As legend has it, sometime in 90s Seattle, Joan Jett dialled Kathleen Hanna after being handed a Bikini Kill demo tape with her number on it, by Fugazi’s Ian MacKaye. Hanna assumed the call was a prank. Undeterred, Jett insisted it was really her, so Hanna crossed into the living room, stood before the Glorious Results of Misspent Youth poster pinned to her wall like a shrine, and asked Jett to prove it by describing her hair. ‘A bastardised, dishevelled bob’ Jett quipped. Only then did Hanna believe it was her.

It makes sense that it was Jett who watched over riot grrrl Hanna’s wall, because Joan Jett’s fuck-you perseverance has been totemic for many – a way of being, never a pose. It was there from the beginning, from the moment a thirteen-year-old Jett picked up her first guitar and was told, flatly, by the store owner, “Girls can’t play guitar.”

Since then, she’s been playing anyway – her way. Throughout her career, beginning as a founding member of The Runaways, Jett has released fourteen albums as guitarist, singer and songwriter with the Blackhearts; produced tracks for Bikini Kill and an album for LA punks The Germs; acted alongside Michael J. Fox in Paul Schrader’s Light of Day; served as executive producer of The Runaways movie starring Kirsten Stewart and Dakota Fanning; and built Blackheart Records, alongside her long-time co-conspirator Kenny Laguna, with whom she entered the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. Throughout it all, Jett has raised her guitar like a middle finger to her naysayers, simply by doing what she does best; loving and playing rock ‘n’ roll. The month of this interview she travels to Aotearoa (New Zealand) to play alongside Iggy Pop, followed by a Las Vegas residency and a UK tour – proof that her grit and devotion to the music she loves most remains an unrepentant force.

This article features exclusive late-’70s archive photographs of Joan Jett, shot by Brad Elterman.

Shana Chandra: You have this origin story in a way – that moment where you go to the shop to pick up your first guitar and the storeowner tells you that girls can’t play. Why do you think people were so threatened by a girl picking up a guitar?
Joan Jett: My parents always told me, from [when I was] as small as I can remember – maybe five or so – that I could be anything that I wanted to be. And I believed them. I went through phases of wanting to be a scientist, an archaeologist, an astronaut, but those were very brief flirtations. I didn’t even think about the pushback, or that somebody would say that. But I’ll tell you, even as a thirteen-year-old, I wasn’t surprised. I was pissed off, because the logic didn’t make sense. Because I’m in school, in band class, playing the clarinet – very poorly – but there were girls next to me playing Beethoven and Bach. So, you’re telling me that girls can’t play guitar? No, what you’re saying is that they’re not allowed to play guitar. I said, ‘Teach me rock ‘n’ roll’,” because I wanted to play rock ‘n’ roll. I didn’t even say, ‘Teach me to play the guitar,’ so that’s when I was able to break it down that rock ‘n’ roll is sexual; girls aren’t allowed to be that. They’re not allowed to access that part of them. They have those same feelings that boys do when they’re young and their hormones are hitting. It’s all the same stuff. Girls should have an outlet, too.

SC: Do you think people were threatened by the fact that you took control of your sexuality?
JJ: I took control of it by not talking about it. Obviously before I was in a band nobody was talking to me about those things. But once I was in The Runaways, I remember in an early interview – I don’t remember the exact question – but they kept trying to ask something sexual. And I thought that if I answered this question, they would never ask me about music. They’ll just ask me about sex and girls playing rock n’ roll, they won’t be able to separate the two. I’m a musician, and then I’m a girl. That’s the way I thought about it, even as a young girl, and the way I wanted to be approached. I’m a musician who happens to be a girl. After and during The Runaways, these things would come up all the time, and it was very angering. I was quick to anger because you’re young and your emotions are right there – at least for me they were – and so I argued with people over it. But I’m glad I didn’t answer that first question, whatever it was, because it was bad enough in the way people always tried to incorporate that into the story. I’m glad I stuck to my guns.

We lived on the East Coast when I started playing guitar, but my family moved to Los Angeles, and I figured that there were going to be a lot of girls out there who would want to play rock ‘n’ roll. I did tell kids in school that I was going to California, that I was going to form a band, and make records. To have actually done that and achieve[d] that…My 50-year high school reunion is this year, and I have to see if I can get to it.

“You’re telling me that girls can’t play guitar? No, what you’re saying is that they’re not allowed to play guitar.”

SC: Have you been to any high school reunions before?
JJ: Yeah, I think I was at my 20th or 25th.

SC: Is it weird for you because you are well-known? Do people react to you differently?
JJ: They were pretty amazed and laughing about it all. There was one guy who I was always in drama class with. [Back then] I was always too nervous to go for an acting role, so I was just a prop girl. And he said, “I can’t believe it, the prop girl made good.” So, I said, “Oh boy, so it really bothers you, doesn’t it, Eddie.” [laughs] It’s just funny.

SC: You acted in Light of Day with Michael J. Fox – you were so good in it.
JJ: Thank you. I worked with an acting coach – I have to credit her a lot. And certainly, Michael was a very kind co-star, he was really, really helpful. We’ve been close since then; it’s been a lasting relationship.

SC: You can sense that with the way he speaks about you in the documentary (Bad Reputation). And in it, Kirsten Stewart, who plays you in The Runaways movie, says that you have this diligence and this compulsive dedication to music. With such a long career, how do you still manage to find that compulsion?
JJ: That’s a good question. I do love to play shows. I love to be in front of crowds; being with people and playing music. That’s just a really great feeling. People have told me so many stories, it’s either gotten them through the most difficult parts of their life, or it’s gotten them through the most fun parts of their life, and to be there in people’s consciousness is really an incredible thing. That aspect keeps me going. The travelling is a bitch. It’s not fun in the way it used to be, and it’s just a different world now, too. A lot of things have changed since I started out, and some of it makes it less enjoyable to get to those places you need to be, and need to play.

SC: You’re going on a long trip soon, to Aotearoa (New Zealand) to play with Iggy Pop. I know you’ve covered I wanna be your dog – have you ever performed it together?
JJ: No, we haven’t. We did a short tour with Iggy in 1980. He was the first person to give me any sort of big tour on our own with the Blackhearts, so I’m always grateful to him for that.

SC: You were part of the halcyon days of the 1970s music scene in LA and used to go to Rodney Bingenheimer’s English Disco. I was wondering if there’s a memory you have that epitomises that time?
JJ: What is always in my mind when I think about that late 70s, West Hollywood time, is that I used to live right across the street from the Whisky a Go Go. The apartment I lived in is still there, and I’m always dying to go up and knock on the door and see who lives there. It was behind the gas station, and I always think of floating in the air looking at that whole corner. We’d be out on the street, or people were in line in front of the Whisky, or I was in line waiting to see a million different bands, like X, or Devo, everyone who came to LA played there, so it was great to see bands. That’s what I think of. That corner of Sunset and San Vincente.

“I went through phases of wanting to be a scientist, an archaeologist, an astronaut.”

SC: Speaking of LA bands, I only recently found out that you produced the album GI by The Germs, how did you get involved with that?
JJ: The Germs were huge Runaways fans, and Darby Crash and Pat Smear used to hang out when we were making our second album, Santa Monica. They’d hang out at the studio as fans and tell us that they wanted to start a band – and they did. Since I lived in West Hollywood – the other girls didn’t really spend a lot of time in West Hollywood unless they were staying there, they lived all over the LA area – we’d see each other all the time and go to the same gigs. I’d see them whenever they’d play. They started off playing at house parties in the days where house parties were still a thing. Then one day they said they were going to make a record and asked if I’d produce it. They figured because I’d been in the studio, I’d know what I was doing. I didn’t really, beyond getting the band balanced and making sure you could hear everything. [I’d] throw in a little bit of effects here and there, double guitars here or double the vocals there. So, I was doing what I learned from making Runaways records, and watching different producers and engineers. Basically, it was just getting the band sounding great, and with The Germs, they were either high or the sound was just so bad that you couldn’t ever really hear the songs, and they were great songs. Being able to have them on a record and being able to hear the songs for what they were was a great experience, because I was first and foremost a fan. I think Darby even sang about me being passed out on the couch during Shutdown because that was the last song. We were done, they were doing it live, and I guess I celebrated a little too early. It was a great time, and you don’t know what you’ve got ’til it’s gone.

SC: You also produced some Bikini Kill tracks.
JJ: With Bikini Kill, I was turned onto them by Ian MacKaye from Fugazi. He gave me a cassette tape of them and told me I’d like the band. They all knew each other, they all played the same scene. I was a new Fugazi fan and had gone down to see them in DC. [Then] I was out in Seattle, working on some songs, and Bikini Kill was in that area too. Eventually, we met over a period of months and hung out. They have a great relationship with Kenny Laguna, who’s right here

SC: Yes Kenny, I have a question about you two later.
JJ: He can hear you, so be careful what you say. [laughs.] Kathleen and Kenny, who’s kind of a contrarian, are so funny to watch. Kathleen had this young, beautiful feminist energy. It was the 90s and she was saying all these things that I’d heard before but not through these voices, and it was really special. And to watch Kathleen and Kenny go at it… I’m very easy to get going – if you fuck with me and wind me up, I’ll fall for it every time. Kenny will do that a lot, but he couldn’t really do that with Kathleen. Kathleen would come right back at him – it was really fun to watch. We all had a great relationship.

Kenny and I were in Seattle working and they were doing a three-song EP. They asked if I would come and produce it and I was more than happy to. Being a fan and being able to get them in the studio and get these songs down on the record… Do you know the Mary Mack stuff? [The Bikini Kill single Demirep opens with Kathleen Hanna and Joan Jett playing the clapping hand game ‘Miss Mary Mack’.] We knew the same rhyme but from a different time, so we said it differently – I said ‘mother’ and she said ‘mom’. We didn’t practice it ahead of time. I think it just came up right then that we both knew it, and so we decided to record it. I had a bunch of bracelets on and they were making noise – we were just having fun with it, it was a really genuine moment. Those moments don’t come along all the time, and so when it’s recorded, I get to enjoy it.

“I’m very easy to get going – if you fuck with me and wind me up, I’ll fall for it every time.”

SC: With Mindsets, your latest EP, what headspace were you in with it, which direction did you want it to go? Your previous album was Changeup, which was all-acoustic. Do you do the contrary thing and go in a different direction from the last album, or are they extensions of each other?
JJ: No, we just plough ahead. Trying a different artistic direction may happen within an album, but I don’t want to change who I am, I have no desire to. I’m not averse to trying different kinds of music, but not necessarily as the Blackhearts. It’s not that I don’t like other kinds of music, it’s just that this is what I like to do. The acoustic album was fun to reinterpret the songs and play them acoustically, because it makes you sing them differently. I had to come up with different phrasing and different melodies; it was a whole different feel. I really enjoyed doing Cherry Bomb that way, it felt like a whole different song, a different moody vibe.

Mindsets was when we really got back into it after the Covid shutdowns, finally getting back into touring and writing songs. I didn’t really want to do a whole album. I sometimes feel that you do a lot of work to put out these great songs that you feel a lot about, and then they get short shrift. It’s just wham, bam, thank you ma’am, [with people] maybe pay[ing] attention to one song, so I’m like, let’s do an EP, let’s just do six songs. I don’t know if it made any kind of difference to people’s attention or not.

SC: You and Kenny have had this amazing friendship, business relationship and musical relationship for so long, what makes it work – what’s the synergy between you two?
JJ: We’ve always felt it’s that we don’t compete. Each person is each person. We’re very differently musically, but we both love a lot of the same things. Kenny’s got a much wider background than I do, having contributed to a bunch of 1960’s bands – Tommy James and the Shondells, 1910 Fruitgum Company. He had a lot of success as a teenager, so he could relate a lot to what I was going through, even though it was different; we both dealt with the same machines.

Joan Jett and the Blackhearts tour the UK in July 2026, see full dates here.