Femme rock icon to a previous generation will bring a new audience on board for Warped Tour

By JEFF VRABEL, The Times-Union

The Warped Tour isn't just for the black-clad, spiky-chain wearing, tousle-haired kids, you know.

Sure, during its 11 years, Warped has secured a reputation for breaking up-and-coming bands in the fields of punk, emo, hardcore and emopunkore, all of which are more or less the same thing.

But it's also been a reliable means for vintage outfits to re-position themselves in front of a new demographic. No less punk royalty than the Ramones, for instance, visited the Warped stage in 1998. And the 2006 edition will see sets by L.A. punk forebears the Germs (who sadly won't appear at Jax stop), the equally influential Buzzcocks and riot girl icon Joan Jett.

Now for you kids, Jett in the late '70s co-founded the Runaways, one of the era's most visible all-girl rock bands, and she was the first female rocker to launch her own record label. From there Jett went on to achieve cultural ubiquity with the Blackhearts, with
whom she recorded the following staples of radio, MTV and sports arenas: I Love Rock N' Roll, Do You Wanna Touch Me? and a cover of Tommy James and the Shondells' Crimson and Clover. And her influence helped lay down track for everyone from Bikini Kill to Sleater-Kinney.

These days, the 47-year-old Jett remains active politically, having served as a delegate for Howard Dean in the 2004 presidential election, as well as musically. She's just released her first album in 10 years, Sinner, on her own Blackheart Records. There's
plenty of girl-power rock involved, but Jett also steps back for Riddles, a politically charged anthem, as well as some surprisingly introspective material. Jett spoke en route to a tour stop in Wisconsin.

Q: How did Sinner come about?

It's taken us close to 10 years to get this record out. We had a couple of false starts and got very frustrated, so I put my head down and toured for a while. Then in the late '90s we pulled out some old tapes, and I found a lot of songs that felt very valid.

Q: Did you always have designs on hooking up with Warped?

No, it was something offered to me. But it's a great opportunity to get your music out in front of a young audience, kids that might have heard my name but not really known too much about me. [Founder] Kevin Lyman likes to get bands that show the kids where some of the new music comes from - I know the Ramones and Green Day have done it, and the Germs and Buzzcocks are on it this year. Maybe that ties it in, with the Runaways being one of the few women rock 'n' rollers.

Q: Given your work with Dean, do you find politics working its way into your live sets these days?

Unless some event happens in our day-to-day lives that I feel like I must comment on, I don't really use the stage as that sort of platform beyond what the music is saying. But with this album, I have a couple of songs that branch out farther than I have before. My
subject matter is usually love and relationships and sex, but on the [new] song Riddles, every sentence can reflect something going on - tax cuts, the Katrina response, the war, the lack of jobs, the deficit, the environment. It's not done in a derogatory way, it's
in a more spiritual way. It's more about changing the world to whatever degree that you can.

We each live in our subjective worlds, but if you can always be a light to people that you meet, that's changing the world, just maybe not on as grand a scale.

Q: Your image has always been one of punk, one of power. Do you find yourself writing more in that sort of spiritual, optimistic viewpoint?

That's an interesting question. I think, yeah, it's probably more in the songs now. I'm not saying it wasn't present in some of the older songs, but I'm just more aware of these things now. I think there was probably some hesitation about getting these songs
done, a level of writer's block, some figuring out how you write about spirituality and politics without being corny or preachy. It's really about being able to convey something bigger than yourself - that's the goal. I don't know if I did it, but I'm happy with what we've done.