Hawkins tribute concert hasn't been released, but in the meantime, you can watch some crowd-shot footage of the supergroup playing 'Cherry Bomb' below.

Back in May, Jett remembered her late friend, Taylor Hawkins, in an interview with NME. The singer remembered the late Foo Fighter as "a fuckin' wonderful guy," she said, before adding: "[He] would light up a room. Kick-ass drummer." She also recalled how she and her band, The BLACKHEARTS, first met the Foos in 2010, when they "all really hit it off".

Discussing their joint performance on Late Night With David Letterman in 2011, Jett said: "Just little things like that, they included me in. It was very, sort of, familial. We're all sittin' backstage, runnin' through songs. I can see [Taylor] now on his drum pad, whacking away. He's a wonderful guy."

In March, Jett paid one of the earliest tributes to the fallen rock star, adding praise to "one of the greatest drummers of our time" during a performance just hours after his death was revealed on March 25th.

Watch JOAN JETT, Travis Barker, and Foo Fighters perform 'Cherry Bomb' below.

By Akhona Zungu




Rock Legend JOAN JETT is known for her perseverance and tenacity in her pursuit of a career once reserved for men. Jett is a talented vocalist and musician who has led two famous bands in her lifetime, and she continues to grace the limelight of the music scene with her black leather-ridden aesthetic.

JOAN JETT established the RUNAWAYS in 1975, and after the group tragically dissolved, she became the frontwoman of the BLACKHEARTS in 1981. The BLACKHEARTS shot to fame in 1982 when they released the all-time classic "I Love Rock n Roll," which charted number two on Billboard and was eventually listed in the Grammy Hall of Fame.

However, Jett came from humble beginnings before fiercely pursuing her passion. The BLACKHEARTS frontwoman worked as a waiter in a cafeteria where people were not always so kind. She also had a near-death experience when she was flying to perform for the troops in Pakistan and Uzbekistan.

It was after the horrors of 9/11, Jett recalled, as they flew when The Taliban fired a rocket at their plane. Jett braced for the missile to hit them, but there was no impact. They landed safely at their destination and lived to tell the story.

Story of JOAN JETT
Originally named Joan Marie Larkin, JOAN JETT took her first breath in Wynnewood, Pennsylvania, on September 22, 1958. At 13 years old, she picked up her first guitar, which the former cafeteria waiter received as a Christmas present after asking for it.

Yet when the RUNAWAYS founder went for her first lesson, she was told that "girls couldn't play rock music." Despite the discouragement, Jett was determined to keep playing. After her family moved to West Covina, California, Jett began frequenting Rodney Bingenheimer's English Disco on Sunset Boulevard.

The musician switched up her style, inspired by another female rock artist Suzi Quatro, with a shag haircut, leather garments, and black winged eyeliner. Suzi Quatro inspired Jett more than just aesthetically and musically. As Jett explained, Quatro helped Jett realize that rock n roll didn't have to be gender-restrictive and said:

"I realized that if I wanted to do that, there were probably other girls like me who probably wanted to do it too."

By KAREN REMPEL | Photo by Philip Maier




West Village model Karen Rempel celebrates New York rocker JOAN JETT's bad attitude at the graffitied corner of W. Tenth Street and Greenwich Avenue.

"Girls don't play rock'n'roll," 13-year-old JOAN JETT's guitar teacher told her. Two years later, Jett founded the RUNAWAYS. Don't tell a girl no!

My Uncle Dwayne gave my sister and me the RUNAWAYS' second album, "Queens of Noise," for Christmas in 1977. Everyone thought we were cool for knowing about this obscure girl band they'd never heard of.

It seemed natural to me that girls were playing rock 'n' roll. I gazed endlessly at the five RUNAWAYS clad in bada- black on their album cover and at fairy queen Stevie Nicks on the cover of Fleetwood Mac's "Rumours."

I didn't know that women were the exception rather than the rule in the misogynistic world of rock. The RUNAWAYS showed me a landscape where girls weren't nice - they were born to be bad and loved playing with fire!

When the fivesome disbanded in 1979, JOAN JETT was fiercely determined to keep playing guitar. She went to London and recorded three songs with members of the Sex Pistols, including an early version of Arrows' "I Love Rock 'n' Roll," which was to become her anthem.

Jett befriended songwriter and producer KENNY LAGUNA, and placed an ad in LA Weekly looking for "three good men." JOAN JETT AND THE BLACKHEARTS was born and relocated to Long Beach, New York, where Laguna was based.

Jett's self-titled 1980 debut album was turned down by 23 record labels. Finally, she and Laguna pressed it themselves and sold the records out of the back of his Cadillac after her shows. Eventually, Neil Bogart signed Jett to his new label, Boardwalk Records, and rereleased the album as "Bad Reputation."

By Ian Fortnam | Photo: Anne Fishbein/Getty Images )




The leather-clad leader of the gang, JOAN JETT was a teenage sensation with The RUNAWAYS and the ultimate queen of noise. These are her best albums.

Those with more rock 'n'roll in their soul than JOAN JETT are few and far between. As the key founding member and creative driving force behind The RUNAWAYS and latterly as the instantly recognisable leather-clad leader of the gang in JOAN JETT AND THE BLACKHEARTS, the artist formerly known as Joan Marie Larkin (Jett being her mother's ludicrously appropriate maiden name) recalibrated the template for women in rock.

If there was such a thing as a poster girl for riot grrrl, Jett was it: self-determined, tough, uncompromising, her proudly flaunted 'bad reputation' was surely something to aspire to. In the beginning was the word. And the word was 'Quatro'. Suzi Q had a seismic effect on Joan J. Suzi's style, attitude and casual appropriation of classic rock'n'roll into an entirely contemporary setting was a concept worth repeating: if Quatro could leather up Elvis and Eddie for a glam audience Joan could certainly ratchet up similar ingredients for the punk era.

Jett acquired a guitar at 14, moved to California, hung out at Rodney Bingenheimer's English Disco and waited to be discovered. It didn't take long. At least, that's the fiction. Patriarchal rock myth tells us that LA producer/scenester/kingmaker Kim Fowley puppet-ed The RUNAWAYS into being. Not so. Both Jett and drummer Sandy West had approached Fowley and, recognising like-minded souls, he'd hooked them up.

Fowley did manage and produce the band (completed by vocalist Cherie Currie, bassist Jackie Fox and guitarist Lita Ford), but Jett was her own Svengali. The RUNAWAYS were pioneers that got scalped. Young women (they were all 16 and 17) simply didn't form hard rock bands back in the mid-70s and it was tough.

They conquered Japan, made in-roads elsewhere, but Currie and Fox bailed, and the band split after three massively influential studio albums. Post-split, Jett hooked up with ex-Shondell KENNY LAGUNA.

Upon finessing the JOAN JETT blueprint on what was to become her Bad Reputation solo debut's title track and a cover of The Arrows' I Love Rock 'n' Roll, Jett and Laguna unsuccessfully hawked demos to 23 labels before setting up BLACKHEART RECORDS, recruiting the BLACKHEARTS, conquering MTV, feminising rock and, in 2015, being inducted into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame. Proof positive of a life-long love requited.

The RUNAWAYS - Queens of Noise (Mercury, 1977)
Capturing a band at the peak of their powers while teetering on the brink of collapse, Queens of Noise stands as The RUNAWAYS' defining statement. An increasingly fraught relationship with manager/producer Fowley saw Earle Mankey installed behind the board. Markey brought sonic muscle, Lita Ford brought metal chops and Jett and Currie's power struggle did the rest.

As the former secured the prized lead vocal on the titanic title track and combined Alice Cooper drama with Shangri-La's sass on glorious set-piece Born To Be Bad, the latter countered with proto-hair ballads Midnight Music and Heartbeat. Who won? We all did.

By JoanJettBadRep.com | Pic Collage: Meryl Laguna




Happy Birthday to our beautiful Joanie. You have been an inspiration and one of the best human being. We love you and wish you many, many more years of love and success!

By Blackheart




40 years ago today on September 20th, 1982, the single, "I Love 'N' Roll" went platinum!

By Steve Newton




If you ask me--or even if you don't--JOAN JETT should be headlining the Stadium Tour.

The big rock show that hits Vancouver's BC Place Stadium on Friday (September 2) has Motley Crue (screw their umlauts) and Def Leppard getting top billing, with Poison in the number two spot, followed by JOAN JETT AND THE BLACKHEARTS.

There's something seriously wrong with that.

Sure, the Crue and the Leppard have garnered way more radio hits and sold millions more albums than Ms. Jett, but when it comes down to little things like artistic integrity and being true to your fans, there's no competition.

Motley Crue? Come on. Didn't they make a "legal" promise to their fans, not too long ago, to never tour again? That was kinda tacky, dontcha think, to rake in all that cash from the diehard followers who wanted to forever brag that they got to see their fave band's final show in whatever city those suckers called home? And I'll admit that I thought Motley Crue's debut album was great, but I also believe that--like Kiss--they went downhill musically after that first killer disc.

Def Leppard? Hey, I bought their debut album too, and played the crap out of it. But let's face facts: as impressive as it was when they courageously carried on after drummer Rick Allen lost an arm in a car accident, there's no denying that the tragic death of guitarist and co-songwriter Steve Clark in 1991 left a musical void that even the talented Vivian Campbell couldn't fill.

And Poison? Two words: "Unskinny Bop".