Joan Jett Delivers a ‘Changeup’
photo credit: Shervin Lainez
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Joan Jett has finally gone acoustic. More than 45 years after her first studio recording with The Runaways, her new release, Changeup, presents 25 strippeddown tracks with her longtime band, the Blackhearts.
“I’ve always kept the acoustic stuff at arm’s length because, when I started out as a kid at age 13, all that society allowed girls to do was play acoustic guitar,” she explains. “So I gravitated to the electric guitar and pushed away from the acoustic guitar because I was told that was the only thing that I could play. I didn’t even own an acoustic guitar until about 10 years ago.”
Jett and the Blackhearts first performed acoustic material in conjunction with the release of the 2018 documentary film, Bad Reptutation, which examined her career. “When we did the premiere, they wanted us to play a few songs,” she recalls. “We knew that doing it the electric way wasn’t going to work, so our only option was to do a few things acoustically. It happened to go over very well but, most of all, it felt good to us. It was an experience in and of itself. We weren’t planning to do an album.
“Then, last year, we had the 40th anniversary of the Bad Reputation album coming up,” Jett continues. “That’s when we thought of the acoustic gig and we said, ‘Why don’t we try to record a few songs for the fans and give that to them as a 40thanniversary surprise?’ Once we got into the studio and started recording, it just sort of fell into place, and we ended up having an album’s worth of material. Then, after we played it for our friends, we decided to put it out because they seemed to like it.”
The Rock and Roll Hall of Famer will be touring stadiums throughout much of the summer with Def Leppard, Mötley Crüe and Poison. She notes, “I’ve always liked the smaller venues because I like to feel the sweat; I like to feel the audience. But there’s nothing like walking onstage to 80,000 people screaming, singing and watching you. It can be pretty intimidating but, once you’re out there, you’ve just gotta do it and there’s something to be said for that.”
As you began recording the material for Changeup, was there a particular song that you found to be a challenge?
The challenge was really our own conditioning around each song and our own memories of them. I was really fighting with my own head. But once I was OK with taking this approach, it was really just a matter of matching up with the style because, even though I felt we could play rockand-roll with the acoustic stuff, the energy is a little bit different. It’s not as aggressive outright, where I have to sing louder to compete with the electric instruments. So it made the melodies and the lyrics take center stage, but it also required a completely different mindset to wipe away everything that my habits had taught me. I think maybe that was the hardest part, as opposed to just playing the music.
Is there a song that took on a new life or revealed itself in a new way through that process?
It’s always scary to jump into the unknown like this. You’re always questioning, “Is this gonna work? Am I crazy? Am I hearing this right?” I had to give my body and mind a chance to reorient themselves around these songs that were being played acoustically. Certain songs turned out to be pretty much the same. But others did change.
“Victim of Circumstance” presented a vocal challenge in the sense that I couldn’t sing it that high, so it has a completely different melody from the electric version. I think I wound up singing a harmony to the lead vocal. It really required playing the song a few times and not just latching on to the first thing that came out of me.
I don’t think anyone besides me was interested in trying “Cherry Bomb” for acoustic purposes, but I figured we should run it down to see how it felt. That’s one of my favorites because it was so different from the original, but I think it has just as much fire and energy as the electric one had.
“Cherry Bomb” is the opening track on The Runaways’ debut album. You described your decision to start out on electric guitar rather than acoustic. Did you get much pushback for that?
I wanted to do what felt right to me, but nobody was really paying attention at that time. My parents probably thought it was a phase, and I don’t know what my friends thought. They didn’t really say much to me about it.
I used to live in Maryland and then I moved to Los Angeles right before The Runaways started. Before I left, I told the people at my high school that I was going to go out to California and form a rock-and-roll band and become famous. Then it happened and all my friends couldn’t believe I actually did it.
I remember this guy at a high school reunion, 20 years ago now, saying, “Wow, who could have believed that the prop girl made good?” I had taken drama classes, but I was too scared to ever be onstage. I lacked confidence, so I just would work at props to be on the periphery—eventually planning to get on the stage myself. But I was a little too fearful.
You eventually turned to acting with Light of Day, which just celebrated its 35th anniversary. Is there a moment from the filming that pops into your mind?
It’s a collage of images. I have a vague picture of looking at the club where we played, looking at the stage and just standing around with Michael. I’ve gotta say, Michael J. Fox is the most wonderful person and a giving actor. He was very gentle with me on that movie. He was the biggest star in the world and he could have made my life miserable, but he was wonderful. He was my teacher, and he taught me a lot about moviemaking very quickly— how to find my mark, how to hit my mark without looking. He had all these little actor tips that were helpful for a nervous Nellie like me.
You released Changeup on your own Blackheart Records, which you created over 40 years ago. These days, many artists will issue their own work but, back then, it was revolutionary. Did you think of it in those terms?
I’m very proud to have my own label. It’s been a great thing to see other people pick up on it, whether they got the idea from seeing us or figured it out for themselves.
We did it out of necessity because nobody wanted to sign us. At the time, we wanted to be signed by a major but I’ve realized that maybe the rock-and-roll gods were looking out for us. Had we been signed, then we wouldn’t own our own music now, which most artists don’t have the ability to do. So that was a blessing in disguise.
