At 47, Joan Jett looks shockingly good. The heart-patterned string bikini top she’s wearing hides nothing, but there isn’t anything to be ashamed of anyway. She is enviably slim, with toned arms, a flat stomach and skin that is pale and unmarred except for a smattering of ink.
Jet performs Saturday in Tacoma.
She’s talking about her new album, “Sinner,” and her stint with the summer’s Warped Tour.
The Warped lineup was, as always, heavily male. The handful of female-fronted bands were, for the most part, relegated to their own stage. Except for Jett, who was offered a spot as part of the tour’s effort to show younger music fans where some of their current faves came from.
Few female artists are fortunate to be in as much demand as Jett, more than 30 years into a rock ‘n’ roll career.
“Maybe if I looked older, people would be a lot nastier,” said Jett, who attributes her age-defying appearance to good genes and sunscreen.
In 1981, when she first came on the scene as a solo artist with the tramp anthem “Bad Reputation,” Jett was an oddity. A sneering bad girl who proved estrogen wasn’t an impediment to guitar virtuosity, she was a much-needed kick in the pants to the soft-core acts dominating Top 40 radio at the time.
She could just as easily have followed them to the scrap heap, but her tough girl, three-chord rockers resonated, scoring Jett a string of hits that not only remain a staple of stadium sporting events and nightclubs to this day but have also made her an inadvertent feminist icon.
The timing of the summer’s Warped Tour was fortuitous, syncing up, as it did, with a number of Joan Jett milestones. It’s been 30 years since her jailbait all-girl rock band the Runaways released their first hit single, “Cherry Bomb,” and 25 years since her first solo release on Blackheart Records was rejected by 28 record companies.
In commemoration of the label’s anniversary, Blackheart Records reissued all her albums over the summer. The label also released “Sinner,” Jett’s first album in seven years, which garnered mostly positive reviews.
Jett’s vocals haven’t lost any of their sneer, and songs such as “Riddles” and “Five” are just as catchy as any of her previous chart toppers, but a girl with a guitar in her hands is no longer groundbreaking.
While decades older than the handful of females getting radio airplay, Jett is far from being a female Keith Richards. She doesn’t drink or smoke. She is a vegetarian. She stays fit, she says, with sit-ups and other core strength exercises.
Jett was living in L.A. when she got her first guitar and amp. The Sears Silvertone was a Christmas present from her parents. Music lessons followed, but Jett gave them up after her teacher tried to make her play “On Top of Old Smoky.”
When she was about 19, Jett was introduced to Kenny Laguna, a producer and songwriter who had also been a backup singer in Tommy James and the Shondells. The two hit it off creatively.
“Bad Reputation” was one of the first songs they wrote together. To listen to the reissue of “Bad Reputation,” is to hear the collision of two musical eras. It’s the sound of Laguna’s bubblegum meeting Jett’s glitter rock and glam.
The sound was honed on the Joan Jett &the Blackhearts’ follow-up, “I Love Rock-N-Roll,” which spawned two more hits and started Jett on a career that would eventually make her a household name and an inspiration.
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
