May 18, 2022 • 59 mins
Joan Jett speaks to Questlove Supreme about her time with The Runaways, making hits with The Blackhearts, and her decision to create a new acoustic collection.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Quest Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
Ladies and gentlemen puts up. This is Quest Love separate way,
I believe. Is this our first Quest Love Supreme back
together since since what like last April?
Speaker 1 (00:21):
Since the oscars, I feel like I've not spoken to me.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Yeah, I think this is the first one. Maybe we
did like one episode or something like that. But yeah,
I was about to say.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
Like this, it's been a long time. We've been doing
a bunch of one on ones.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
But I'll start off our episode people by saying that
because of the ungodly amount of hours that I've spent
at the Windwood train station or taking the one of
five and the one of three bus to my insurance
job to pay for a demo, I feel just a
little bit more connected to our guest today than any
(00:57):
than any other guest that's.
Speaker 1 (00:59):
Been philadelph adjacent. I'll put it that way. Now, I
got excited. I get excited when any Philly adjacent guest
comes on too. Oh yeah, Quest of Supreme. Uh. And
no matter how much New York tries to claim you.
Speaker 2 (01:12):
I know for a fact that you did hard time
at Montgomery County. You know, once once in Philadelphia, always Philadelphia,
AnyWho Philly.
Speaker 3 (01:22):
And I lived in Pittsburgh and I lived in Eerie. Oh, yes,
lots of different Yes that's us.
Speaker 2 (01:29):
Yes, my mother is from Pittsburgh, so yeah, I am
definitely a share of fair share.
Speaker 1 (01:37):
Family members that you know have have.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
Educated edumacated me on just life in Pittsburgh in general.
I'll say that our guest today, of course, as a
legendary singer, legendary songwriter, producer, let's not forget a kick
caass guitarist, a member of two legendary units. First, of
(02:00):
course coming to us as a member of the Runaways,
a band who pretty much defied all logic and stuck
to their guns and pretty much had inspired a generation
of musicians and creators around the world.
Speaker 1 (02:17):
And of course the second band needs no introduction.
Speaker 2 (02:19):
Of course, I'm speaking of her namesake, Joe Jet and
the Black Hearts Class of twenty fifteen Rock and Roll
Hall of Fame. What can I say without her? You know,
I don't even want to limit it to just there's
no riot girl movement. There's just there's a whole portion
of hard rock and punk and a lot of post
(02:42):
late eighties early nineties bands that formed in LA that
really want to existed without our guest today. So, without
further ado, welcome Joone Jet to quest Love Supreme. So
were you talking to us right now?
Speaker 3 (02:58):
Were you was fine? Home in New York and on
Long Island at the beach. Yeah, well yeah, I live
at the beach. Yeah, I'm looking right on the water though.
Speaker 1 (03:10):
All right.
Speaker 2 (03:11):
You know, I just I discovered I discovered in the pandemic.
And I keep telling everyone, especially New york Er, is
this and they don't believe me. New York doesn't realize
they have their own Mahuland Drive and they have their
own Venice Beach. Now, you know, I've not There was
a point where I think the main train was going
(03:34):
to shut down that leads to Williamsburg causing you know,
it's going to shut down for like two years whatever
while they did reconstruction, causing a whole burrow to literally
relocate elsewhere. Like restaurants started shutting down and all of
them basically relocated to Long Beach. So when a friend
(03:56):
of mine made me visit out there, I didn't know
what to expect, Like is personally expecting uh you know,
kind of yah Hawkins, like post Benson herses, you know whatever. No,
I went out there and it's like, yo, it is the.
Speaker 3 (04:16):
Shit it was. It was pretty beat up, like when
I moved here in nineteen seventy nine.
Speaker 1 (04:23):
Oh so you're like a loyalist. You've been there for everything.
Speaker 3 (04:26):
So what do you do right after the Runaways broke
pretty much right after the Runaways broke up with seventy
nine that I'm not my partner Kenny Waguna.
Speaker 1 (04:35):
What do you make of it now?
Speaker 2 (04:36):
Because like literally it's like if I didn't have to
be in Manhattan at like the drop of a dome, like.
Speaker 1 (04:44):
I would actually move out to Long Beach.
Speaker 2 (04:46):
Like it's it's they totally I don't want to say
just regentified it, but they literally did it.
Speaker 3 (04:53):
Yeah, okay, you know they're making it. I don't know
what you want to call it? Nice end quote, yeah, nicer.
Speaker 1 (05:01):
Yeah. I wasn't. I wasn't ready for that.
Speaker 3 (05:03):
So when I moved here, it was they just opened
all the mental institutions or something. So when I got here,
there were crazy people walking all over the place, and
you could I could have bought my apartment for like
twenty grand or something. But you know, those days are long.
Speaker 1 (05:20):
The price is definitely going up.
Speaker 3 (05:22):
So yeah, and now people want places like this so
even more so.
Speaker 2 (05:27):
Yeah, anyone's like trying to sell their house right now
in Long Beach can easily take in high six figures
to almost a million.
Speaker 1 (05:36):
Definitely, That's that's where it is now. People are like
headed out there.
Speaker 2 (05:40):
So I start off of each episode with the question, Uh,
what do you remember what your first musical memory was?
Speaker 3 (05:48):
I can't. I can't be positive, but it would.
Speaker 2 (05:51):
Be just one that you remember, not the technical all right,
all right, singing Mary had a little lambite eight months
what I mean?
Speaker 3 (06:00):
But I think of my father playing classical music, or
my parents listening to Johnny Mathis or something like that,
Rank Sinatra.
Speaker 1 (06:08):
Okay, how long did you live in Uh? Well, technically
you're born in well Winwood, right, Yeah.
Speaker 3 (06:16):
I was born a lack in all Hospital, so wherever
that is. Yeah, I moved very early. I moved at
like six months old and moved to Pittsburgh. So I
can't really say I grew up in Philly. I was
just born there.
Speaker 1 (06:31):
So when you have memories of your childhood, what's the
city you think of?
Speaker 3 (06:36):
Maryland?
Speaker 1 (06:38):
Oh?
Speaker 3 (06:38):
Okay, I moved to Maryland from Erie, Pennsylvania when I
was eight. When I was eight, so I moved. I
lived in Maryland, Rockville, Maryland from eight to thirteen, so
really formative years, you know, when you come into your
own I guess, you know, go from being a kid
to puberty and you know, all those big changes it happened,
(07:00):
i'd say, eight to your teen years.
Speaker 2 (07:03):
What effect does that have on someone that you know,
where you don't have actual roots, like you kind of
move every other year, every two or three years, Like
what effect does that have on you?
Speaker 1 (07:15):
As far as like.
Speaker 3 (07:16):
That's a good question. I wonder how much of it
I'm doing psychology on myself. I was thinking about this
the other day. How much of it is my was
my lifestyle from a very early age, from being on
the road, you know, just constantly moving and also but
growing up that way too, never really being in one
place very long longest with Maryland when I lived there
(07:40):
five years. So maybe you don't really feel secure and
making friendships or any kind of relationships. So you know,
I don't know. Maybe I tend to keep people at
arms length. Okay, no, it's something I'm unfriendly. It's just
I'm a good with intimacy.
Speaker 1 (07:59):
I suppose that's real. Do you have siblings or like,
what's the No, it's.
Speaker 3 (08:05):
It's well, I'm not good at faking it.
Speaker 1 (08:10):
Hey man, I feel you.
Speaker 3 (08:13):
I have a brother and I have a sister. They
both still live in California. My brother's in San Diego,
my sister's in North Hollywood.
Speaker 1 (08:20):
Are you the baby in the middle or the oldest?
Speaker 3 (08:22):
No, I'm oldest. Okay, I'm the oldest. I'm out here,
oh instantly, you know, when I was sixteen pretty much,
you know, and and I left and formed the band
and not really at home much more after that. I
think I see the I think I see the repercussions
(08:45):
of that now later. But I don't know if that's
my lifestyle or if it's from not really having that connective.
Speaker 2 (08:55):
Family thing as the result of moving. Was that because
you were an army brat or just my father.
Speaker 3 (09:02):
Was you know, my father was an insurance man, so
traveling insurance, traveling insurance man in the olden days. That
is that a real thing? Or was that at a hostitle.
Speaker 2 (09:14):
I went out to Either way, I went out to
it to uh when would to sell insurance?
Speaker 1 (09:19):
So I don't know, maybe I was like working for
your father.
Speaker 3 (09:22):
Yeah, yeah, but I guess you know, they have areas
and they'd go and I don't know if it was
a door to door. I really don't know. I didn't
I didn't discuss it with them that much. But that's
that's what my mother told me. Anyway, traveling traveling salesman. Okay,
so we moved around.
Speaker 2 (09:38):
Yeah, do you remember the first album that you purchased
with your own money?
Speaker 1 (09:44):
I should know this, right, or a single or a
single well.
Speaker 3 (09:47):
Probably was an Osmond brother's record.
Speaker 1 (09:50):
Thank you. You know.
Speaker 3 (09:51):
Oftentimes, maybe I shouldn't be that honest.
Speaker 2 (09:58):
I was gonna say most most people get stuck with
this because I think for a lot of us, the
answer is always going to be an uncool answer, you know.
I think for the shut up Steve, because no, I'm
thinking my owners the coolest. But yeah, well no, you know,
I would naturally tell people like, oh yeah, Jackson five
or whatever.
Speaker 1 (10:18):
But the real answer was Neil saidaka, but how's that
going to look in print? You know? Not great?
Speaker 3 (10:28):
Could have been the Chaps at five too. I mean
you know what, I just I just got done watching
the movie that you won thank you towards for I've been.
It is so great, and it reminds me of growing
up because I feel like the music I grew up
(10:48):
listening to was a lot more diversified and a lot
a lot blacker than people would I would even no,
I suppose it just seemed to be a lot a
lot of all those songs, all those bands that were
in that very familiar with it all. But it feels
(11:09):
like stuff I watched as a kid, right, you know,
I don't know, I loved it.
Speaker 1 (11:15):
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (11:16):
Yeah, you know, I think for a lot of people,
you know, especially with this movie, the kind of the
underline or the undertone of it all is basically like
this was you know, it was easily lost in history.
It's set in basement for fifty years, so you know,
for it to get out one was the miracle. But
(11:37):
you know, to also just let the world know about,
you know, contributions to culture.
Speaker 1 (11:42):
But thank you, thank you for absolutely. I appreciate that.
Speaker 3 (11:45):
Absolutely, But even more than just the music, I see,
you know what they were saying about the change, you
know that they wrote upon this this change that was
happening in society and just the way people looked at
themselves and stuff, and it was you know, really quite poignant,
I thought, and really on.
Speaker 1 (12:04):
You know, I appreciate that.
Speaker 2 (12:06):
Did you come from a musical family like a cousin
or any of those things?
Speaker 3 (12:11):
I really think everybody, I think if you gave them
no to answer your question, no, nobody, not that they actualized.
But I believe because my family all tended to be
creative but never actualized it. You know, they were too
fearful or didn't think it was their place or right.
Speaker 1 (12:32):
You know.
Speaker 3 (12:32):
Look, I know my dad loved art and he loved
the jaw or paint and you should have done that,
you know. And you know my mom all those things.
My brother I know that he would have liked to
play an instrument but didn't pursue it. And I'm sure
my sister, you know, she's an artist too, she makes
things with her hands. So yeah, they all have that thing,
(12:54):
but didn't really get the chance that I kind of
just grabbed and took.
Speaker 2 (13:01):
All right, So what was the entry of or at
least the moment that you felt like, Okay, this is
what I want to do, like the curiosity factor?
Speaker 1 (13:10):
What was that moment for you?
Speaker 3 (13:13):
Hearing songs like the Bangagong by t Rex, just hearing
certain songs on the radio all right now by the
free because there was something that was a little out
of tune with one of the guitars on the rhythm guitar,
and something about that made me want to go, I
want to make those sounds. It was something that connected
(13:35):
with my bones, you know, with my crotch, and even
as a little kid, I knew it. I didn't know
what the word was, but I knew that it resonated
deep inside me, you know, and I wanted to make
those sounds. So I think, though, I'm I'm just lucky
that the way my life moved, because it could have
(13:55):
been anything. I could have moved on to another thing
that I loved. I mean, I loved horses. I rode
horses for a while. I mean the guitar. My family.
I got this guitar. I tried to learn how to
play it, but I didn't really have anyone to play with,
so I kind of just learned the basic chords and
put it down. Then my family moved to guitar. Yes
(14:17):
it is, Yes it is.
Speaker 1 (14:18):
Everyone starts off with.
Speaker 3 (14:21):
And then my family moved to Los Angeles. So now
I'm like, okay, now I'm going with a place where
there's gotta be other girls that want to do what
I'm doing. It's gotta be in Los Angeles. He's got
to be other girls that want to play mock and roll.
And you know, I was right, And I'm sure if
i'd really looked around Maryland or you know, any of
(14:43):
the big cities are going to DC, I would have
found it too. But I just wasn't thinking that way
because all my magazines that I was reading geared me
towards Hollywood.
Speaker 2 (14:53):
Okay for you though, you know how usual or unusual
especially you formative years, Like was guitar encouraged or you
know oftentimes or was there someone like you might want
to do piano or the clarinet or like something that.
Speaker 3 (15:13):
I did okay in school, you know, but I wasn't
very good at it, and I wasn't I wasn't that interested.
And now I wish i'd now, I wish I had
paid attention, you know. And then I had learned to
play just so I could read music, but you know,
just to be able to play other instruments. I was
made to feel quite inadequate. I just worked with the
(15:36):
trombone shorty and made me feel really you see that
guy on he's with a little little kid with a
big trombone, you know, but you know, now he's an
older guy, but he's just you know, he's one of
those prodigy people.
Speaker 4 (15:52):
So did you just learn to play just mainly about
ear or you still don't read music?
Speaker 3 (15:56):
Now that's just you know, was my records and stuff?
Speaker 2 (16:01):
Were you encouraged because I think that yes, no, especially
especially with anyone with a woman grabbing an instrument in
the sixties and the seventies, hell even eighties, almost like
I'm certain that there has to be some sort of
figure there that says women can't do that, and women, you.
Speaker 3 (16:21):
Know, everybody said that. Nobody encouraged me. Nobody only my
parents who told me when I was a little kid
that I could be anything I wanted to be. So
now they couldn't turn around and say, well, you could
be anything except a guitar player. So you know, they
just thought I'd grow out of it, that I'd phase
out of it and go into something else, which I
(16:42):
think I might have happened had I not moved to
California and been able to find other other girls, and
maybe I would have gone on to something else. But
that didn't happen, and I went to LA and nobody
thought it was a good idea. My guitar teacher said
girls don't play rock and roll, which I knew right away.
Speaker 1 (16:59):
What he if, they want you to play acoustic instead? Yeah,
like follow Mitchell.
Speaker 3 (17:04):
Or yeah, yeah, pretty much, pretty much. But I knew
exactly what that meant. Girls don't play rock and roll.
So what are you saying to me? You're saying girl,
You're not saying girls can't master the guitar, because I'm
in school, I'm playing clarinet. There's girls next to me
playing violin and cello, playing Beethoven and box So you're
not saying that you can't master the instrument. What you're
(17:25):
saying is rock and roll is sexual by its nature.
So if women are playing rock and roll and singing
rock and roll, they're singing about sexuality and they're owning it.
And we're not comfortable with that. And I knew that
as a as a kid, even then, I knew that
(17:46):
that just you weren't allowed to it. But I had
something to do with sex, and I was just like, no,
you know, because this is so not about sex.
Speaker 1 (17:54):
For me.
Speaker 3 (17:55):
I want to be able to do this because I
want to do it. You know, Mick Jagger rides out
on a big inflatable penis. I want to do what
the Rolling Stones do? You know what I had nothing
to do with with that. It was about fairness. I
know it doesn't make sense, but it was about and
the right thing. What's right. I mean, I'm not hurting people,
(18:17):
you know, I'm playing rock them home for Price's sake,
give me a break. So that that's the kind of
fire that would fuel me on through through all this stuff.
Speaker 2 (18:31):
See, I never I never had the pleasure of having
a conversation with anyone who you know, it's pretty much
either first out the gate or at least in the
pine pioneering stages of starting a movement, to to even
ask them what their mind state is, you know, because
oftentimes you know, our our greats leave and you know
(18:53):
before we get to ask them about their process. And
so you know, I always wanted to know if because
even when I was in high school, like someone I
think I was honest with one teacher like what I
was going to do, Like I'm start a band with
that da And you know, I went to high school
with boys to men, and they were yeah, they were
(19:14):
like on fire, and you know, I sort of like, well,
you know, are you guys going to be boys to
men popular?
Speaker 1 (19:21):
You're just gonna be one of these local accidents. You know.
Speaker 2 (19:24):
I wasn't thinking that deep about my process or anything.
Speaker 1 (19:29):
I think he tried to talk me out of like
pursuing my career.
Speaker 3 (19:34):
So yeah, see, I don't understand that about people. This
is what I want to know about people in dreams.
You know, you're sitting here shooting the shit with your
friends and you say what you said, do you want
to play? And someone tries to talk you out of it?
Speaker 1 (19:47):
Right?
Speaker 3 (19:48):
Why is everyone dear to try to talk you out
of it as opposed to saying, yeah, man, that sounds interesting,
go for it. At least if you don't make it,
you gave it a shot. You give you dream a shot.
What is that about people?
Speaker 4 (20:02):
I think some people get infent or they get intimidated
when they see that your dreams don't include them.
Speaker 1 (20:08):
And so they just have to shoot the shit down,
you know what I mean.
Speaker 4 (20:11):
That's like if I run a Hamburger stand, the last
thing I want you to do is become a vegan.
Speaker 1 (20:14):
You know what I mean? Don't don't do that, you
know what I mean.
Speaker 2 (20:19):
But I also think that oftentimes we're just I think
in America we often training ourselves to do this safe thing.
Like I think hopefully my generation is the last generation.
What you're here like fall back on something safe, Like
I definitely learned that from every Uncle COVID.
Speaker 1 (20:38):
That showed us ain't shit safe because do what you
want to know rightly exactly.
Speaker 2 (20:44):
So what Okay, so you're a musician in Los Angeles
and you're young at the time. Had this been you know,
twenty two thousand and seven or whatever, you would have
the aide of the Internet to help you. But what
is the process of finding what you're specifically looking for,
which I assume are women that play instruments and are
(21:08):
passionate about it just as you are, Like, so, what's
the process of searching for them? And at any point
where you just like, at least at least in the
runaway stages where you like, okay, anyone male female can
join or for you, is it like I have to
find all women?
Speaker 3 (21:25):
No, And for the runaways, it was definitely an all
women thing because you know, we hadn't hadn't really been
done or you know, if it hadn't been done and
been done years earlier with full grown women, but not
teenage girls. And so I just had this thing and
I wanted to do it, and I didn't see a
good reason to change that that plan, you know, and
(21:49):
give up so easy, you know, saying, oh, this might
be hard, but you know, it's hard to think back
and realize how different it was then than it is
now and how you can reach out to people on
the phone on the internet, right, I mean, you're talking
we had rotary phones, you know, we're talking about phone booths.
We're talking about you didn't get hold of people. You know,
(22:11):
if you got hold of somebody, you met them at
a certain time, on a certain corner, at a certain place.
You know, there was none of this.
Speaker 1 (22:19):
So Fante right here.
Speaker 2 (22:21):
Fante is is probably to his family base, probably most
known for being one of the first musicians to really
take a take advantage of the i'll say the positive aspect.
Speaker 1 (22:36):
Of internet colonization.
Speaker 2 (22:40):
One of the one of the bands that he started
was a group called Foreign Exchange, in which where where's Nick?
Speaker 1 (22:46):
Now?
Speaker 4 (22:46):
He's in Wilma's Nick right, but we're like to ask me.
At the time, he was in the Netherlands, and uh,
we just recorded that. We met on okay player on
a meror site, and we just started trading files online
back and forth and we'd complete an album.
Speaker 1 (23:01):
We didn't meet each other until it was and that
was until they didn't.
Speaker 2 (23:05):
Even meet yet before they made a classic album, you
know what I mean.
Speaker 1 (23:08):
And so yeah, so you know what, what is the process.
Speaker 2 (23:12):
Of how do you find these these first of a
feather if you will?
Speaker 3 (23:17):
Yes, in that time, I believe what we did is
we put an ad in what was it the La Weekly,
Okay maybe, and we went out to a lot of
the clubs that I would hang out at and I
would just survey the crowd and look for girls.
Speaker 1 (23:38):
This is around seventy four or seventy five.
Speaker 3 (23:40):
This would have been seventy five, okay, so like from
a like after August, after August fifth.
Speaker 2 (23:49):
So all right, this is what I have to know.
You're in You're in California. Were you a driver? Did
you have a car?
Speaker 1 (23:55):
Oh?
Speaker 3 (23:56):
I didn't drive, no buses. I took a lot of buses.
And also my mother was, you know, sort of complicit
in all this, so she uh would drive me to rehearsal.
She would take me to the club sometimes and pick
me up late at night.
Speaker 2 (24:16):
Yeah, she So clubs weren't sweating like I mean, of course,
now we live in a place where you got to
show you know, damn near twelve forms of ID to
get in anywhere, or it is your license.
Speaker 3 (24:27):
K cull I went to it was it was for teenagers.
There was no booze, so to worry about that. So
there was no booze there. And I don't think she
was really thinking about drugs or anything like that.
Speaker 2 (24:40):
Who were your were you're any any of your contemporaries
also sort of in that movement that later became names.
Speaker 1 (24:48):
Themselves like no not really once.
Speaker 2 (24:52):
Like Cherry and Lida, your band members sort of like
come in to play.
Speaker 1 (24:56):
How did you know that? Okay, this is this is it?
They're the ones?
Speaker 3 (25:02):
Well, we didn't have that many choices number one, you
know what I mean. It was more like do we
want to try? Well, first it was it was the
drummer myself, Sandy West and I. We missed, yeah, and
so we were solid as hell. Sandy and I. I
took four buses to her house in Huntington Beach. Four yeah,
(25:23):
four bosses, and I set up in her wreck room
and we played you know, some just basic Chuck Berry
rock and roll progression and said, you know, it was
really good. Sandy played with a lot of guy you know,
high school band kind of things, and so she was
used to playing with bands, but usually guys. So we
(25:44):
really locked in and we called Kim Falley who was
our producer, who became our producer, and said, hey, check
it out, put the phone down, played for him, said
it sounds great. Let's go find other girls. So it
was really you know, from there we started looking when
start looking at clubs and I put an ad in
a paper and stuff like that.
Speaker 1 (26:06):
Who came up with the name of Runaways?
Speaker 3 (26:08):
I did?
Speaker 1 (26:10):
Okay, so already at your marketing plan?
Speaker 3 (26:13):
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, I've been thinking about this for
a little while now, you know, a couple of months
at least.
Speaker 2 (26:21):
Did you guys have a daily regiment or was just
like when every time was free, then we'll rehearse or whatever.
Speaker 3 (26:27):
But yeah, I really tell the truth, I can't remember.
Speaker 1 (26:30):
Amazing.
Speaker 2 (26:31):
How can you be a kid and also start this
very adult thing?
Speaker 3 (26:36):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (26:37):
All parents involved, like encouraging of this.
Speaker 3 (26:39):
Or no, our parents were involved, but a couple of
the girls were a year younger than me, so they
were like in eleventh grade, so they still had school
to deal with. And yeah, not all the parents were
throlled about it. But in the end, I don't no.
(27:00):
I guess they didn't want to fight their daughters or something.
But for school, I got good, pretty good grades, and
I took my ged I was already in twelfth grade,
but I wanted to get out a little bit early
so we could go on the road.
Speaker 1 (27:15):
So, okay, I always wanted to know.
Speaker 2 (27:19):
I guess in me the the initial incarnation of the Runaways,
like why weren't you the lead singer or why didn't
you want to be the before?
Speaker 3 (27:30):
Yeah, I was way too shy at the time. And
you know, I was way too shy. I had no confidence,
you know, I just I had no confidence, and it
was just really shy. It was amazing that I could
do what I wanted, what I was doing, you know,
just getting on on stage with the guitar.
Speaker 1 (27:50):
But did you have your voice then? You just kept
it as a secret or.
Speaker 3 (27:54):
I sang back, I sang background vocals. Yeah I could sing.
Yeah I could sing. I did wind up singing half
of the leads on the first Runaways album because Shari
didn't want to sing the rock and roll or the
rock and roll harder songs. She felt that she didn't
have the voice for it or didn't feel comfortable singing
(28:15):
some of them. So the one she didn't feel comfortable singing,
I sang the leads and I sang backup on everything else.
So I did have a voice, but I just wasn't
comfortable being the focal point.
Speaker 1 (28:26):
Man, gotcha.
Speaker 2 (28:27):
So at this point, at this point in developing the band,
who are you looking up to? Because again, you guys
have ushered in. You guys ushered in an era and
you know, pretty much your band's existence just basically starts
a domino effect on again people that come ten to
(28:50):
fifteen years later. But you know, in seventy five, seventy six,
when you guys are doing this band, like who's cool
to you? Like are the Stones and Zeppelin? Sort of
like ah, that's old whatever music? Like who who's grabbing
your attention?
Speaker 1 (29:06):
Like?
Speaker 3 (29:10):
Yeah, I mean, I know I was disappointed with the
Stones and they started doing.
Speaker 1 (29:15):
Like you weren't an exil Lamain steep Stream.
Speaker 3 (29:18):
Yeah, I know I wanted them to.
Speaker 1 (29:21):
You didn't like something rock and roll.
Speaker 3 (29:22):
You know, I didn't like them doing some girls.
Speaker 1 (29:25):
Yeah, well it.
Speaker 3 (29:27):
Was it was fine, but you know, I don't know.
I guess I wanted them to be playing something that
I could really rock out to.
Speaker 1 (29:34):
You know, whatever, No one stays rebellious forever.
Speaker 3 (29:36):
I know. I know that it's a.
Speaker 1 (29:38):
Good seven year I.
Speaker 2 (29:40):
Get it now, before you start doing your classical record
or whatever.
Speaker 3 (29:43):
No, I get it now, I believe me. But I
think a lot. I think I really started looking to
the punk rock stuff right away because the Ramones came out,
I believe in nineteen seventy five, late seventy five, very
first Ramones album and all the punk's rock stuff I
was reading a lot about and I really gravitated very
(30:06):
quickly to a lot of those bands because I felt,
you know, kinship with a lot of them.
Speaker 2 (30:12):
I mean, there's always like groups or artists or albums
that are always on someone's cannon, like.
Speaker 1 (30:19):
Their top five records of all the time.
Speaker 2 (30:21):
You always see the names whatever, and I never sometimes
you don't do the investigation of it, and you know,
of course I've always seen them Ramon's name everywhere. Finally,
I listened down from from top to bottom, like two
years ago and realized, like how genius and hard it
is to really convey emotion and lyricism in less than
(30:45):
two minutes.
Speaker 4 (30:46):
Hey, let's go yo a jam though, that's a jam exactly.
Speaker 2 (30:55):
So for you, were you seeing that there was a
science here, like, you know, the type of rock that
you were you were fed as a child is way
different than the ideas that you're about to spew into
the world. Like for you, it was like, look, we
gotta don't boris get to the chorus two minutes.
Speaker 3 (31:13):
Right, Well, no, you gotta see. The thing was, it
didn't really transfer that much into our music. Might might
have translated a little bit to my songwriting, but you know,
as a group, as a band, most of the girls
weren't really into the punk rock the way I was.
You know, they were much more they liked heavier bands,
(31:35):
you know, more like you know or yeah, yeah, you
know that heavier stuff, Rainbow you know, whichy blackmore that
kind of stuff. So, you know, we didn't really see
eye to eye on our hang out music. So we
(31:55):
didn't you know, we had to come from a place
when we met in the middle, So you know, I
just stole considered what we did to be basic rock
and roll.
Speaker 2 (32:03):
What was the division of labor as far as the
songwriting is concerned and what you're going to cover or
who's gonna write what? Like, who's who's the primary songwriter
of the group?
Speaker 1 (32:14):
Was that your giant?
Speaker 3 (32:15):
I think I think it was May For the most part,
it was May. I wrote either songs with Kim Valley
as a lyricist, or I wrote songs by myself. I
think I wrote a couple with some of the other girls,
but not too many. And yeah, so I guess I
was the primary one.
Speaker 2 (32:32):
Back then, Like it was sort of hard for you
guys to break out in the States, but yet you
know you're the magic's working instantaneously when you go overseas.
Speaker 1 (32:42):
Like how much of a mind fuck? Was that too?
Kind of because that's very similar to hip hop?
Speaker 2 (32:49):
Like, you know, my band had to move to Europe
for five years, right, just so that you know, in
quote unquote pool of Hendrix and then come back to
the Units States like that sort of thing. Like, but
in your mind, was it a dream deferred or like, wait,
what's going on here?
Speaker 1 (33:06):
Or what were your feelings.
Speaker 3 (33:09):
On I thought, well, you know, a lot of different
a lot of different feelings. Yeah, one part of me
had wished that we had the same sort of response
in the States, but it was so different around the world.
And Japan was like all girls and like the Beatles,
like Mania, people fainting, girls fainting, and I think it,
(33:32):
I think it kind of scared a couple of the
other girls. I was exhilarated, but you know, there were
people who were rocking the car, and we'd never really
had that kind of experience at all. I mean, anybody
in their right mind would probably should probably be scared,
but I didn't get too scared. And then in Scandinavia,
another place, all girls, all wearing real pacifiers and sucking
(33:55):
on these pacifiers. Yeah, tell me about it. Yeah, I
didn't get it, and I never found out what it was.
I guess it was just some kind of fat or
fashion that they were doing, but.
Speaker 1 (34:07):
On particular photo shooters.
Speaker 3 (34:09):
No, no, no, no, they were giving us the ideas,
you know. But then then in England, you know, England
gets you know, they I think they got the runaways
of a lot more than Americans did, but they still,
you know, the English love to take the piss out
of you. So we took a lot of ship, but
(34:31):
there were a lot of people I think there that
liked us too. We did well in Germany and I
think Europe did pretty well, but we didn't tour there
a lot, so I don't know face to face and
record stales I can never go by really, because you know.
Speaker 2 (34:47):
So retrospect, where would you categorize the genre? You know,
are you guys at the forefront of the La punk movement?
Speaker 1 (34:56):
Were you just hard rock? Were you you kind of the.
Speaker 2 (35:01):
Towards barer for what will eventually become like the glam
metal scene that would happen fifteen years later with those
groups in LA.
Speaker 3 (35:09):
I mean I always just called it rock and roll,
and I think what we did. I think what we
did was punk rock to its core, you know, just
doing dictating what you're gonna do and doing it and
not listening to what anybody says, and I mean I thought,
and doing that in the context of how society treated
you at the time, I think it was the ultimate
(35:32):
punk rock stuff. You know, even for the girls it
didn't want to play in punk rock. They were being
punk rock just by what they were doing. They didn't
have to play it.
Speaker 1 (35:41):
So you guys pretty dissolved almost as quick as yeah,
you came aboard.
Speaker 2 (35:49):
Do you remember how eventful or uneventful the last night
of the group was before you realize that it's not
happening anymore.
Speaker 3 (35:59):
I don't remember remember if it was. I know it
wasn't a happy time, and we knew it was a
New Year's seventy eight into seventy nine. It was our
last gig, and we knew it was our last gig
because we decided to disband after that because I didn't
want you know, I felt like I said, that musical
separation was there between girls want to play heavier music
(36:20):
than me, and so I thought, man, I don't want
to get fired from the band I started or something weird,
So let me just quit and we'll just you guys
can do your thing.
Speaker 2 (36:30):
And well, I can assume that leader was one that
wanted to do heavier stuff, right.
Speaker 3 (36:35):
It was not animosity, It was not you know, it
was not an anger or anything. We weren't going fuck you,
fuck you, right, you know, it was just like because
we had been friendly, we didn't want it to be
weird and it's just like, just let me, I'll just go.
You guys do your thing.
Speaker 2 (36:49):
You know, it's weird before I got admit that in
watching the documentary, I didn't realize that quote that Leader
Ford was the Leader Ford and the Runaways, because I
guess my my dealings with leaders any anytime, there was
always a person that wanted to give I'm not even
(37:09):
making any nugent comparisons, but if there was anyone that
ever wanted to give like hip hop the middle finger
with a quote.
Speaker 1 (37:18):
It was always Leader. For I knew her more for
her disdain of hip hop than I lived for like
what she actually did.
Speaker 3 (37:27):
Yeah, no, for real, Like I guess I should say
I'm not surprised, but yeah, like I know her.
Speaker 2 (37:33):
For her quotes of like why she ateed hip hop?
So I always knew that. Whenever I hear the name
Leader for it, I'm like, what happened now? But then
you know, But then when I started the thing, I
was like, oh, she was a runaway.
Speaker 1 (37:45):
I get it now.
Speaker 3 (37:46):
So I don't want no guilt by association though, because.
Speaker 1 (37:49):
Hey man, we all know you made Light a Day.
Speaker 4 (37:52):
I used to watch that movie every day after school
when I was in like third grade, So we.
Speaker 1 (38:02):
As a twenty one year old, are you feeling like Okay? Well,
I did that? What do I do now? For you?
It's just like on to the next, Like.
Speaker 3 (38:09):
Did you know I was feeling like it was time
to die? It is what I was feeling like. I
was feeling like the whole city of LA was laughing,
going we told you it wouldn't work. We told you
girls can't play rock and roll, you know, and I
just was I was not taking care of myself. I
was drinking too much. My dreams were crushed, you know,
(38:30):
and I had no friends. You know. It was like
everybody was gone, you know what I mean. They disappear
on that level and you're just alone with your thoughts
and your beer or whatever it was I was drinking.
Speaker 2 (38:43):
So how long did the sort of the feeling of
funk last before you started your I assume that, you know,
starting the Black Hearts was your eventual Yeah.
Speaker 3 (38:55):
Well, actually I met my partner, Kenny Luduna, my songwriting
partner and my producer. He became my producer and manager
because nobody else wanted to deal with me. We met
to write songs for a movie that I had contracted
to do before The Runaways broke up. I had to
write six songs for a film, and so my manager
(39:15):
at the time, a guy named Toby Mamis, knew Kenny
and knew that he had worked with a lot of
bubblegums bands in the sixties and knew that he could
write songs quickly and should be easy to work with.
So he called him and said, would you come out
and meet Joan to do this project with her? And
so Kenny did and we met and hit it off
(39:41):
and really became good friends the first day. I don't
know what it was that he saw in me, but
he thought I was the real deal, I guess, And
we wrote some songs and then I said would you
produce these songs that we wrote together? And he did,
(40:01):
and then you know, as we continue, I didn't have
anybody to manage me, and so he had took that
on too, thinking it would be easy that he could
get me deals and all this and that. But no,
he started getting those. You know, he knows a lot
of people in the business, and people just told him no.
And then I think it got to him where, oh
(40:22):
my god, this is real, and then he got pissed
because then he saw this sort of you know, just
prejudice and misogyny, you know, straight out bullshit so I think,
you know, that fight lit that fire in him to
help fight for me.
Speaker 1 (40:41):
So it took about two years. First of all, whose
idea was it to recover or to redo?
Speaker 2 (40:47):
I Love rock and Roll? I don't think many people
know that that's a cover song.
Speaker 3 (40:51):
Yes, yes, I saw that song when I was in
England with the Runaways and I saw this band on
top of the Pops, the Arrows, and they were playing
the B side to their hit, and the B side
to their hit was I Love rock and Roll. I
don't know what their hit was. The B side was
I Love rock and Roll. And I'm like, wow, that
(41:12):
sounds like a hit to me. And I went out
to the record shop and bought the forty five, thinking,
you know, the Runaways, maybe we could do this and
it'll be a hit. But then I was reminded that
by the other girls that we had done We covered
Lou Reed's rock and Roll on the first album, on
our first Runaways album, and you know, I guess I
(41:34):
didn't want rock and roll and every title on every
album kind of so sort of blew it off for
a while and I just held on to the song,
and then after the Runaways thought here we.
Speaker 2 (41:45):
Go see life lesson you gotta go with your gut.
Speaker 1 (41:49):
Yep, that's the second time you learned that lesson.
Speaker 2 (41:53):
So how different does life turn for you once that
song makes you pretty much a household name?
Speaker 3 (42:02):
Well, just I think the the fame level rose, and
we had more people at our gigs and stuff and
made a little bit more money. Finally it could make
a little bit more money. So those things change a
little bit. But you know, for the most part.
Speaker 1 (42:20):
But is that also a scarier feeling?
Speaker 2 (42:21):
Because I think oftentimes when someone gets a success, the
first thing in their head is, Oh God, how am
I going to sustain this?
Speaker 1 (42:28):
How am I going to make it last? What's the
next single?
Speaker 3 (42:32):
Yeah, there was part of that, but I wasn't like
so far up there that it was. You know, when
you're number one and you're I don't know, I guess
you know on one level you can't stay there forever,
and I guess you know, you know you have to
have your next one. I guess initially we knew what
that next one was going to be, which was Crimson
and Clothes, right, And what was.
Speaker 1 (42:55):
It about that song that made you want to choose that?
Damn it? My my only question of the day. Okay,
it's a great you want to say it? What made
you want to cover? How change in the Shandals? Answer
the question, I turned a light on.
Speaker 3 (43:15):
Good and when I when I you know, when I
met Kenny and I knew that he played those songs,
and I'm like, so you played the money Mooney. He's
like yeah, and I'm like, okay, so I want to
cover Crimson Clover. I just thought, you know, it'd be
weird because I didn't want to change the lyrics, and
that was just the way I was. I wanted to,
(43:39):
you know, push the envelope a little bit because I
just wanted to.
Speaker 1 (43:44):
The original recording. So so I guess psychedelic and so
what was you guys?
Speaker 3 (43:52):
Just my reason for different, I mean because Tommy's Tommy's
like when they's I guess. Kenny told me when he
was asked what is it about? You know, it was
about LSD, you know, Glover, So it wasn't about really
her so specifically, So when people ask people what I'm
(44:12):
singing about, it's like, well, I mean, I guess I'm
singing it more literally, but not specifically at anybody. You know,
it's just being put out into the world is that
it's those sentiments, but it's not directed specifically at a person.
Speaker 2 (44:31):
So at that particular point, coming into the early part
of the eighties and whatnot, are do you have a
peer group? Are there is there a trusted circle that
you can howl around with, like normally you know, birds
of a feather flock together as far as like people
liking each other's music whatnot?
Speaker 1 (44:49):
Like was there a tight.
Speaker 2 (44:51):
Knit community in the sort of the la rock community
by this point for you at least?
Speaker 1 (44:57):
Or were you still like.
Speaker 3 (44:58):
Oh, I was gone isolated out there. I was out
of there. But in seventy nine.
Speaker 1 (45:03):
I came back to New York, Okay, into New York.
So even in New York, like for that is there
it was?
Speaker 3 (45:10):
I mean, no, I didn't hang out. I didn't really
you know.
Speaker 2 (45:15):
I was also going to say, like everyone was sort
of going new wave in New York and you're going
straight rock and roll, Like were you a fish out
of water?
Speaker 1 (45:24):
And like were you sort of upholding.
Speaker 2 (45:27):
A tradition that you felt would soon sort of take
a back seat?
Speaker 3 (45:34):
You know, I don't know that I thought I had
that much. Could I planned it out or thought about
you know, what's the future of rock and roll? Or
a lot scentthier. You know that there was a lot
of sense music going on.
Speaker 2 (45:47):
Well, I mean, were you going to the Lower East
Side and in the early eighties to see groups like
Bad Brains or any like. Were you at all interested
in the movement that was happening in the Lower East
Side right?
Speaker 3 (46:01):
I was, Yes, I was interested, but I was working
too much to be I was on the road the
whole time. I don't even know if I was around
most of the time. I mean literally on the road
all the time, pretty much in nineteen eighty five, pretty much,
I mean at least through November and then you know,
(46:24):
depending on what the tour was, we were always working
and then be off through January and then start working
again in February. It was pretty pretty brutal. And I
didn't realize that until the pandemic hit, okay, and then
nothing was happening, And then I realized how much of
my life I had been on the road constantly, and
all these other things we talked about about, you know,
(46:48):
feeling separate, you know, and being isolated. But I did,
you know, I definitely have friends that I knew once,
you know, once I was settled in New York and
I had a routine and I still have that that
(47:08):
sort of core. Few I can count on my one
hand level of friends.
Speaker 1 (47:13):
Yeah, that's that's real life. Like, yeah, real people have
two to three people. Wait. I always wanted to know this.
Speaker 2 (47:23):
Okay, so from my from my point of view as
a record collector, all right, I'll explain to you Fonte,
Well you probably know already, but like for me, Boardwalk
Records is almost akin to like Malaco Records.
Speaker 3 (47:38):
Oh wow, so.
Speaker 1 (47:41):
Exactly what you mean that said?
Speaker 2 (47:43):
I always wanted to know what was it about Boardwalk
Records that made you choose that as your label, because
I knew that sort of as kind of as as
a second tier label for acts that were pop.
Speaker 1 (48:00):
It in the seventies for soul music.
Speaker 2 (48:02):
I know that Ohio players wound up on Boardwalk Records
for like their eighties catalog.
Speaker 1 (48:08):
I remember the Five Stare.
Speaker 2 (48:09):
Steps morphed into Wow, the Invisible Man's Band, uh for
the eighties or whatnot.
Speaker 3 (48:17):
Kenny would know so much about this because he, you know,
I think he knew Neil Bogart before we got oh wow, wow,
you know, so Kenny knew him pre pre Boardwalk.
Speaker 1 (48:29):
I didn't know that Neil boat Guard started Boardwalk Records.
Speaker 3 (48:33):
Yes, that Costa Blanco, Yeah right, and yeah, and he
just liked me and wanted he really liked me a
lot and wanted me to be able to put out
my record. So he said, you know, we'll put it
out and he and he did, and he died like
the week before when number one and never got to
(48:55):
see if the number one, which really bums me out
because he was such he.
Speaker 1 (48:59):
Died in eighty one.
Speaker 3 (48:59):
But yeah, I.
Speaker 1 (49:03):
Did not know that.
Speaker 3 (49:04):
But yeah, he was a real believer and you know,
one of those guys that it always looked great. It
was all sharply dressed and just you know, believed in
me and believed in Kenny, I think more than anything.
Speaker 2 (49:19):
Yeah, everyone that describes Neil Burgard describes it as like
the last true like one of the last creatives.
Speaker 1 (49:27):
And that was a.
Speaker 2 (49:28):
Suit at least, I mean, I know the suit's a suit,
but whatever.
Speaker 1 (49:33):
Yeah, But I don't know.
Speaker 2 (49:35):
For me though, I would say that, like you were
so ahead of your time, was it weird to sort
of have not a comebackup source but just to see
well no, no, no, I'm just saying that a lot of
these bands that started popping in the mid nineties late
(49:56):
nineties started name checking like Jones, Jen Black Cars like
or even with your work with the Runaways, like for you,
did you not ever think that the day would come
on which you would see.
Speaker 1 (50:08):
Kind of flowers the affects of.
Speaker 2 (50:11):
Your people that like grew up on your music or
well especially like when the Riot girl uh with with
Kathleen and yeah.
Speaker 3 (50:24):
Yeah, because they totally did tip their hat to me
and I and I knew it so because you know,
they told me so, and it was it was great.
It was great to see that. I mean, I always
knew that there, whether or not people admitted it, that
we'd have some influence you know, in life and too
music and and that, and it's really nice to see
(50:45):
it confirmed and see people say it, you know, and
not just girl bands but some guys too, and that's
really nice.
Speaker 2 (50:53):
So yeah, I was going to say plenty of times
where like Kirk has has name dropped you or you
know or I know that role that was definitely a
big fan.
Speaker 1 (51:04):
I was there at night and at the Rock and
Roll Hall of Fame when he want.
Speaker 3 (51:10):
What a night?
Speaker 1 (51:11):
Yeah, So how did how did you know?
Speaker 2 (51:15):
Was that was that surprising to you when you got
the news or you know, I know oftentimes every every
person I know that gets inducted.
Speaker 1 (51:23):
In the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame has the
same sort of like.
Speaker 2 (51:27):
Neilistic if it happens, it happens whatever, you know, that
sort of thing. But for you, was it when you
got the news of you getting in, like what was
the feeling behind it? No?
Speaker 3 (51:37):
I thought I was very happy, you know, of course
I thought, but I see, I'm used. I'm kind of
used to not being up for awards my whole life.
It's not really been what my career has been about,
like nominated for a lot of different things, you know,
it's not what's happened. So just the fact that got
nominated I thought, was it was really nice? But I thought,
(51:58):
you know, I don't know, I don't know if I'm
going to win this. But and I still believe this
to my core that because christ said it on stage
that night that they had they felt they had no
choice but to put me in. Then they forced their hand.
So whether whether I would have really gotten in or
(52:21):
whether it was that, I don't know.
Speaker 1 (52:23):
I'll say this much because you know, I'm I'm part
of that. I've been part of that.
Speaker 2 (52:30):
Well you know, I call the recreation of the twelve
angry Men scene, but there's like thirty five of us
arguing back and forth. You know, your name has definitely
been at least for my first year there, which I
think was like twenty eleven, has constantly been like champion
(52:50):
and argued and and well that's well, you know, we
were joking about it's only a matter of time before
you do your classical record for your your soft album.
But you know, the latest album released is your acoustic work,
and you know, how did.
Speaker 1 (53:10):
That feel for you? Like for you is it a
thing where you need a new challenge?
Speaker 3 (53:16):
And no, it was really it was a way to
just we wanted to give the fans something different. I'd
never looked because I had had such a weird relationship
with guys telling me my guitar teacher saying girls can't
play rock and roll. I always kept acoustic guitarists really
at range length. I never owned one. I never wanted
(53:38):
to own one until about you know, maybe ten years ago,
maybe a little.
Speaker 2 (53:42):
Bit, but you mean ten years ago. You like finally
like gave in was like all right, let me try
acoustic guitar.
Speaker 3 (53:49):
Let me just have it, because I can't always hear
my electric guitar, you know, if you're trying to write
a riff and you really need to hear something right,
you know. So I just had it, but not a
good one. Little shitty wanted to be. Then a couple
of years ago, we did a documentary called Bad Reputation.
Speaker 1 (54:06):
Yes, it came out.
Speaker 3 (54:07):
It was all about my career and my life and stuff.
And when we did the premiere, they wanted us in LA.
They wanted to see if we could perform a couple
of the songs in the theater, and I knew we
couldn't set up electric, and it suggested that maybe we
tried some acousticsuff. So we did it, but with the
(54:28):
whole band. So it was myself, my guitar player, acoustic bass,
and our drummer, and we you know, played Bad Reputation
and a couple of the songs and it felt really good. Actually,
it felt a lot better than I thought it was
gonna feel, and like you could transfer the energy. It's
going to be different than electric, but it was still worked.
(54:51):
So then last year twenty twenty one and twenty twenty
two is the fortieth anniversary of both Bad Reputation Album
and I Love a Role Album because one came out.
They both came out in eighty one something like that.
So we wanted to do some extra things for the
fans and maybe record some acoustic stuff. So we thought, oh,
(55:13):
we did that stuff for the premiere, let's go in
the studio record a few songs. Once we got in
there and started playing songs, we really just did everything
we could do live. We just once we started recording,
we just kept going. And we didn't really plan on
having an album's worth or two of material, but I
(55:35):
just wound up there and thought, what the hell put
it out?
Speaker 1 (55:40):
Listen to that? How do you? How do you feel
about it?
Speaker 3 (55:42):
Like your I feel good about it. I feel it's fun.
It's different. We play some on stage, like we'll do
our electric show and then come and then do instead
of an encore, do like three or four acoustic songs
that has been going over. Just started like a month
ago and a half ago doing doing it, and see
(56:04):
how we go over live, because you know, I don't know,
listen in front of people, so they seem to like it.
So we'll see what happens, and we'll see what happens
with the stadium tour. You know, we're gonna see if
we can work some into that.
Speaker 4 (56:18):
And if it doesn't, what are those guys like now,
like Mottley Crue And I don't know.
Speaker 3 (56:27):
We we played with def lepper before and okay, uh,
but I've never played with Motley Cruz, so I don't know.
I have no idea what to expect, but it should
be interesting.
Speaker 2 (56:38):
I learned this with Blue Oyster Call Deaf Lepperd's album
covers were more scarier than def Lepperd was.
Speaker 1 (56:45):
The thing is like if Mutt Lane you know, Likett.
Speaker 2 (56:49):
Is too he's too Yeah, he's too polished in to
really like I'm telling you people exactly if you listen
to the love Bites whatever, like fucking harmonies like it's
it's it's just more enhanced California harmonies to me, you
know what I mean? And so I don't know. It's
(57:10):
where I never truly saw. I mean, of course, you
know they they create one anthem that will probably play
in every gentleman's club.
Speaker 1 (57:22):
Now to the end of time.
Speaker 2 (57:28):
I just meant, you know, Sugar has has a kick
ass rift to it, but I've never considered definitely.
Speaker 1 (57:34):
I mean I don't.
Speaker 2 (57:34):
I don't consider def lever metal the same way I
don't consider the Police hard rock, you know what I mean?
Speaker 3 (57:40):
Well, people are loose with their terminology now, you know,
don't you find? Well?
Speaker 2 (57:45):
Yeah, sometimes you were just find yeah exactly right now?
Like where with his storied career and is there is
there anything that you have yet to achieve or yet
to you accomplished that you.
Speaker 3 (58:04):
Oh, I'm you know, I wouldn't know who who to
say specifically, but I'm always interested in doing newing different things.
I just actually did something. Did I mention that with
Trombone Shorty?
Speaker 1 (58:18):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (58:19):
So you know it's it's it's new for me. I'm
not always great with that because I'm good with knowing,
you know, and being comfortable and doing what I know
and that kind of stuff. So I have to try
to get better with, you know, just jumping into the
unknown and not being so.
Speaker 1 (58:39):
Getting out of comfort zone.
Speaker 3 (58:43):
Yeah yeah, but being okay with that and and being
you know, you're gonna live, You're gonna be okay, don't worry.
I don't know. I think I'm ready for my R
and B album now, let's go there.
Speaker 1 (58:54):
It is there, it is, let's go.
Speaker 2 (58:58):
But Joe, thank you very much, uh yeah, for for
for joining us and and and doing this with us.
Speaker 1 (59:04):
And you know, we appreciate your work. I've been a
longtime fan of yours.
Speaker 3 (59:08):
Oh, thank you all. It's been a real pleasure, definitely
for sure.
Speaker 1 (59:12):
Thank you.
Speaker 3 (59:14):
Yeah, Jon, you guys take care of.
Speaker 2 (59:18):
Turn on Court Love Supreme. We will see you guys
on the next cover round, all right, Thank you.
Speaker 3 (59:23):
M H.
Speaker 1 (59:35):
West Lop. Supreme is a production of Iheartened Radio.
Speaker 2 (59:42):
For more podcasts from iHeart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Quest Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
Ladies and gentlemen puts up. This is Quest Love separate way,
I believe. Is this our first Quest Love Supreme back
together since since what like last April?
Speaker 1 (00:21):
Since the oscars, I feel like I've not spoken to me.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Yeah, I think this is the first one. Maybe we
did like one episode or something like that. But yeah,
I was about to say.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
Like this, it's been a long time. We've been doing
a bunch of one on ones.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
But I'll start off our episode people by saying that
because of the ungodly amount of hours that I've spent
at the Windwood train station or taking the one of
five and the one of three bus to my insurance
job to pay for a demo, I feel just a
little bit more connected to our guest today than any
(00:57):
than any other guest that's.
Speaker 1 (00:59):
Been philadelph adjacent. I'll put it that way. Now, I
got excited. I get excited when any Philly adjacent guest
comes on too. Oh yeah, Quest of Supreme. Uh. And
no matter how much New York tries to claim you.
Speaker 2 (01:12):
I know for a fact that you did hard time
at Montgomery County. You know, once once in Philadelphia, always Philadelphia,
AnyWho Philly.
Speaker 3 (01:22):
And I lived in Pittsburgh and I lived in Eerie. Oh, yes,
lots of different Yes that's us.
Speaker 2 (01:29):
Yes, my mother is from Pittsburgh, so yeah, I am
definitely a share of fair share.
Speaker 1 (01:37):
Family members that you know have have.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
Educated edumacated me on just life in Pittsburgh in general.
I'll say that our guest today, of course, as a
legendary singer, legendary songwriter, producer, let's not forget a kick
caass guitarist, a member of two legendary units. First, of
(02:00):
course coming to us as a member of the Runaways,
a band who pretty much defied all logic and stuck
to their guns and pretty much had inspired a generation
of musicians and creators around the world.
Speaker 1 (02:17):
And of course the second band needs no introduction.
Speaker 2 (02:19):
Of course, I'm speaking of her namesake, Joe Jet and
the Black Hearts Class of twenty fifteen Rock and Roll
Hall of Fame. What can I say without her? You know,
I don't even want to limit it to just there's
no riot girl movement. There's just there's a whole portion
of hard rock and punk and a lot of post
(02:42):
late eighties early nineties bands that formed in LA that
really want to existed without our guest today. So, without
further ado, welcome Joone Jet to quest Love Supreme. So
were you talking to us right now?
Speaker 3 (02:58):
Were you was fine? Home in New York and on
Long Island at the beach. Yeah, well yeah, I live
at the beach. Yeah, I'm looking right on the water though.
Speaker 1 (03:10):
All right.
Speaker 2 (03:11):
You know, I just I discovered I discovered in the pandemic.
And I keep telling everyone, especially New york Er, is
this and they don't believe me. New York doesn't realize
they have their own Mahuland Drive and they have their
own Venice Beach. Now, you know, I've not There was
a point where I think the main train was going
(03:34):
to shut down that leads to Williamsburg causing you know,
it's going to shut down for like two years whatever
while they did reconstruction, causing a whole burrow to literally
relocate elsewhere. Like restaurants started shutting down and all of
them basically relocated to Long Beach. So when a friend
(03:56):
of mine made me visit out there, I didn't know
what to expect, Like is personally expecting uh you know,
kind of yah Hawkins, like post Benson herses, you know whatever. No,
I went out there and it's like, yo, it is the.
Speaker 3 (04:16):
Shit it was. It was pretty beat up, like when
I moved here in nineteen seventy nine.
Speaker 1 (04:23):
Oh so you're like a loyalist. You've been there for everything.
Speaker 3 (04:26):
So what do you do right after the Runaways broke
pretty much right after the Runaways broke up with seventy
nine that I'm not my partner Kenny Waguna.
Speaker 1 (04:35):
What do you make of it now?
Speaker 2 (04:36):
Because like literally it's like if I didn't have to
be in Manhattan at like the drop of a dome, like.
Speaker 1 (04:44):
I would actually move out to Long Beach.
Speaker 2 (04:46):
Like it's it's they totally I don't want to say
just regentified it, but they literally did it.
Speaker 3 (04:53):
Yeah, okay, you know they're making it. I don't know
what you want to call it? Nice end quote, yeah, nicer.
Speaker 1 (05:01):
Yeah. I wasn't. I wasn't ready for that.
Speaker 3 (05:03):
So when I moved here, it was they just opened
all the mental institutions or something. So when I got here,
there were crazy people walking all over the place, and
you could I could have bought my apartment for like
twenty grand or something. But you know, those days are long.
Speaker 1 (05:20):
The price is definitely going up.
Speaker 3 (05:22):
So yeah, and now people want places like this so
even more so.
Speaker 2 (05:27):
Yeah, anyone's like trying to sell their house right now
in Long Beach can easily take in high six figures
to almost a million.
Speaker 1 (05:36):
Definitely, That's that's where it is now. People are like
headed out there.
Speaker 2 (05:40):
So I start off of each episode with the question, Uh,
what do you remember what your first musical memory was?
Speaker 3 (05:48):
I can't. I can't be positive, but it would.
Speaker 2 (05:51):
Be just one that you remember, not the technical all right,
all right, singing Mary had a little lambite eight months
what I mean?
Speaker 3 (06:00):
But I think of my father playing classical music, or
my parents listening to Johnny Mathis or something like that,
Rank Sinatra.
Speaker 1 (06:08):
Okay, how long did you live in Uh? Well, technically
you're born in well Winwood, right, Yeah.
Speaker 3 (06:16):
I was born a lack in all Hospital, so wherever
that is. Yeah, I moved very early. I moved at
like six months old and moved to Pittsburgh. So I
can't really say I grew up in Philly. I was
just born there.
Speaker 1 (06:31):
So when you have memories of your childhood, what's the
city you think of?
Speaker 3 (06:36):
Maryland?
Speaker 1 (06:38):
Oh?
Speaker 3 (06:38):
Okay, I moved to Maryland from Erie, Pennsylvania when I
was eight. When I was eight, so I moved. I
lived in Maryland, Rockville, Maryland from eight to thirteen, so
really formative years, you know, when you come into your
own I guess, you know, go from being a kid
to puberty and you know, all those big changes it happened,
(07:00):
i'd say, eight to your teen years.
Speaker 2 (07:03):
What effect does that have on someone that you know,
where you don't have actual roots, like you kind of
move every other year, every two or three years, Like
what effect does that have on you?
Speaker 1 (07:15):
As far as like.
Speaker 3 (07:16):
That's a good question. I wonder how much of it
I'm doing psychology on myself. I was thinking about this
the other day. How much of it is my was
my lifestyle from a very early age, from being on
the road, you know, just constantly moving and also but
growing up that way too, never really being in one
place very long longest with Maryland when I lived there
(07:40):
five years. So maybe you don't really feel secure and
making friendships or any kind of relationships. So you know,
I don't know. Maybe I tend to keep people at
arms length. Okay, no, it's something I'm unfriendly. It's just
I'm a good with intimacy.
Speaker 1 (07:59):
I suppose that's real. Do you have siblings or like,
what's the No, it's.
Speaker 3 (08:05):
It's well, I'm not good at faking it.
Speaker 1 (08:10):
Hey man, I feel you.
Speaker 3 (08:13):
I have a brother and I have a sister. They
both still live in California. My brother's in San Diego,
my sister's in North Hollywood.
Speaker 1 (08:20):
Are you the baby in the middle or the oldest?
Speaker 3 (08:22):
No, I'm oldest. Okay, I'm the oldest. I'm out here,
oh instantly, you know, when I was sixteen pretty much,
you know, and and I left and formed the band
and not really at home much more after that. I
think I see the I think I see the repercussions
(08:45):
of that now later. But I don't know if that's
my lifestyle or if it's from not really having that connective.
Speaker 2 (08:55):
Family thing as the result of moving. Was that because
you were an army brat or just my father.
Speaker 3 (09:02):
Was you know, my father was an insurance man, so
traveling insurance, traveling insurance man in the olden days. That
is that a real thing? Or was that at a hostitle.
Speaker 2 (09:14):
I went out to Either way, I went out to
it to uh when would to sell insurance?
Speaker 1 (09:19):
So I don't know, maybe I was like working for
your father.
Speaker 3 (09:22):
Yeah, yeah, but I guess you know, they have areas
and they'd go and I don't know if it was
a door to door. I really don't know. I didn't
I didn't discuss it with them that much. But that's
that's what my mother told me. Anyway, traveling traveling salesman. Okay,
so we moved around.
Speaker 2 (09:38):
Yeah, do you remember the first album that you purchased
with your own money?
Speaker 1 (09:44):
I should know this, right, or a single or a
single well.
Speaker 3 (09:47):
Probably was an Osmond brother's record.
Speaker 1 (09:50):
Thank you. You know.
Speaker 3 (09:51):
Oftentimes, maybe I shouldn't be that honest.
Speaker 2 (09:58):
I was gonna say most most people get stuck with
this because I think for a lot of us, the
answer is always going to be an uncool answer, you know.
I think for the shut up Steve, because no, I'm
thinking my owners the coolest. But yeah, well no, you know,
I would naturally tell people like, oh yeah, Jackson five
or whatever.
Speaker 1 (10:18):
But the real answer was Neil saidaka, but how's that
going to look in print? You know? Not great?
Speaker 3 (10:28):
Could have been the Chaps at five too. I mean
you know what, I just I just got done watching
the movie that you won thank you towards for I've been.
It is so great, and it reminds me of growing
up because I feel like the music I grew up
(10:48):
listening to was a lot more diversified and a lot
a lot blacker than people would I would even no,
I suppose it just seemed to be a lot a
lot of all those songs, all those bands that were
in that very familiar with it all. But it feels
(11:09):
like stuff I watched as a kid, right, you know,
I don't know, I loved it.
Speaker 1 (11:15):
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (11:16):
Yeah, you know, I think for a lot of people,
you know, especially with this movie, the kind of the
underline or the undertone of it all is basically like
this was you know, it was easily lost in history.
It's set in basement for fifty years, so you know,
for it to get out one was the miracle. But
(11:37):
you know, to also just let the world know about,
you know, contributions to culture.
Speaker 1 (11:42):
But thank you, thank you for absolutely. I appreciate that.
Speaker 3 (11:45):
Absolutely, But even more than just the music, I see,
you know what they were saying about the change, you
know that they wrote upon this this change that was
happening in society and just the way people looked at
themselves and stuff, and it was you know, really quite poignant,
I thought, and really on.
Speaker 1 (12:04):
You know, I appreciate that.
Speaker 2 (12:06):
Did you come from a musical family like a cousin
or any of those things?
Speaker 3 (12:11):
I really think everybody, I think if you gave them
no to answer your question, no, nobody, not that they actualized.
But I believe because my family all tended to be
creative but never actualized it. You know, they were too
fearful or didn't think it was their place or right.
Speaker 1 (12:32):
You know.
Speaker 3 (12:32):
Look, I know my dad loved art and he loved
the jaw or paint and you should have done that,
you know. And you know my mom all those things.
My brother I know that he would have liked to
play an instrument but didn't pursue it. And I'm sure
my sister, you know, she's an artist too, she makes
things with her hands. So yeah, they all have that thing,
(12:54):
but didn't really get the chance that I kind of
just grabbed and took.
Speaker 2 (13:01):
All right, So what was the entry of or at
least the moment that you felt like, Okay, this is
what I want to do, like the curiosity factor?
Speaker 1 (13:10):
What was that moment for you?
Speaker 3 (13:13):
Hearing songs like the Bangagong by t Rex, just hearing
certain songs on the radio all right now by the
free because there was something that was a little out
of tune with one of the guitars on the rhythm guitar,
and something about that made me want to go, I
want to make those sounds. It was something that connected
(13:35):
with my bones, you know, with my crotch, and even
as a little kid, I knew it. I didn't know
what the word was, but I knew that it resonated
deep inside me, you know, and I wanted to make
those sounds. So I think, though, I'm I'm just lucky
that the way my life moved, because it could have
(13:55):
been anything. I could have moved on to another thing
that I loved. I mean, I loved horses. I rode
horses for a while. I mean the guitar. My family.
I got this guitar. I tried to learn how to
play it, but I didn't really have anyone to play with,
so I kind of just learned the basic chords and
put it down. Then my family moved to guitar. Yes
(14:17):
it is, Yes it is.
Speaker 1 (14:18):
Everyone starts off with.
Speaker 3 (14:21):
And then my family moved to Los Angeles. So now
I'm like, okay, now I'm going with a place where
there's gotta be other girls that want to do what
I'm doing. It's gotta be in Los Angeles. He's got
to be other girls that want to play mock and roll.
And you know, I was right, And I'm sure if
i'd really looked around Maryland or you know, any of
(14:43):
the big cities are going to DC, I would have
found it too. But I just wasn't thinking that way
because all my magazines that I was reading geared me
towards Hollywood.
Speaker 2 (14:53):
Okay for you though, you know how usual or unusual
especially you formative years, Like was guitar encouraged or you
know oftentimes or was there someone like you might want
to do piano or the clarinet or like something that.
Speaker 3 (15:13):
I did okay in school, you know, but I wasn't
very good at it, and I wasn't I wasn't that interested.
And now I wish i'd now, I wish I had
paid attention, you know. And then I had learned to
play just so I could read music, but you know,
just to be able to play other instruments. I was
made to feel quite inadequate. I just worked with the
(15:36):
trombone shorty and made me feel really you see that
guy on he's with a little little kid with a
big trombone, you know, but you know, now he's an
older guy, but he's just you know, he's one of
those prodigy people.
Speaker 4 (15:52):
So did you just learn to play just mainly about
ear or you still don't read music?
Speaker 3 (15:56):
Now that's just you know, was my records and stuff?
Speaker 2 (16:01):
Were you encouraged because I think that yes, no, especially
especially with anyone with a woman grabbing an instrument in
the sixties and the seventies, hell even eighties, almost like
I'm certain that there has to be some sort of
figure there that says women can't do that, and women, you.
Speaker 3 (16:21):
Know, everybody said that. Nobody encouraged me. Nobody only my
parents who told me when I was a little kid
that I could be anything I wanted to be. So
now they couldn't turn around and say, well, you could
be anything except a guitar player. So you know, they
just thought I'd grow out of it, that I'd phase
out of it and go into something else, which I
(16:42):
think I might have happened had I not moved to
California and been able to find other other girls, and
maybe I would have gone on to something else. But
that didn't happen, and I went to LA and nobody
thought it was a good idea. My guitar teacher said
girls don't play rock and roll, which I knew right away.
Speaker 1 (16:59):
What he if, they want you to play acoustic instead? Yeah,
like follow Mitchell.
Speaker 3 (17:04):
Or yeah, yeah, pretty much, pretty much. But I knew
exactly what that meant. Girls don't play rock and roll.
So what are you saying to me? You're saying girl,
You're not saying girls can't master the guitar, because I'm
in school, I'm playing clarinet. There's girls next to me
playing violin and cello, playing Beethoven and box So you're
not saying that you can't master the instrument. What you're
(17:25):
saying is rock and roll is sexual by its nature.
So if women are playing rock and roll and singing
rock and roll, they're singing about sexuality and they're owning it.
And we're not comfortable with that. And I knew that
as a as a kid, even then, I knew that
(17:46):
that just you weren't allowed to it. But I had
something to do with sex, and I was just like, no,
you know, because this is so not about sex.
Speaker 1 (17:54):
For me.
Speaker 3 (17:55):
I want to be able to do this because I
want to do it. You know, Mick Jagger rides out
on a big inflatable penis. I want to do what
the Rolling Stones do? You know what I had nothing
to do with with that. It was about fairness. I
know it doesn't make sense, but it was about and
the right thing. What's right. I mean, I'm not hurting people,
(18:17):
you know, I'm playing rock them home for Price's sake,
give me a break. So that that's the kind of
fire that would fuel me on through through all this stuff.
Speaker 2 (18:31):
See, I never I never had the pleasure of having
a conversation with anyone who you know, it's pretty much
either first out the gate or at least in the
pine pioneering stages of starting a movement, to to even
ask them what their mind state is, you know, because
oftentimes you know, our our greats leave and you know
(18:53):
before we get to ask them about their process. And
so you know, I always wanted to know if because
even when I was in high school, like someone I
think I was honest with one teacher like what I
was going to do, Like I'm start a band with
that da And you know, I went to high school
with boys to men, and they were yeah, they were
(19:14):
like on fire, and you know, I sort of like, well,
you know, are you guys going to be boys to
men popular?
Speaker 1 (19:21):
You're just gonna be one of these local accidents. You know.
Speaker 2 (19:24):
I wasn't thinking that deep about my process or anything.
Speaker 1 (19:29):
I think he tried to talk me out of like
pursuing my career.
Speaker 3 (19:34):
So yeah, see, I don't understand that about people. This
is what I want to know about people in dreams.
You know, you're sitting here shooting the shit with your
friends and you say what you said, do you want
to play? And someone tries to talk you out of it?
Speaker 1 (19:47):
Right?
Speaker 3 (19:48):
Why is everyone dear to try to talk you out
of it as opposed to saying, yeah, man, that sounds interesting,
go for it. At least if you don't make it,
you gave it a shot. You give you dream a shot.
What is that about people?
Speaker 4 (20:02):
I think some people get infent or they get intimidated
when they see that your dreams don't include them.
Speaker 1 (20:08):
And so they just have to shoot the shit down,
you know what I mean.
Speaker 4 (20:11):
That's like if I run a Hamburger stand, the last
thing I want you to do is become a vegan.
Speaker 1 (20:14):
You know what I mean? Don't don't do that, you
know what I mean.
Speaker 2 (20:19):
But I also think that oftentimes we're just I think
in America we often training ourselves to do this safe thing.
Like I think hopefully my generation is the last generation.
What you're here like fall back on something safe, Like
I definitely learned that from every Uncle COVID.
Speaker 1 (20:38):
That showed us ain't shit safe because do what you
want to know rightly exactly.
Speaker 2 (20:44):
So what Okay, so you're a musician in Los Angeles
and you're young at the time. Had this been you know,
twenty two thousand and seven or whatever, you would have
the aide of the Internet to help you. But what
is the process of finding what you're specifically looking for,
which I assume are women that play instruments and are
(21:08):
passionate about it just as you are, Like, so, what's
the process of searching for them? And at any point
where you just like, at least at least in the
runaway stages where you like, okay, anyone male female can
join or for you, is it like I have to
find all women?
Speaker 3 (21:25):
No, And for the runaways, it was definitely an all
women thing because you know, we hadn't hadn't really been
done or you know, if it hadn't been done and
been done years earlier with full grown women, but not
teenage girls. And so I just had this thing and
I wanted to do it, and I didn't see a
good reason to change that that plan, you know, and
(21:49):
give up so easy, you know, saying, oh, this might
be hard, but you know, it's hard to think back
and realize how different it was then than it is
now and how you can reach out to people on
the phone on the internet, right, I mean, you're talking
we had rotary phones, you know, we're talking about phone booths.
We're talking about you didn't get hold of people. You know,
(22:11):
if you got hold of somebody, you met them at
a certain time, on a certain corner, at a certain place.
You know, there was none of this.
Speaker 1 (22:19):
So Fante right here.
Speaker 2 (22:21):
Fante is is probably to his family base, probably most
known for being one of the first musicians to really
take a take advantage of the i'll say the positive aspect.
Speaker 1 (22:36):
Of internet colonization.
Speaker 2 (22:40):
One of the one of the bands that he started
was a group called Foreign Exchange, in which where where's Nick?
Speaker 1 (22:46):
Now?
Speaker 4 (22:46):
He's in Wilma's Nick right, but we're like to ask me.
At the time, he was in the Netherlands, and uh,
we just recorded that. We met on okay player on
a meror site, and we just started trading files online
back and forth and we'd complete an album.
Speaker 1 (23:01):
We didn't meet each other until it was and that
was until they didn't.
Speaker 2 (23:05):
Even meet yet before they made a classic album, you
know what I mean.
Speaker 1 (23:08):
And so yeah, so you know what, what is the process.
Speaker 2 (23:12):
Of how do you find these these first of a
feather if you will?
Speaker 3 (23:17):
Yes, in that time, I believe what we did is
we put an ad in what was it the La Weekly,
Okay maybe, and we went out to a lot of
the clubs that I would hang out at and I
would just survey the crowd and look for girls.
Speaker 1 (23:38):
This is around seventy four or seventy five.
Speaker 3 (23:40):
This would have been seventy five, okay, so like from
a like after August, after August fifth.
Speaker 2 (23:49):
So all right, this is what I have to know.
You're in You're in California. Were you a driver? Did
you have a car?
Speaker 1 (23:55):
Oh?
Speaker 3 (23:56):
I didn't drive, no buses. I took a lot of buses.
And also my mother was, you know, sort of complicit
in all this, so she uh would drive me to rehearsal.
She would take me to the club sometimes and pick
me up late at night.
Speaker 2 (24:16):
Yeah, she So clubs weren't sweating like I mean, of course,
now we live in a place where you got to
show you know, damn near twelve forms of ID to
get in anywhere, or it is your license.
Speaker 3 (24:27):
K cull I went to it was it was for teenagers.
There was no booze, so to worry about that. So
there was no booze there. And I don't think she
was really thinking about drugs or anything like that.
Speaker 2 (24:40):
Who were your were you're any any of your contemporaries
also sort of in that movement that later became names.
Speaker 1 (24:48):
Themselves like no not really once.
Speaker 2 (24:52):
Like Cherry and Lida, your band members sort of like
come in to play.
Speaker 1 (24:56):
How did you know that? Okay, this is this is it?
They're the ones?
Speaker 3 (25:02):
Well, we didn't have that many choices number one, you
know what I mean. It was more like do we
want to try? Well, first it was it was the
drummer myself, Sandy West and I. We missed, yeah, and
so we were solid as hell. Sandy and I. I
took four buses to her house in Huntington Beach. Four yeah,
(25:23):
four bosses, and I set up in her wreck room
and we played you know, some just basic Chuck Berry
rock and roll progression and said, you know, it was
really good. Sandy played with a lot of guy you know,
high school band kind of things, and so she was
used to playing with bands, but usually guys. So we
(25:44):
really locked in and we called Kim Falley who was
our producer, who became our producer, and said, hey, check
it out, put the phone down, played for him, said
it sounds great. Let's go find other girls. So it
was really you know, from there we started looking when
start looking at clubs and I put an ad in
a paper and stuff like that.
Speaker 1 (26:06):
Who came up with the name of Runaways?
Speaker 3 (26:08):
I did?
Speaker 1 (26:10):
Okay, so already at your marketing plan?
Speaker 3 (26:13):
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, I've been thinking about this for
a little while now, you know, a couple of months
at least.
Speaker 2 (26:21):
Did you guys have a daily regiment or was just
like when every time was free, then we'll rehearse or whatever.
Speaker 3 (26:27):
But yeah, I really tell the truth, I can't remember.
Speaker 1 (26:30):
Amazing.
Speaker 2 (26:31):
How can you be a kid and also start this
very adult thing?
Speaker 3 (26:36):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (26:37):
All parents involved, like encouraging of this.
Speaker 3 (26:39):
Or no, our parents were involved, but a couple of
the girls were a year younger than me, so they
were like in eleventh grade, so they still had school
to deal with. And yeah, not all the parents were
throlled about it. But in the end, I don't no.
(27:00):
I guess they didn't want to fight their daughters or something.
But for school, I got good, pretty good grades, and
I took my ged I was already in twelfth grade,
but I wanted to get out a little bit early
so we could go on the road.
Speaker 1 (27:15):
So, okay, I always wanted to know.
Speaker 2 (27:19):
I guess in me the the initial incarnation of the Runaways,
like why weren't you the lead singer or why didn't
you want to be the before?
Speaker 3 (27:30):
Yeah, I was way too shy at the time. And
you know, I was way too shy. I had no confidence,
you know, I just I had no confidence, and it
was just really shy. It was amazing that I could
do what I wanted, what I was doing, you know,
just getting on on stage with the guitar.
Speaker 1 (27:50):
But did you have your voice then? You just kept
it as a secret or.
Speaker 3 (27:54):
I sang back, I sang background vocals. Yeah I could sing.
Yeah I could sing. I did wind up singing half
of the leads on the first Runaways album because Shari
didn't want to sing the rock and roll or the
rock and roll harder songs. She felt that she didn't
have the voice for it or didn't feel comfortable singing
(28:15):
some of them. So the one she didn't feel comfortable singing,
I sang the leads and I sang backup on everything else.
So I did have a voice, but I just wasn't
comfortable being the focal point.
Speaker 1 (28:26):
Man, gotcha.
Speaker 2 (28:27):
So at this point, at this point in developing the band,
who are you looking up to? Because again, you guys
have ushered in. You guys ushered in an era and
you know, pretty much your band's existence just basically starts
a domino effect on again people that come ten to
(28:50):
fifteen years later. But you know, in seventy five, seventy six,
when you guys are doing this band, like who's cool
to you? Like are the Stones and Zeppelin? Sort of
like ah, that's old whatever music? Like who who's grabbing
your attention?
Speaker 1 (29:06):
Like?
Speaker 3 (29:10):
Yeah, I mean, I know I was disappointed with the
Stones and they started doing.
Speaker 1 (29:15):
Like you weren't an exil Lamain steep Stream.
Speaker 3 (29:18):
Yeah, I know I wanted them to.
Speaker 1 (29:21):
You didn't like something rock and roll.
Speaker 3 (29:22):
You know, I didn't like them doing some girls.
Speaker 1 (29:25):
Yeah, well it.
Speaker 3 (29:27):
Was it was fine, but you know, I don't know.
I guess I wanted them to be playing something that
I could really rock out to.
Speaker 1 (29:34):
You know, whatever, No one stays rebellious forever.
Speaker 3 (29:36):
I know. I know that it's a.
Speaker 1 (29:38):
Good seven year I.
Speaker 2 (29:40):
Get it now, before you start doing your classical record
or whatever.
Speaker 3 (29:43):
No, I get it now, I believe me. But I
think a lot. I think I really started looking to
the punk rock stuff right away because the Ramones came out,
I believe in nineteen seventy five, late seventy five, very
first Ramones album and all the punk's rock stuff I
was reading a lot about and I really gravitated very
(30:06):
quickly to a lot of those bands because I felt,
you know, kinship with a lot of them.
Speaker 2 (30:12):
I mean, there's always like groups or artists or albums
that are always on someone's cannon, like.
Speaker 1 (30:19):
Their top five records of all the time.
Speaker 2 (30:21):
You always see the names whatever, and I never sometimes
you don't do the investigation of it, and you know,
of course I've always seen them Ramon's name everywhere. Finally,
I listened down from from top to bottom, like two
years ago and realized, like how genius and hard it
is to really convey emotion and lyricism in less than
(30:45):
two minutes.
Speaker 4 (30:46):
Hey, let's go yo a jam though, that's a jam exactly.
Speaker 2 (30:55):
So for you, were you seeing that there was a
science here, like, you know, the type of rock that
you were you were fed as a child is way
different than the ideas that you're about to spew into
the world. Like for you, it was like, look, we
gotta don't boris get to the chorus two minutes.
Speaker 3 (31:13):
Right, Well, no, you gotta see. The thing was, it
didn't really transfer that much into our music. Might might
have translated a little bit to my songwriting, but you know,
as a group, as a band, most of the girls
weren't really into the punk rock the way I was.
You know, they were much more they liked heavier bands,
(31:35):
you know, more like you know or yeah, yeah, you
know that heavier stuff, Rainbow you know, whichy blackmore that
kind of stuff. So, you know, we didn't really see
eye to eye on our hang out music. So we
(31:55):
didn't you know, we had to come from a place
when we met in the middle, So you know, I
just stole considered what we did to be basic rock
and roll.
Speaker 2 (32:03):
What was the division of labor as far as the
songwriting is concerned and what you're going to cover or
who's gonna write what? Like, who's who's the primary songwriter
of the group?
Speaker 1 (32:14):
Was that your giant?
Speaker 3 (32:15):
I think I think it was May For the most part,
it was May. I wrote either songs with Kim Valley
as a lyricist, or I wrote songs by myself. I
think I wrote a couple with some of the other girls,
but not too many. And yeah, so I guess I
was the primary one.
Speaker 2 (32:32):
Back then, Like it was sort of hard for you
guys to break out in the States, but yet you
know you're the magic's working instantaneously when you go overseas.
Speaker 1 (32:42):
Like how much of a mind fuck? Was that too?
Kind of because that's very similar to hip hop?
Speaker 2 (32:49):
Like, you know, my band had to move to Europe
for five years, right, just so that you know, in
quote unquote pool of Hendrix and then come back to
the Units States like that sort of thing. Like, but
in your mind, was it a dream deferred or like, wait,
what's going on here?
Speaker 1 (33:06):
Or what were your feelings.
Speaker 3 (33:09):
On I thought, well, you know, a lot of different
a lot of different feelings. Yeah, one part of me
had wished that we had the same sort of response
in the States, but it was so different around the world.
And Japan was like all girls and like the Beatles,
like Mania, people fainting, girls fainting, and I think it,
(33:32):
I think it kind of scared a couple of the
other girls. I was exhilarated, but you know, there were
people who were rocking the car, and we'd never really
had that kind of experience at all. I mean, anybody
in their right mind would probably should probably be scared,
but I didn't get too scared. And then in Scandinavia,
another place, all girls, all wearing real pacifiers and sucking
(33:55):
on these pacifiers. Yeah, tell me about it. Yeah, I
didn't get it, and I never found out what it was.
I guess it was just some kind of fat or
fashion that they were doing, but.
Speaker 1 (34:07):
On particular photo shooters.
Speaker 3 (34:09):
No, no, no, no, they were giving us the ideas,
you know. But then then in England, you know, England
gets you know, they I think they got the runaways
of a lot more than Americans did, but they still,
you know, the English love to take the piss out
of you. So we took a lot of ship, but
(34:31):
there were a lot of people I think there that
liked us too. We did well in Germany and I
think Europe did pretty well, but we didn't tour there
a lot, so I don't know face to face and
record stales I can never go by really, because you know.
Speaker 2 (34:47):
So retrospect, where would you categorize the genre? You know,
are you guys at the forefront of the La punk movement?
Speaker 1 (34:56):
Were you just hard rock? Were you you kind of the.
Speaker 2 (35:01):
Towards barer for what will eventually become like the glam
metal scene that would happen fifteen years later with those
groups in LA.
Speaker 3 (35:09):
I mean I always just called it rock and roll,
and I think what we did. I think what we
did was punk rock to its core, you know, just
doing dictating what you're gonna do and doing it and
not listening to what anybody says, and I mean I thought,
and doing that in the context of how society treated
you at the time, I think it was the ultimate
(35:32):
punk rock stuff. You know, even for the girls it
didn't want to play in punk rock. They were being
punk rock just by what they were doing. They didn't
have to play it.
Speaker 1 (35:41):
So you guys pretty dissolved almost as quick as yeah,
you came aboard.
Speaker 2 (35:49):
Do you remember how eventful or uneventful the last night
of the group was before you realize that it's not
happening anymore.
Speaker 3 (35:59):
I don't remember remember if it was. I know it
wasn't a happy time, and we knew it was a
New Year's seventy eight into seventy nine. It was our
last gig, and we knew it was our last gig
because we decided to disband after that because I didn't
want you know, I felt like I said, that musical
separation was there between girls want to play heavier music
(36:20):
than me, and so I thought, man, I don't want
to get fired from the band I started or something weird,
So let me just quit and we'll just you guys
can do your thing.
Speaker 2 (36:30):
And well, I can assume that leader was one that
wanted to do heavier stuff, right.
Speaker 3 (36:35):
It was not animosity, It was not you know, it
was not an anger or anything. We weren't going fuck you,
fuck you, right, you know, it was just like because
we had been friendly, we didn't want it to be
weird and it's just like, just let me, I'll just go.
You guys do your thing.
Speaker 2 (36:49):
You know, it's weird before I got admit that in
watching the documentary, I didn't realize that quote that Leader
Ford was the Leader Ford and the Runaways, because I
guess my my dealings with leaders any anytime, there was
always a person that wanted to give I'm not even
(37:09):
making any nugent comparisons, but if there was anyone that
ever wanted to give like hip hop the middle finger
with a quote.
Speaker 1 (37:18):
It was always Leader. For I knew her more for
her disdain of hip hop than I lived for like
what she actually did.
Speaker 3 (37:27):
Yeah, no, for real, Like I guess I should say
I'm not surprised, but yeah, like I know her.
Speaker 2 (37:33):
For her quotes of like why she ateed hip hop?
So I always knew that. Whenever I hear the name
Leader for it, I'm like, what happened now? But then
you know, But then when I started the thing, I
was like, oh, she was a runaway.
Speaker 1 (37:45):
I get it now.
Speaker 3 (37:46):
So I don't want no guilt by association though, because.
Speaker 1 (37:49):
Hey man, we all know you made Light a Day.
Speaker 4 (37:52):
I used to watch that movie every day after school
when I was in like third grade, So we.
Speaker 1 (38:02):
As a twenty one year old, are you feeling like Okay? Well,
I did that? What do I do now? For you?
It's just like on to the next, Like.
Speaker 3 (38:09):
Did you know I was feeling like it was time
to die? It is what I was feeling like. I
was feeling like the whole city of LA was laughing,
going we told you it wouldn't work. We told you
girls can't play rock and roll, you know, and I
just was I was not taking care of myself. I
was drinking too much. My dreams were crushed, you know,
(38:30):
and I had no friends. You know. It was like
everybody was gone, you know what I mean. They disappear
on that level and you're just alone with your thoughts
and your beer or whatever it was I was drinking.
Speaker 2 (38:43):
So how long did the sort of the feeling of
funk last before you started your I assume that, you know,
starting the Black Hearts was your eventual Yeah.
Speaker 3 (38:55):
Well, actually I met my partner, Kenny Luduna, my songwriting
partner and my producer. He became my producer and manager
because nobody else wanted to deal with me. We met
to write songs for a movie that I had contracted
to do before The Runaways broke up. I had to
write six songs for a film, and so my manager
(39:15):
at the time, a guy named Toby Mamis, knew Kenny
and knew that he had worked with a lot of
bubblegums bands in the sixties and knew that he could
write songs quickly and should be easy to work with.
So he called him and said, would you come out
and meet Joan to do this project with her? And
so Kenny did and we met and hit it off
(39:41):
and really became good friends the first day. I don't
know what it was that he saw in me, but
he thought I was the real deal, I guess, And
we wrote some songs and then I said would you
produce these songs that we wrote together? And he did,
(40:01):
and then you know, as we continue, I didn't have
anybody to manage me, and so he had took that
on too, thinking it would be easy that he could
get me deals and all this and that. But no,
he started getting those. You know, he knows a lot
of people in the business, and people just told him no.
And then I think it got to him where, oh
(40:22):
my god, this is real, and then he got pissed
because then he saw this sort of you know, just
prejudice and misogyny, you know, straight out bullshit so I think,
you know, that fight lit that fire in him to
help fight for me.
Speaker 1 (40:41):
So it took about two years. First of all, whose
idea was it to recover or to redo?
Speaker 2 (40:47):
I Love rock and Roll? I don't think many people
know that that's a cover song.
Speaker 3 (40:51):
Yes, yes, I saw that song when I was in
England with the Runaways and I saw this band on
top of the Pops, the Arrows, and they were playing
the B side to their hit, and the B side
to their hit was I Love rock and Roll. I
don't know what their hit was. The B side was
I Love rock and Roll. And I'm like, wow, that
(41:12):
sounds like a hit to me. And I went out
to the record shop and bought the forty five, thinking,
you know, the Runaways, maybe we could do this and
it'll be a hit. But then I was reminded that
by the other girls that we had done We covered
Lou Reed's rock and Roll on the first album, on
our first Runaways album, and you know, I guess I
(41:34):
didn't want rock and roll and every title on every
album kind of so sort of blew it off for
a while and I just held on to the song,
and then after the Runaways thought here we.
Speaker 2 (41:45):
Go see life lesson you gotta go with your gut.
Speaker 1 (41:49):
Yep, that's the second time you learned that lesson.
Speaker 2 (41:53):
So how different does life turn for you once that
song makes you pretty much a household name?
Speaker 3 (42:02):
Well, just I think the the fame level rose, and
we had more people at our gigs and stuff and
made a little bit more money. Finally it could make
a little bit more money. So those things change a
little bit. But you know, for the most part.
Speaker 1 (42:20):
But is that also a scarier feeling?
Speaker 2 (42:21):
Because I think oftentimes when someone gets a success, the
first thing in their head is, Oh God, how am
I going to sustain this?
Speaker 1 (42:28):
How am I going to make it last? What's the
next single?
Speaker 3 (42:32):
Yeah, there was part of that, but I wasn't like
so far up there that it was. You know, when
you're number one and you're I don't know, I guess
you know on one level you can't stay there forever,
and I guess you know, you know you have to
have your next one. I guess initially we knew what
that next one was going to be, which was Crimson
and Clothes, right, And what was.
Speaker 1 (42:55):
It about that song that made you want to choose that?
Damn it? My my only question of the day. Okay,
it's a great you want to say it? What made
you want to cover? How change in the Shandals? Answer
the question, I turned a light on.
Speaker 3 (43:15):
Good and when I when I you know, when I
met Kenny and I knew that he played those songs,
and I'm like, so you played the money Mooney. He's
like yeah, and I'm like, okay, so I want to
cover Crimson Clover. I just thought, you know, it'd be
weird because I didn't want to change the lyrics, and
that was just the way I was. I wanted to,
(43:39):
you know, push the envelope a little bit because I
just wanted to.
Speaker 1 (43:44):
The original recording. So so I guess psychedelic and so
what was you guys?
Speaker 3 (43:52):
Just my reason for different, I mean because Tommy's Tommy's
like when they's I guess. Kenny told me when he
was asked what is it about? You know, it was
about LSD, you know, Glover, So it wasn't about really
her so specifically, So when people ask people what I'm
(44:12):
singing about, it's like, well, I mean, I guess I'm
singing it more literally, but not specifically at anybody. You know,
it's just being put out into the world is that
it's those sentiments, but it's not directed specifically at a person.
Speaker 2 (44:31):
So at that particular point, coming into the early part
of the eighties and whatnot, are do you have a
peer group? Are there is there a trusted circle that
you can howl around with, like normally you know, birds
of a feather flock together as far as like people
liking each other's music whatnot?
Speaker 1 (44:49):
Like was there a tight.
Speaker 2 (44:51):
Knit community in the sort of the la rock community
by this point for you at least?
Speaker 1 (44:57):
Or were you still like.
Speaker 3 (44:58):
Oh, I was gone isolated out there. I was out
of there. But in seventy nine.
Speaker 1 (45:03):
I came back to New York, Okay, into New York.
So even in New York, like for that is there
it was?
Speaker 3 (45:10):
I mean, no, I didn't hang out. I didn't really
you know.
Speaker 2 (45:15):
I was also going to say, like everyone was sort
of going new wave in New York and you're going
straight rock and roll, Like were you a fish out
of water?
Speaker 1 (45:24):
And like were you sort of upholding.
Speaker 2 (45:27):
A tradition that you felt would soon sort of take
a back seat?
Speaker 3 (45:34):
You know, I don't know that I thought I had
that much. Could I planned it out or thought about
you know, what's the future of rock and roll? Or
a lot scentthier. You know that there was a lot
of sense music going on.
Speaker 2 (45:47):
Well, I mean, were you going to the Lower East
Side and in the early eighties to see groups like
Bad Brains or any like. Were you at all interested
in the movement that was happening in the Lower East
Side right?
Speaker 3 (46:01):
I was, Yes, I was interested, but I was working
too much to be I was on the road the
whole time. I don't even know if I was around
most of the time. I mean literally on the road
all the time, pretty much in nineteen eighty five, pretty much,
I mean at least through November and then you know,
(46:24):
depending on what the tour was, we were always working
and then be off through January and then start working
again in February. It was pretty pretty brutal. And I
didn't realize that until the pandemic hit, okay, and then
nothing was happening, And then I realized how much of
my life I had been on the road constantly, and
all these other things we talked about about, you know,
(46:48):
feeling separate, you know, and being isolated. But I did,
you know, I definitely have friends that I knew once,
you know, once I was settled in New York and
I had a routine and I still have that that
(47:08):
sort of core. Few I can count on my one
hand level of friends.
Speaker 1 (47:13):
Yeah, that's that's real life. Like, yeah, real people have
two to three people. Wait. I always wanted to know this.
Speaker 2 (47:23):
Okay, so from my from my point of view as
a record collector, all right, I'll explain to you Fonte,
Well you probably know already, but like for me, Boardwalk
Records is almost akin to like Malaco Records.
Speaker 3 (47:38):
Oh wow, so.
Speaker 1 (47:41):
Exactly what you mean that said?
Speaker 2 (47:43):
I always wanted to know what was it about Boardwalk
Records that made you choose that as your label, because
I knew that sort of as kind of as as
a second tier label for acts that were pop.
Speaker 1 (48:00):
It in the seventies for soul music.
Speaker 2 (48:02):
I know that Ohio players wound up on Boardwalk Records
for like their eighties catalog.
Speaker 1 (48:08):
I remember the Five Stare.
Speaker 2 (48:09):
Steps morphed into Wow, the Invisible Man's Band, uh for
the eighties or whatnot.
Speaker 3 (48:17):
Kenny would know so much about this because he, you know,
I think he knew Neil Bogart before we got oh wow, wow,
you know, so Kenny knew him pre pre Boardwalk.
Speaker 1 (48:29):
I didn't know that Neil boat Guard started Boardwalk Records.
Speaker 3 (48:33):
Yes, that Costa Blanco, Yeah right, and yeah, and he
just liked me and wanted he really liked me a
lot and wanted me to be able to put out
my record. So he said, you know, we'll put it
out and he and he did, and he died like
the week before when number one and never got to
(48:55):
see if the number one, which really bums me out
because he was such he.
Speaker 1 (48:59):
Died in eighty one.
Speaker 3 (48:59):
But yeah, I.
Speaker 1 (49:03):
Did not know that.
Speaker 3 (49:04):
But yeah, he was a real believer and you know,
one of those guys that it always looked great. It
was all sharply dressed and just you know, believed in
me and believed in Kenny, I think more than anything.
Speaker 2 (49:19):
Yeah, everyone that describes Neil Burgard describes it as like
the last true like one of the last creatives.
Speaker 1 (49:27):
And that was a.
Speaker 2 (49:28):
Suit at least, I mean, I know the suit's a suit,
but whatever.
Speaker 1 (49:33):
Yeah, But I don't know.
Speaker 2 (49:35):
For me though, I would say that, like you were
so ahead of your time, was it weird to sort
of have not a comebackup source but just to see
well no, no, no, I'm just saying that a lot of
these bands that started popping in the mid nineties late
(49:56):
nineties started name checking like Jones, Jen Black Cars like
or even with your work with the Runaways, like for you,
did you not ever think that the day would come
on which you would see.
Speaker 1 (50:08):
Kind of flowers the affects of.
Speaker 2 (50:11):
Your people that like grew up on your music or
well especially like when the Riot girl uh with with
Kathleen and yeah.
Speaker 3 (50:24):
Yeah, because they totally did tip their hat to me
and I and I knew it so because you know,
they told me so, and it was it was great.
It was great to see that. I mean, I always
knew that there, whether or not people admitted it, that
we'd have some influence you know, in life and too
music and and that, and it's really nice to see
(50:45):
it confirmed and see people say it, you know, and
not just girl bands but some guys too, and that's
really nice.
Speaker 2 (50:53):
So yeah, I was going to say plenty of times
where like Kirk has has name dropped you or you
know or I know that role that was definitely a
big fan.
Speaker 1 (51:04):
I was there at night and at the Rock and
Roll Hall of Fame when he want.
Speaker 3 (51:10):
What a night?
Speaker 1 (51:11):
Yeah, So how did how did you know?
Speaker 2 (51:15):
Was that was that surprising to you when you got
the news or you know, I know oftentimes every every
person I know that gets inducted.
Speaker 1 (51:23):
In the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame has the
same sort of like.
Speaker 2 (51:27):
Neilistic if it happens, it happens whatever, you know, that
sort of thing. But for you, was it when you
got the news of you getting in, like what was
the feeling behind it? No?
Speaker 3 (51:37):
I thought I was very happy, you know, of course
I thought, but I see, I'm used. I'm kind of
used to not being up for awards my whole life.
It's not really been what my career has been about,
like nominated for a lot of different things, you know,
it's not what's happened. So just the fact that got
nominated I thought, was it was really nice? But I thought,
(51:58):
you know, I don't know, I don't know if I'm
going to win this. But and I still believe this
to my core that because christ said it on stage
that night that they had they felt they had no
choice but to put me in. Then they forced their hand.
So whether whether I would have really gotten in or
(52:21):
whether it was that, I don't know.
Speaker 1 (52:23):
I'll say this much because you know, I'm I'm part
of that. I've been part of that.
Speaker 2 (52:30):
Well you know, I call the recreation of the twelve
angry Men scene, but there's like thirty five of us
arguing back and forth. You know, your name has definitely
been at least for my first year there, which I
think was like twenty eleven, has constantly been like champion
(52:50):
and argued and and well that's well, you know, we
were joking about it's only a matter of time before
you do your classical record for your your soft album.
But you know, the latest album released is your acoustic work,
and you know, how did.
Speaker 1 (53:10):
That feel for you? Like for you is it a
thing where you need a new challenge?
Speaker 3 (53:16):
And no, it was really it was a way to
just we wanted to give the fans something different. I'd
never looked because I had had such a weird relationship
with guys telling me my guitar teacher saying girls can't
play rock and roll. I always kept acoustic guitarists really
at range length. I never owned one. I never wanted
(53:38):
to own one until about you know, maybe ten years ago,
maybe a little.
Speaker 2 (53:42):
Bit, but you mean ten years ago. You like finally
like gave in was like all right, let me try
acoustic guitar.
Speaker 3 (53:49):
Let me just have it, because I can't always hear
my electric guitar, you know, if you're trying to write
a riff and you really need to hear something right,
you know. So I just had it, but not a
good one. Little shitty wanted to be. Then a couple
of years ago, we did a documentary called Bad Reputation.
Speaker 1 (54:06):
Yes, it came out.
Speaker 3 (54:07):
It was all about my career and my life and stuff.
And when we did the premiere, they wanted us in LA.
They wanted to see if we could perform a couple
of the songs in the theater, and I knew we
couldn't set up electric, and it suggested that maybe we
tried some acousticsuff. So we did it, but with the
(54:28):
whole band. So it was myself, my guitar player, acoustic bass,
and our drummer, and we you know, played Bad Reputation
and a couple of the songs and it felt really good. Actually,
it felt a lot better than I thought it was
gonna feel, and like you could transfer the energy. It's
going to be different than electric, but it was still worked.
(54:51):
So then last year twenty twenty one and twenty twenty
two is the fortieth anniversary of both Bad Reputation Album
and I Love a Role Album because one came out.
They both came out in eighty one something like that.
So we wanted to do some extra things for the
fans and maybe record some acoustic stuff. So we thought, oh,
(55:13):
we did that stuff for the premiere, let's go in
the studio record a few songs. Once we got in
there and started playing songs, we really just did everything
we could do live. We just once we started recording,
we just kept going. And we didn't really plan on
having an album's worth or two of material, but I
(55:35):
just wound up there and thought, what the hell put
it out?
Speaker 1 (55:40):
Listen to that? How do you? How do you feel
about it?
Speaker 3 (55:42):
Like your I feel good about it. I feel it's fun.
It's different. We play some on stage, like we'll do
our electric show and then come and then do instead
of an encore, do like three or four acoustic songs
that has been going over. Just started like a month
ago and a half ago doing doing it, and see
(56:04):
how we go over live, because you know, I don't know,
listen in front of people, so they seem to like it.
So we'll see what happens, and we'll see what happens
with the stadium tour. You know, we're gonna see if
we can work some into that.
Speaker 4 (56:18):
And if it doesn't, what are those guys like now,
like Mottley Crue And I don't know.
Speaker 3 (56:27):
We we played with def lepper before and okay, uh,
but I've never played with Motley Cruz, so I don't know.
I have no idea what to expect, but it should
be interesting.
Speaker 2 (56:38):
I learned this with Blue Oyster Call Deaf Lepperd's album
covers were more scarier than def Lepperd was.
Speaker 1 (56:45):
The thing is like if Mutt Lane you know, Likett.
Speaker 2 (56:49):
Is too he's too Yeah, he's too polished in to
really like I'm telling you people exactly if you listen
to the love Bites whatever, like fucking harmonies like it's
it's it's just more enhanced California harmonies to me, you
know what I mean? And so I don't know. It's
(57:10):
where I never truly saw. I mean, of course, you
know they they create one anthem that will probably play
in every gentleman's club.
Speaker 1 (57:22):
Now to the end of time.
Speaker 2 (57:28):
I just meant, you know, Sugar has has a kick
ass rift to it, but I've never considered definitely.
Speaker 1 (57:34):
I mean I don't.
Speaker 2 (57:34):
I don't consider def lever metal the same way I
don't consider the Police hard rock, you know what I mean?
Speaker 3 (57:40):
Well, people are loose with their terminology now, you know,
don't you find? Well?
Speaker 2 (57:45):
Yeah, sometimes you were just find yeah exactly right now?
Like where with his storied career and is there is
there anything that you have yet to achieve or yet
to you accomplished that you.
Speaker 3 (58:04):
Oh, I'm you know, I wouldn't know who who to
say specifically, but I'm always interested in doing newing different things.
I just actually did something. Did I mention that with
Trombone Shorty?
Speaker 1 (58:18):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (58:19):
So you know it's it's it's new for me. I'm
not always great with that because I'm good with knowing,
you know, and being comfortable and doing what I know
and that kind of stuff. So I have to try
to get better with, you know, just jumping into the
unknown and not being so.
Speaker 1 (58:39):
Getting out of comfort zone.
Speaker 3 (58:43):
Yeah yeah, but being okay with that and and being
you know, you're gonna live, You're gonna be okay, don't worry.
I don't know. I think I'm ready for my R
and B album now, let's go there.
Speaker 1 (58:54):
It is there, it is, let's go.
Speaker 2 (58:58):
But Joe, thank you very much, uh yeah, for for
for joining us and and and doing this with us.
Speaker 1 (59:04):
And you know, we appreciate your work. I've been a
longtime fan of yours.
Speaker 3 (59:08):
Oh, thank you all. It's been a real pleasure, definitely
for sure.
Speaker 1 (59:12):
Thank you.
Speaker 3 (59:14):
Yeah, Jon, you guys take care of.
Speaker 2 (59:18):
Turn on Court Love Supreme. We will see you guys
on the next cover round, all right, Thank you.
Speaker 3 (59:23):
M H.
Speaker 1 (59:35):
West Lop. Supreme is a production of Iheartened Radio.
Speaker 2 (59:42):
For more podcasts from iHeart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Hosts And Creators
Laiya St. Clair
Questlove
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