Smyth, Cory
Joan Jett
Issue #28
A dozen years since her last album, the goddess who is rocknroll is back with a new record and plans to headline Warped Tour
By Emily Weinstein
Published: June 1st, 2006 | 12:00am
With her short, spiky, dyed-black hair, black baseball cap, well-worn jeans, and black Converse, Joan Jett looks more like a coltish teenaged boy than the matriarch of punk rock, let alone a vessel of the teachings of spiritual emptiness or a gadfly political commentator. But through the course of our interview, she reveals herself to be all of these things.
When I arrive in Jett’s recording studio in downtown Manhattan on the frigid first day of spring, she is eating wild rice from a plastic container and searching for the exact right moment to invite, through the magic of technology, none other than Donald Rumsfeld to perform a duet with her on a song called “Riddles.” Like many of her songs, this one is directed at someone who has lied, cheated, and wronged the artist, but in this case the culprit is not a lover but the Bush administration. Tonight, Jett and her longtime producer and songwriting collaborator, Kenny Laguna, are putting the finishing touches on Sinner, her first new album in 12 years. Like many of Joan Jett’s records, this one will be released on her record label, Blackheart.
For an artist who's built an illustrious career around the rocknroll standbys of sex, love, and misbehavior, the anti-Bush “Riddles” is previously unexplored subject matter for Jett. "There's bad stuff happening / And no one does a thing / What can I do? / What can I say? / When they just speak at us in riddles?" asks Jett. She then goes on to close the song with samples from two unlikely collaborators. First the recorded voice of Donald Rumsfeld obfuscates about awareness: "As we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns — the ones we don't know we don't know." And then George W. Bush's unmistakable twang echoes eerily over the last of the guitar feedback, inimitably bungling an old cliché. "There's an old saying in Tennessee, I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee, that says 'Fool me once, shame on — shame on — you, [pause] fool me, [pause] can't get fooled again.’"
"Our government plays with language in an attempt to fool the American people about the policies that are governing us," Jett says. Whether it's the “Clear Skies Initiative" or “No Child Left Behind,” she feels that everything the Bush Administration says is the opposite of what it means.
Which is not exactly Joan Jett's style. For the duration of her decades-long career, Jett has a made a practice of writing raw, honest songs that leave little meaning behind. The rest of the songs on Sinner are more intensely personal — about desire, sex, and nudity in all its literal and metaphorical forms. From simple declarations like "I won't defend desire / I won't defile desire" from the song "Five," written collaboratively with Le Tigre's Kathleen Hanna, to the frankly dirty talk you'd expect from a song called "Fetish," the album is about stripping away lies to reveal the bare truth of a situation, be it a love affair or a war in Iraq.
The new album is recognizably Jett at every level -- in the hair-flinging hooks, the frenetic beats, the vacillation between a sneer and a knowing grin, aggression and optimism. It is ‘70s punk seamlessly woven with the renewed disaffection of the early ‘90s and refocused on the outrages of our nascent century. The guitars are relentlessly, satisfyingly loud, and Jett's sweet growl is unapologetically raunchy. And yet there is something earnest, almost sincere across the spectrum of sound and emotion. Jett has never used her gender or sexuality as a gimmick, always as a locus for the exploration that, through artistic alchemy, becomes rock.
"'Naked' is about introspection, self-inquiry," says Jett of the pop-driven track. "When old patterns or excuses won't fly anymore because you know the truth. Or are trying to know the truth about your deepest self." From this perspective, the political commentary and personal revelation seem more entwined than opposed.
Truth and self-honesty are recurring themes in Jett’s music. The songs she’s written and the ones she’s memorably covered deal with not caring what other people think, doing what you want, making your own rules. I always wondered why songs that were so deceptively simple — from “I Love Rock and Roll” to “Bad Reputation” to any number of other hits — always seemed so, well, true. Perhaps it’s because unlike other artists who’ve been crafted, sculpted, and packaged to convey a message of irreverence, self-confidence, and rebellion, Jett actually lives it.
Jett has performed for American soldiers, both at homecomings and overseas in places including Kosovo and Kandahar. As they mix the track with Bush and Rumsfeld's voices on it, Jett and Laguna discuss how this song will possibly conflict with the more flag-friendly images Jett has cultivated playing for the troops. "It’s our responsibility to speak out when we have the power," Laguna says.
"This idea that we can’t speak out or it’ll hurt the war effort — I don’t buy it," Jett says. "We went to a lot of war zones, so I feel I’ve earned the right to be able to say it.” She seems almost gleeful that this album, particularly the political song, might piss some people off.
Jett has been pissing people off since the ’70s when she was a bonafide teenage rock star in the all-girl, punk-metal band the Runaways. In the past, she's remarked on the level of hostility that band was met with for its dirty mouths and what was then the subversive act of daring to rock without dicks. Asked about Courtney Love's famous statement that "Rock is dick" and asked to redefine what rock is, if it is not in fact, dick, Jett responds, "I think the "roll" in "rocknroll" implies an intrinsic, raw sexuality. That is what was so threatening about Elvis' hips or the thought of Chuck Berry doing the things he speaks of in his songs. So a girl playing rocknroll is a girl that is totally claiming her own sexuality and how to wield it. And for me, I found many people felt threatened once they realized the Runaways were serious about what we were doing. And in many places, the insults started to fly."
Jett has a long history with the volatility of honesty, specifically the honesty of female sexuality and the power that goes with it. Despite often being credited with such roles in rock history as "the original riot grrl" and the "godmother of punk," Jett is rather bored of the whole issue of women in rock as such. "I've always tried to present myself, from the Runaways on, as just a musician. It was obvious we were girls, so that wasn't my focus. It was to show people we could play."
As "obvious" as gender might be, it's still a topic Jett will occasionally address. Sinner contains a song called, "Androgynous," a swingy little number about shifting gender identities. The message of the song — and possibly Jett's career — is that gender doesn't really matter.
For all the fracas she's stirred up at various points in her career and the obvious attention garnered by any performer who publicly performs her pain and sexuality for the enjoyment of the masses, Jett seems transcendent. In fact, she comes off as something of a loner. “I don’t mind being alone. A lot of people are afraid to be alone,” says Jett, who will be on tour almost continuously, both as the headlining act on this summer’s Vans Warped Tour and then with the Blackhearts, the band she's led since 1981. “After a while, you have to replenish your psychic energy.” This usually means a few days at home in Long Beach, Long Island, before reclaiming the lounge at the back of her tour bus, leaving the bunks to the boys.
As for the woman behind the music-icon persona, Joan Jett is interested in science — early in the conversation, we have a brief debate about the actual speed of light before agreeing that it's 186,000 miles per second. And she reads a lot, about things like string theory and Buddhism. “Buddhism is a lot like science. It's about losing your ego,” she says. In addition, Jett is serious about her solitude. When she talks about the family she’ll return to on a break from touring, she is referring to her cats.
When “Riddles” comes on for the umpteenth time, Jett says, “The people who get it will get it, and the people who won’t will think I’m talking about a relationship.”
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