The New Yorker Radio Hour - Joan Jett’s Reputation

Episode Date: October 2, 2018

Joan Jett cut a massive figure in rock and roll, starting in the nineteen-seventies and continuing with a string of hits including “I Love Rock and Roll,” “Bad Reputation,” “Crimson and Clover,” and others. Jett was kind of glam, kind of punk, and eventually just classic rock. But she was one of the first women of any style or genre to break through as a leader: she hired the band, played the guitar, wrote the songs, and sang them. She came to influence a whole generation of female rockers who wanted to be as fully empowered as she was—not to mention fans like The New Yorker’s Sarah Larson. Larson spoke with Jett on the occasion of a new documentary, “Joan Jett: Bad Reputation.” Plus, Donald Trump says trade wars are “easy to win.” Will they help the Democrats win the midterms? New Yorker Radio Hour listeners, we want to hear from you.  We have a few questions about the show and how you listen to it. The survey takes about twenty minutes, and your feedback will help us make our podcast better.  Take the survey here.

From One World Trade Center in Manhattan, this is the New Yorker Radio Hour, a co-production of the New Yorker and WNYC Studios. So cold in here. Oh, God. I wish I had my sweatshirt with me. I'd give you a sweatshirt, but I hate being cold. Once we start gabbing, maybe it'll... You want me to eat?

You pretty much eat it? No, no. So should we put these on yet, or what? Sure. Okay. I'm David Remnick, and thanks for joining us today. Last week, staff writer Sarah Larson, and met one of her childhood heroes, Joan Jett.

They sat down to talk about a new documentary about Jett's career called Bad Reputation. And if you were listening to Rock and Roll in 1980s, you couldn't miss Joan Jett. She had a string of hits including, I love rock and roll, Crimson and Clover, Bad Reputation and a lot of others. She was kind of glam, kind of punk,

and eventually just classic rock. Starting with her group of Black Hearts, Jett led the band, played guitar, sang the lead, all of it. For a girl growing up in the 80s, a music fan like Sarah Larson, that was huge. I loved this new documentary about you and your music, bad reputation, and it felt like the movie was timelier than I expected it to be. You know, I'm a fan, so I knew I would love it.

But when I put your music on in my headphones, after seeing your story and hearing the music, I walked down 6th Avenue, and I just felt like I owned it. I felt very powerful and excited and happy. And it reminded me of how I felt when I was a kid when I was listening to you. I was about nine and I'd request I love rock and roll at the roller rink. Wow. And then skating to it just felt so right.

To have a woman owning that song and that feeling just felt so right when I was a kid and it feels so right now. And it feels very welcome. You know, you're the first person really that I've gotten a response or a refurb. view from, I guess, basically. Certainly a woman that's seen this and made me want to cry when you said what you said, because that's

exactly the intention that you want to get across, at least I do, with the music. Yeah. Is that you want to reach people, connect, and make them feel you know, powerful and in their own, whatever it is that they want to

try to achieve. It doesn't have to be rock and roll, you know, whatever it is you want to be in life, don't let other people sort of hold you back. So hearing that from you makes me feel like we achieved the whole point of it. Like you're at the roller rink. Yeah, totally, exactly. So let's talk about how you came to play rock and roll and you getting your first guitar when you were a kid. Your parents gave you a guitar for Christmas. They sure did. An electric guitar. An electric guitar. I was specific. Yeah. What kind of guitar was it? It was a Sears Silverton.

You took lessons and you wanted to play rock and roll. Yes. And what happened? Well, the guy told me girls don't play

rock and roll. I'm sure I went in there all excited and exuberant as a young teenager would. Teach me how to play rock and roll.

And he could have said, okay, great. Let me teach you the basics. Let's learn some basic chords and then I can teach you some

rock songs. But he didn't. He said, girls don't play rock and roll. And, you know, I realized at that time, so you're not telling me that girls can't master the guitar. What you're saying is, I can't be the Rolling Stones, is what you're telling me. I want to be the Rolling Stones.

Rock and roll, despite its nature, exudes sexuality. So a girl playing rock and roll, it's going to be sexual. And Americans are very uncomfortable with that, you know, I think with women and sexuality in general. When you get to teenagers expressing themselves, forget about it. Yeah. I like that in the movie you talk about how you weren't rebelling against your parents. You were, I think, more rebelling against attitudes like that. Yes, absolutely.

It was more about what society telling, kind of pretending that we could be anything, but not really, you know, walk in the walk, talk in the talk, but not really letting girls do that. And then you encountered some of that. attitude as a teenager in your band The Runaways. A lot of it. Some people loved you guys. Japan, it was like Beatlemania. But then you also got a lot of sexist pushback.

Yeah, it was very confusing in one respect until you kind of caught on. And I still don't really understand what's so threatening about it. But people were pushing back against us. and when they couldn't kind of throw us off base that way, then they started calling us names and would be extremely rude and call us every name in the book or just try to drive the subject

always about talking about sex as opposed to the music. I find it kind of childish actually. Say, come on, man, is that that's where you're going to go? And some of that is part of what What inspired you to write after the runaways to write bad reputation, right? Was that? Well, definitely.

I was just reflecting on kind of how people, through my own ambition back in my face, trying to give it sort of a tinge of deviance. Yeah. Something's wrong with her that she wants to play guitar. So I was really, when I met my best friend and producer, song learning partner, or Kenny Laguna, sort of just talking about subjects to write songs about, talking about my life. It was sort of a natural flow that we'd discuss these subjects and then sort of turn it on its

head and make fun of that, sort of a tongue-in-cheek way and say, I don't give it down about my bad reputation. Yeah. One of the things I really, really love about this song and about your music in general is this irresistible combination of catchiness and real power. strength. And I was so intrigued in the movie to learn that Kenny had this background in writing bubble gum records. Yes. And the whole connection between bubblegum and punk. Right, right. Can you talk about that sound and what you, what combination of elements you were

looking for? And that's a unique combination. It's, you know, it's a, Kenny comes from that, the brill building history of songwriting. And the combination, yes, of, of, of, of, you know, it's a, his bubblegumness, and, you know, I really respect it, and I have that in myself as well. So, yeah, the combination just really works out. He said, he brought that and you brought the menace. Yeah, which I really like. Yeah. But it's a very warm kind of menace somehow.

At all. Yeah, it's not a nasty menace. Yeah, exactly. And another, you know, I was thinking of the combination of elements in your music about power and melody and joy and rage and love and strength and how I loved all those things about Nirvana. And then I suddenly remembered that I actually had the great pleasure of seeing you play with Nirvana. I happened to be writing about that rock and roll Hall of Fame in 2014 where they were inducted, which was such a powerful moment. And to have all these women, these great

powerful women in the Kurt role was so wonderful. And you. And you. And you. kicked it off with smells like teen spirit. Can you imagine how it was like being asked? I was, I was petrified on one level. Yeah. Not only do you have to be there enough for the band to play the song, but the fans. Yeah.

You know, and I was strangely very calm that night. Like I knew I wouldn't mess it up. I think, you know, on some level there had to be some spirit there because I wasn't doing it, if that makes any sense. Yeah, it does. Who knows? And then the next year, you and Kenny, I believe, were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Yes, yes.

And that's a nice moment in the movie, too. I mean, you can see, you know, there's a standing ovation for you in this giant stadium, and there's Paul McCartney and Yoko Ono and everybody's cheering. Yeah, it was actually Paul McCartney when I came out. him and Ringo, I believe, were the first to stand up. And I had planned on keeping it together. But, you know, seeing that, and then the whole building stand up, it was just more than I could handle emotionally, and I just broke down, you know.

So I didn't expect it, you know. That was a nice moment. It was. There have been a lot of portrayals of you in pop culture in various ways, not just in the Runaways movie, which you executive produced, I think, right? Like I was watching this series, Red Oaks, and there was a U character in it,

and I was watching this show Younger, and there was a character who seemed like a composite of you and maybe Chrissy Hind and some other things, and I just, what do you see in what the culture sees in you? Perseverance, you know, fighting for what you believe in, you know, sort of just, if I can really step back from myself, it's very hard to talk about yourself like this.

Sure. You know what I mean? Yeah. But it's like a type. It's a style. I mean, I heard about this years ago more from fashion shows. I want kind of a Joan Jet look.

So I can only imagine that, you know, it means stark, dark hair, you know, dark makeup. I don't really know. But it's a type. Yeah. What do you want people to take away from your story? Perseverance, for one thing. Yeah, I mean, that's a big one.

Don't let other people dictate what your life is going to be. You know, people tend to shoot down people's, other people's dreams. And I don't know what that is in human nature that seems to go there. So I would say watch for that. Yeah. So if there's something you really want to do or be in life, you have to go for it. I think it's really, really important to not let other people dictate your life. Well, I know that when I want to feel charged up, it helps to listen to a little Joan Jett.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for being here. It's been really great talking to you. Oh, it's my pleasure, Sarah. Thanks for having me. Joan Jett, the Joan Jett. She talked with Sarah Larson, who writes about culture on all its forums on New Yorker.com. The documentary Joan Jet, bad reputation, is out now. This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick.

We're taking a look at the midterm elections, which are just a month away. As if the Republicans didn't have enough to contend with, including allegations against Brett Kavanaugh, that have made this the ugliest Supreme Court nomination for a generation. They have a president who tends to undercut them on the economy. Most Republicans want to stick with the positive numbers they have. They can boast about strong employment and economic growth. But Donald Trump, in case you hadn't noticed, is not most Republicans.

Trump feels that tariffs and trade wars are a winning issue with his base, and he doesn't really care what economists think either. Even economists in his cabinet. He's just imposed another enormous round of tariffs on China, and China has predictably retaliated. Staff writer John Cassidy has been looking at the administration's trade policies and how they're playing out, during the midterm election campaign.

He spoke with Sheila Colhatcar, who reports for us on business and labor. We're in this increasingly hostile period right now in terms of the rhetoric coming out of the Trump administration around foreign trade. And last week, tariffs on $200 billion worth of goods from China went into effect. And China responded by adding $60 billion worth of tariffs

onto U.S. products. And this comes after major tensions between the U.S. and Mexico, Europe and Canada over trade. How politically risky are these tariffs to Donald Trump as we head into the midterms? Well, I certainly think a lot of people on the Republican side would have wished he'd waited until after the midterms just because they're already in bad shape.

And even though, as I think we'll discuss, the politics of trade are quite complicated, basically it's a diversion from the good economic news which, you know, the sort of Paul Ryan's and Mitch McConnell's of the world would rather be talking about a strong. economy, low unemployment rate, high rates of economic growth, etc. Instead of that, the big economic news is, you know, Trump's slapping more tariffs on Chinese, Chinese retaliating,

it's going to hurt consumers and it's going to hurt Republicans in a few individual states too, probably. So obviously these tariffs are going to translate to higher prices and to higher production costs. How quickly do those effects start to be felt? Well, I mean, the effects of the previous round, I already been felt. One of the examples is washing machines. They put tariffs on washing machines and prices of washing machines apparently gone up 10, 15%, and the sales have gone down. Obviously, these things have to come around the world, so it takes a, it's not immediate. But the 200 billion that have been slapped on last week, you know, that's probably going into effect over the next month or so. And what's new about these tariffs is the 200 billion

are on a very wide range of goods, 6,000 and lots of sort of consumer goods, desktop computers, Fidding fixtures, furniture, some forms of clothing, etc. So that's really going to start hurting the consumer rather than just businesses and farmers. How is this likely to help Trump? I mean, the timing of this and the way he keeps bringing it up over and over, suggests he thinks this is going to help sell his message to certain groups of people. So what's his rationale for thinking it will help? Again, I think we have to go back to the fact that the basic fact about the American economy is it's huge.

$20 trillion of GDP. It's just an immensely complicated machine with 300 million people, thousands and thousands of different industries, hundreds of thousands of firms, etc. So if you slap a bunch of tariffs on things and there's retaliatory tariffs, different sectors, different industries,

even within states, get hit differently. Now, Trump's big argument and the big political argument for him has always been he's defending the sort of industrial Midwest, the Rust Belt. and you can see that the basic policies are pretty popular there. You can see that from the reaction, for example, of Sherrod Brown, Democratic Senator who's up for election in Ohio in a close race,

and he has supported Trump's steel and aluminum tariffs, and he's also urged Trump to stay tough in talks with Tyner and not give in. So clearly, Trump's policies play some places. They play in the rust belt, they play in big sort of centers of steel. But at the same time, they don't play it elsewhere. across the border in Missouri, for example, Claire McCaskill is attacking Trump because his import tariffs on steel and aluminum are hurting local factories which use those goods as raw materials. There's a nail factory which is about to close or is threatening to close and she's blaming the

tariffs. So this sort of cuts, you know, at quite fine levels within different states. You can see other states too where the Republicans are actually on defensive about trade and the Democrats are the ones who are attacking. I mentioned Missouri. There's also Tennessee and North Dakota. I was just going to ask you a bit about how the tariffs are playing out in the Tennessee Senate race. So the Democratic nominee, Phil Bredison, is a former governor popular in this state. But is it unusual that the Tennessee race would be so close?

close. It is, yeah. I mean, Trump won the state, I think, by 25 or 26 points in 2016. So you would think this would be a, the Republicans would be home free here. And it's obviously Bob Corcor who's retiring, so it is a Republican seat. It's much, much closer than the Republicans would like. Bredesen is not in the lead. Marsha Blackburn, the Republican congressman is trying to replace her, still holds a narrow lead in all the polls. But it looks like, you know, we're talking three or four points and it's sort of within the margin of error. And one of the reasons is hitting the Republicans hard on trade, pointing out, for example, Chattanooga, Tennessee is a big BMW factory. They all use imported steel and imported goods, which are being hit by tariffs. So, you know, that's a typical sort of

Southern Republican state where you think Trump's policies would be popular, but in this case, they seem to be playing against him. And how is his opponent handling the trade issue then? Well, you see this in Tennessee, and in North Dakota, it's very awkward. It's a sort of paradox here. Some of these Republican voters don't like the trade policies, but Trump is still very popular in these states. If you look at his approval ratings, much higher there than nationally.

So they don't want to distance themselves from Trump, both because he's popular and because if they do distance themselves from me, may well start attacking them on Twitter. They need his support. So they're generally, what you're seeing is they're expressing concerns about the impact of some of these tariffs, but they're not coming out straight, forwardly and saying this is a mistake, you know, we need to end this trade war.

They're trying to straddle. And that's why it's a good issue for the Democrats because they've got these candidates pinned. They can't diss themselves from Trump, but they don't want to defend Trump's on popular policies. So in North Dakota, the Democratic Senator Heidi Heitkamp just ran an ad about how tariffs are hurting soybean farmers. Let's take a listen to that. China is canceling their contracts to buy soybeans. North Dakota is losing hundreds of millions of dollars worth of business. But when you ask Kevin Kramer why he supports the trade war, he criticizes farmers.

I hear all kinds of hysteria. There's potential short-term pain. We don't have a very high pain threshold in the United States of America. Mr. Kramer, that trade war is costing my family a lot of money. And you don't seem to care. The administration announced a $12 billion aid package for farmers, a sort of farmer bailout package to help them cope with the tariffs. Do you think that's going to be enough to help counteract this argument

about how he's inflicting pain on farmers? Well, I think it certainly helped to some point. I mean, I love the Republicans. They're always in favor of socialism for farmers. You know, capitalism for everybody else, socialism for the farmers. But, I mean, if you're just sort of going on a sort of ad hoc basis listening to the vox pops that have been done there. Farmers seem to be saying, yes, they welcome the relief from this bailout,

but they'd much rather to be selling their goods properly, and they don't want to this trade war to go on forever. Now, then when you say to them, well, is it bad enough that you're going to vote against Donald Trump or vote for the Democrats, you don't seem to get very many yeses as yet. But if it goes on and on, you know, we shall see whether it may have more political impact. Trump is selling it as a temporary thing, which is, you know, short-term pain for long-term gain, which is exactly what Kevin Kramer is saying in North Dakota as well.

Do you think it's really temporary? Well, I don't think it's temporary. I mean, it looks to me like Trump likes tariffs. I mean, you know, he doesn't look to me. He says it every day on Twitter, you know, tariffs work. I think there's a division in the White House, though. There are some people in Trump administration who see tariffs as just a way to bully the Chinese into giving up some of their mercantilist practices.

And you actually see some support from that even in the sort of economic policy institutes in Washington. The sort of feeling is that negotiating with the Chinese hasn't been that successful. So somebody had to do something. They don't necessarily support Trump, but they can see a certain logic to it. But, you know, that is a completely different argument imposing tariffs temporarily so the Chinese have to belly up to what Trump seems to be talking. about his permanent tariffs so he can, you know, rebuild the steel industry and rebuild all sorts

of industries in the heartlands. In order to do that, you would need very heavy tariffs indefinitely. And I think that's more to Trump's liking. I don't think he sees this as temporary at all. As the midterms get closer, do you think the Democrats have been effective at developing a consistent message around this trade issue? Well, I think Democrats don't want a consistent message around it because they want their candidates to have a bit of flexibility. I mentioned the example of Sherrod Brown in Ohio, who is basically not completely supporting Trump, but supported the initial tariffs and has expressed sympathy for the overall approach he's taking to China. Whereas, you know, in California,

and New York in places which tend to be very deeply integrated into sort of the world economy in a different way, most of the Democrats in those areas are coming out completely against the tariffs. Is the fact that there's now a little bit more flexibility around this issue, maybe a healthy sign? Because for a long time,

there seemed to be just agreement on both sides that free trade was generally a good and desirable thing. Now there's a little bit more of a debate around it. Maybe that's good. Well, I mean, if you believe

in political diversity, I mean, I guess you can make that argument. There always were people on both sides, you know, who were a protectionist. Pat Buchanan ran as a protectionist in 92 for the Republicans. He just could never break through.

against the sort of country club, Chamber of Commerce, Republicans, as I say, Gephard and others in the Democratic Party. I think that diversity opinion has always been there. What's changed is that, you know, a protectionist has taken over, demolished, basically, everybody else in the Republican Party. So that's a big difference.

And, you know, whether you think that's good or bad, basically depends on whether you think that Trump's right on this trade stuff. And I think that he's not right overall. I mean, I think he's responding to some legitimate grievances in some parts of the country from some industries and some legitimate grievances about Chinese mercantilism in some areas. But overall, starting a huge trade war, you know, it's a bad idea. There are other ways to go about this. You can do it through the WTO. You can, you know, if we're going to take on the Chinese, we need the support of the Europeans.

We need the support of Canada. The support of Mexico. Trump's just blundering in because he thinks, if I just slap tariffs, on everybody, you know, they'll buckle to me. And I think that's the wrong way to go about it, and it's not going to work. Thanks for talking to me, John. Thank you. That's John Cassidy, speaking with Sheila Cole Hatcar, and they're both staff writers at The New Yorker, and you can find all of their coverage of trade and business at New Yorker.com. That's it for today. Hope you enjoy the show, and I hope you'll tune in next time. I'm David Remnick. Have a good week.

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