Joan Jett gets back in black

By: ALIZA SHAPIRO

10/10/2006 1:27:50 PM

I met Joan Jett because of Lisa King. Unfortunately, it didn’t happen the way it was supposed to. Lisa was a friend and an inspiration to many, a local punk poet and a National Poetry Slam champion. She’d invited me to NYC to meet her pal “JJ.” But I was always too busy, and I suggested they bus it to Boston for one of the shows I was producing. I had no idea that “JJ” was Joan Jett. Lisa had met Joan at a reading and the two had become fast friends. In 2004, Lisa moved back to Cambridge, and in February of this year she died unexpectedly. Her funeral services would be where “JJ” and I would ultimately meet.

Jett achieved mainstream stardom and MTV success in the ’80s. And she’s been a trailblazer for three decades. At 15, she joined the all-girl band the Runaways. When she wasn’t able to find a label deal after that, she and her manager/producer, Kenny Laguna, started their own — Blackheart. Both in image and action, Jett the rebel helped lay the groundwork for the ’90s riot grrrl explosion.

The snarly punk inside Jett was still very much alive in the ’90s, when she helped raise funds to find Gits singer Mia Zapata’s murderer by recording Evil Stig and then touring with the remaining members of Zapata’s band in ’95. Among other things, she produced and played on Bikini Kill’s “Rebel Girl” single and sang back-up on Paul Westerberg’s “Someone I Once Knew.” And now she’s back with her first album of new material in 12 years, Sinner, on Blackheart, and a show this Friday with Eagles of Death Metal at Avalon. She spoke with me over the phone from her home in New York.

You’ve always collaborated with Kenny Laguna, and on the new album you wrote with other people. Talk about your writing process.
I’m such a Virgo. I’m verse, chorus, verse, chorus, bridge, verse, chorus. That’s how I learned when I was a teenager, and that’s how I write. I’ve got riffs recorded all over the place. My notebooks are full of chord progressions, song titles, and themes. I try to put it together like a puzzle. If I’m going to write with someone else, that’s what I’ll take to the session. I’ll go through my stuff, pick out what’s resonating with me, and carry those riffs or ideas to the session.

How did writing with Kathleen Hanna affect the way you work?
Years ago, Kenny and I produced some stuff for Bikini Kill, and it was very natural, as a fan of the band, to say, “I want to write with the person that is creating that stuff.” But Kathleen’s process is different from mine. I think of her as being outside the box . . . and I guess I’m more predictable. But that’s good because it pulls me outside my comfort zone and then I don’t know what’s coming. Its certainly not going to be a verse/chorus/verse thing, you know? It could be anything. It forces me to be creative in a different way. I mean, you always get things from it, something always comes, it’s just a matter of trusting the unknown.

How do you choose songs to cover?
That’s really hard to pinpoint. Sometimes it just comes out of nowhere. All of a sudden it’s in front of you, and in your awareness, and you’re like, “Wow, I forgot about this song. That would be fun to do.” Early on, Kenny turned me on to a lot of different things, like “Crimson and Clover.” I was hesitant to try it, and he said, “No, do it man!” On this new album, the Replacements’ “Androgynous” . . . I was a big Replacements fan for years and that song speaks to me in a lot of ways. I love being a woman, I embrace that. But what I don’t embrace are the roles and the rigid constructs. I’m comfortable, as a lot of us are, being more androgynous . . . or what I define as androgynous . . . sort of blurring the lines.

Do you think that blurring of the lines has affected the way people have reacted to Sinner?
The press has been treating us great. The radio is always a struggle: it always has been. It’s just tough. I’m sure I run into prejudices, the same as I did years ago, but I don’t keep track because it’s not really my thing.

You ended up releasing Sinner on Blackheart because there were problems with other labels. Were you getting flack for some of the sexier stuff on the album?
I do think it could’ve gotten out on a major. It wasn’t about content. I don’t see what’s necessarily so racy about it. To me it’s straight-up what people would expect from me as far as music goes.

How was the Warped Tour?
It was so much fun. I knew that I was going to have a good time. I figured it was sort of a roaming block party — a punk-rock circus — and that’s what it was. The bands were all so friendly, there were no head trips, everybody was supportive of each other, and everybody’s watching each other’s shows. It was a great experience all around.

Compared to a club tour, that must take a whole other level of stamina . . .
Definitely. It’s all day, every day. And there were tremendous drives. It was like nothing I’ve ever done in my life. But I was having fun . . . it was exciting, so I was able to go with less sleep than normal. I didn’t want to miss anything.

Were you scouting for bands for Blackheart or just enjoying it all?
Scouting wasn’t really the main goal. I figured something would come to us if it was meant to be. I loved Anti-Flag, a political band from Pittsburgh. It was great to see so many kids singing every word. NOFX were very political too, and I loved that they’re so involved. Fat Mike is like a comedian, it was very fun to watch. Helmet was great. I haven’t seen them for a while, but, God, that’s the way to be heavy . . . short and fat and rhythmic, so intense.

How about the women? Any good girl punk bands on the tour?
There was a place called the ShiraGirl Stage. But there weren’t many girls on the tour.

A separate stage?
Well, this is what happened. This band called ShiraGirl tried to get on the tour [in 2004] but didn’t. They had a truck that folds down into a stage . . . so they just followed the tour and set up in the parking lot and played anyway. Kevin Lyman to his credit — he’s the guy who put together the Warped Tour — invited them to be on the tour. And they created the ShiraGirl Stage. It was either all-girl bands or girl-fronted bands, and so many of them were really excellent.

Playing the Warped Tour gets you in front of younger listeners. Is that audience getting your new material, or do they just want to hear “I Love Rock n’ Roll” and “Crimson and Clover”?
Sometimes it’s hard for me to tell, but I know that we’ve always had a really wide-ranging audience. Depending on the venue we’re playing, we get young kids, we get older people, and we get the whole middle ground, running the whole gamut, from yuppy-ish folks to punks. But people always want to hear “I Love Rock n’ Roll.” I don’t think that’s avoidable, and that’s fine, you know?

And, you always play it?
Yeah. Oh yeah. I mean, you have to. People would hang me if I didn’t do it! And I understand that. I’ve been to shows where bands don’t play the hits you’re expecting to hear and it’s frustrating. But I also had to make peace with the bigness of “I Love Rock n’ Roll” because it was such a huge hit. It’s the song that everyone talks to me about . . . they’ll sing it out loud, and it gets to the point where you go, “Oh my God, don’t people know I wrote other music?” But you also have to recognize that you’re so blessed to even be attached to this song and its so far beyond you. It’s all about connection and how music transcends the ordinariness of our lives.

Do you rearrange it so it’s still interesting for you to play?
Nah, I don’t mind. I mean, I may sing slightly different, but . . . remember, I’m a Virgo. I like it the same.