Well, I'll tell you, I don't know how aware teenagers are of me. I think it really depends on the teenager and how well-versed in music they are and what kind of music they like.
— Joan Jett
Anyone who wants to know who I am can just read my lyrics - I've always written about who I am.
My guitar is not a thing. It is an extension of myself. It is who I am.
Why there aren't people out there willing to have fun playing rock 'n' roll. I just don't get it.
We always play clubs. It's not something that I feel above. Those are my favorite shows because they're intimate, they're tight, their sweaty, they're hot. You're close to the people. Those are my favorites.
Shaving my head was a millennium ritual, to not let it pass as just another New Year's Eve. A lot has happened to me in the last couple of years, personally and spiritually. I wanted to mark it for myself.
Only because The Runaways were my baby and there's no reason to get it back together except to totally have fun. If that's not the goal, then I don't want to do it.
I'm having fun opening up. Sort of struggling to get the audience into it. It's good. It makes you fight. Not fight like antagonistic. But fight for what you believe.
I wouldn't say no to other kinds of musical opportunities. I guess that it just depends on what it was or what it required me to do, and if I felt that it compromised my own soul.
I think I was born strong-willed. That's not the kind of thing you can learn. The advantage is, you stick to what you believe in and rarely get pushed out of what you want to do.
I plan to stay in music. I plan to keep making records.
I like to hang out with my friends. I love music. I like to go to the movies. I like to eat. I like to cook.
I figured out it was a social thing, what women were allowed to do. At a very young age, I decided I was not going to follow women's rules.
Def Leppard is obviously a different band that we are, but the music work well tighter. And the audiences seem work well together too. We are opening, but we're having a good time.
Aggressive, tough and defiant may describe me, but that leaves the impression I'm mean and I'm not. People expect me to have fangs.
Obviously, some people are thick, and they're not gonna see what they don't want to see.
Before I settled on music, I wanted to be an archaeologist, an astronaut, all sorts of really diverse things.
You know, I have a really tough time finding new bands.
When I came back to it, we amicably separated from Warner Bros. I just picked up where I left off, trying to write the rest of this record. It took awhile to get out.
So now 20 years later people want us to get together so they can take shots at all these old babes trying to get back some youth. I mean come on; I've been there. I know what the press would do.
Rock 'n' roll music is what gets me off.
My parents taught me I could be anything in the world I wanted to be.
I'm concentrating on staying healthy, having peace, being happy, remembering what is important, taking in nature and animals, spending time reading, trying to understand the universe, where science and the spiritual meet.
I think what I'm going to do is get more balance in my life to still be able to go out and play the hard rock 'n' roll and do what I like to do in music.
I sure saw a lot of kids that I'm sure didn't know a lot about us, or we were definitely new to them. The kids who came up to me afterward, we'd talk about music, sign a lot of autographs. So I'm sure we made a lot of new fans.
I love to engage with people who come to see us.
I had a blast doing the Warped Tour, but it's good to be home, for sure.
I feel like it's my job to carry the torch.
Blackheart Records being 25 years old represents staying power and the fact that we weren't able to get a record out through conventional means, so we had to create this record company to put out our records if we wanted to be a band that had records to give out to their fans.
You got nothing to lose. You don't lose when you lose fake friends.
I've always got something to say.
Girls see these defined roles they're supposed to follow in life, but when I was a young child, my parents told me I could be anything.
You know I don't care if the world thinks I'm smart or not.
We were really grown up for our age and it was an incredible special band.
So it was out of necessity that Blackheart was born. I think it's great that now, 25 years later, we're not only putting out our own music, but are able to put out music by other bands. That's really exciting for us.
People don't want to see women doing things they don't think women should do.
I've been doing this stuff for so long it's the one aspect of my life that I've paid attention to and really sort of not paid attention to the rest of it.
I'd like to just be a little bit more open to making mistakes and not worrying about it so much.
I think there's nothing better than seeing a three-chord straight up rock 'n' roll band in your face with sweaty music and three minute good songs.
I really wanted it to be organic and coming from my heart. So, I think maybe the initial thought of wanting to go in that direction, I had to wait until things happened in our world and in our country that fired me up enough where the words came out organically.
I love sports. I love animals. I love kids. I want to save the world. So how do I combine all those things? I don't know.
I grew up in a world that told girls they couldn't play rock 'n' roll.
I don't know if I miss it per se, but I do miss the fact that there just doesn't seem to be any rock 'n' roll out there anyplace. Everything does seem kind of tame. It's even hard in Manhattan to go out and find a good band to go see.
And you have a record company behind it, this is a key too, you need people to fight for your records, at least a little bit. So if you have a great song, it's catchy, and you've got a little bit of help, I think that's all you need. But there hasn't been that in music.
I think it's important to have mystique.
