Episode 953 - Joan Jett

Episode 953 • Released September 23, 2018 • Speakers detected

00:00:00Marc:Lock the gates!

00:00:09Marc:All right, let's do this.

00:00:10Marc:How are you?

00:00:11Marc:What the fuckers?

00:00:12Marc:What the fuck buddies?

00:00:13Marc:What the fucking ears?

00:00:14Marc:What's happening?

00:00:15Marc:I'm Mark Maron.

00:00:15Marc:This is my podcast.

00:00:17Marc:Welcome to it.

00:00:18Marc:How's it going out there?

00:00:19Marc:Are you holding up?

00:00:20Marc:Everything okay?

00:00:22Marc:Hope you're doing all right.

00:00:23Marc:I worry.

00:00:24Marc:I worry about you.

00:00:26Marc:I worry about us.

00:00:27Marc:I worry about me.

00:00:28Marc:I'm a worrier.

00:00:29Marc:It's just the way I'm wired.

00:00:31Marc:I wish I wasn't, but sometimes it's warranted, isn't it?

00:00:36Marc:I just got back from Denver.

00:00:38Marc:I did four shows at the Comedy Works.

00:00:40Marc:I'm recording this on Sunday afternoon.

00:00:43Marc:I fly out early in the morning so I could come do this.

00:00:47Marc:It never stops.

00:00:48Marc:I do not have much free time.

00:00:51Marc:The Comedy Works is a great venue.

00:00:53Marc:It's one of the great comedy clubs.

00:00:55Marc:It seats about, I don't know, maybe...

00:00:57Marc:250 or something and it's in a basement it's got low ceilings it's it's very snug it's slightly tiered the audience is right on top of you some of them are are literally on stage they're sitting on stage and i'm working on new shit and as you know i've been i've been out there hammering it out

00:01:14Marc:At the anvil of the club, I'm in it.

00:01:18Marc:I'm 100% in it.

00:01:19Marc:It is my job.

00:01:20Marc:It was always my job.

00:01:22Marc:That's the amazing thing about doing comedy for as long as I've been doing it, is that you work hard at something and then you realize...

00:01:33Marc:This is my job.

00:01:34Marc:This is what I do and I'm good at it.

00:01:36Marc:And I keep pushing it.

00:01:38Marc:I keep taking risks at my job.

00:01:41Marc:I've built a craft over a long period of time.

00:01:43Marc:I'm very proud of it.

00:01:45Marc:I just had this conversation.

00:01:47Marc:I'm sorry.

00:01:48Marc:Did I mention who's on the show today?

00:01:49Marc:Joan Jett is on the show today.

00:01:51Marc:Joan Jett with a with a special appearance by her manager.

00:01:57Marc:uh danny laguna who uh who they are inseparable apparently and and uh he wanted to be around so i put him on the mic he's a very interesting cat in his own right and they seem to have a symbiotic thing going been together for years so it's uh it's joan jet with let's do it that way joan jet with danny laguna today on the show joan jet i believe just turned 60 the other day i recorded this before she turned 60 so i if if you're on top of that and

00:02:26Marc:You realize, why didn't I wish her a happy birthday?

00:02:28Marc:It was because I didn't know then.

00:02:30Marc:But she just turned 60.

00:02:32Marc:I'm turning 55 on Thursday.

00:02:35Marc:And it's not so much that I'm feeling my age, but I do...

00:02:41Marc:start to think about what I do and who I am in the world and what we all do.

00:02:48Marc:It's just a weird thing when you get, I guess I'm middle-aged, but getting back to the idea of doing the job, especially as a creative person, as somebody who has sort of hammered out their own way through a creative endeavor, through an expression endeavor, through like something that is not a normal way of life.

00:03:09Marc:I flew back on the plane from Denver with Whitney Cummings, who was working at the other club.

00:03:17Marc:And, you know, we just got into this conversation.

00:03:19Marc:And I just started to realize, like, there's a lot of people out there that call themselves comics because they've done 10 minutes here or a couple of sets there.

00:03:29Marc:They worked on an open mic somewhere.

00:03:32Marc:They did a room show.

00:03:33Marc:And the thing about being a comic, about truly being a comic, not unlike any job, is that you've got to do the job.

00:03:42Marc:And the job, to a certain degree, is like getting laughs.

00:03:46Marc:Fine.

00:03:46Marc:You should do that when you're a comic.

00:03:49Marc:But the bigger job is, can you show up?

00:03:52Marc:and do an hour, hour and a half and do it consistently and stay up there and over the years generate new material.

00:04:01Marc:Can you apply your craft?

00:04:02Marc:Can you evolve your craft?

00:04:03Marc:Can you show up anywhere and do an hour and get paid for it?

00:04:09Marc:and do it consistently i mean that is the job and and i've been doing the job you know for most of my life at this point being a paid comic and showing up whether it's strangers whether they're familiar whether it's a an event that seems awkward for comedy or a venue that seems awkward for comedy i've been doing it for a long time and over time you know it's not

00:04:33Marc:It's not something to be taken for granted.

00:04:35Marc:And I think this is something that everyone goes through who's been working at what they do for a long time to sort of take a minute and acknowledge that you know what you're doing and that you're good at it and that you're engaged with it and that you like it and that you're proud of it.

00:04:50Marc:And I don't know that I do that enough.

00:04:52Marc:And I don't know why I'm doing it publicly because I have my own insecurities.

00:04:56Marc:I have my own weird approach to, you know, humility, I guess.

00:05:03Marc:I just I don't always give myself any credit.

00:05:08Marc:I work hard.

00:05:11Marc:And I don't know.

00:05:11Marc:I don't know why I'm telling you that.

00:05:13Marc:I talk to you.

00:05:15Marc:Twice a week.

00:05:16Marc:I talk to people in this garage, you know, as often as possible.

00:05:20Marc:And then I do the acting thing, you know, which I'm fine to admit that I'm relatively new to.

00:05:25Marc:But there was just something about this moment where, you know, it's just me and Whitney on a plane talking about our shows, talking about what's going on and realizing that we go out there.

00:05:35Marc:And we do this job.

00:05:37Marc:And I think it becomes very apparent when you do four shows at a club.

00:05:42Marc:I'm working out new stuff.

00:05:44Marc:I'm hammering out new stuff because I want my hour to be tight.

00:05:47Marc:I don't have my hour plus, really.

00:05:50Marc:I don't have a special on the books, but I'm going to be at the Beacon Theater.

00:05:54Marc:in new york on november 10th you can go to wtfpod.com slash tour to get tickets for that and it's just it's one of those things i guess i'm just telling you i'm acknowledging that you know when you do something for most of your life and you you see that you evolve with it that you get better at it that you have more control over it you know you can take different risks you can challenge yourself within what you do and uh you have the freedom to do that

00:06:20Marc:It's a it's a it's a mind blowing thing.

00:06:22Marc:It's a great thing.

00:06:23Marc:And I see it in my peers.

00:06:26Marc:Like I just I just finished reading my friend Sam Lipsight's new book.

00:06:30Marc:It's going to be out in January.

00:06:31Marc:And he sent me a galley copy.

00:06:33Marc:And Sam's had several novels out, several collections of short stories.

00:06:37Marc:But man, I read this fucking book and it was granted.

00:06:42Marc:We're very good friends, but.

00:06:44Marc:It's a perfect evolution of his creativity and expression.

00:06:47Marc:It's gotten better.

00:06:48Marc:It's gotten deeper.

00:06:50Marc:It's gotten more wise.

00:06:51Marc:His wordsmithing is phenomenal.

00:06:54Marc:It's fucking hilarious.

00:06:56Marc:And it ends.

00:06:56Marc:It just lands.

00:06:57Marc:He lands this novel like it was like landing a spaceship for the first time.

00:07:03Marc:Just nails it.

00:07:06Marc:And he's been doing it for 20 years.

00:07:08Marc:And you just to see somebody, you know, get better and get amazing through what they do, through commitment and through hard work is a beautiful thing.

00:07:18Marc:The book is called Hark.

00:07:20Marc:And if you don't know Sam Lipsight stuff, he's one of the funniest fucking writers alive, really.

00:07:25Marc:And he's he's a real deal, kind of like, you know, takes real chances on the page.

00:07:31Marc:and is deeply funny, and I'm going to have him in here.

00:07:35Marc:I have not had my friend Sam Lipsight on for a full episode.

00:07:39Marc:He was on near the beginning of the show, and I think we might have done one other one.

00:07:42Marc:I can't even remember.

00:07:43Marc:But for this book, we're going to do a full one.

00:07:46Marc:But you can pre-order, Hark, and I would do it, even though you're going to wait a few months.

00:07:51Marc:But look, I don't sell you garbage, people.

00:07:53Marc:Anyways, proud of my friend, proud of myself, proud of anybody who sticks with something long enough to become great at it, even if you don't get the attention that you think you deserve.

00:08:05Marc:Even if you're not a superstar, even if, you know, you're not, you know, recognized as much as you want.

00:08:11Marc:If you know in your heart you're doing it the best you can and you're taking chances and you're evolving and doing new things and finding freedom within your expression or within your occupation or you're finding movement or success and helping people, whatever it is.

00:08:28Marc:For fuck's sake, don't take anything away from yourself just because you don't think enough people notice what you do.

00:08:34Marc:And if you're getting paid for it and you're doing a good job with it, you're fucking living the life.

00:08:40Marc:You should fucking be proud of yourself.

00:08:44Marc:And if you're not doing it and you're holding yourself back from doing it, just do it really.

00:08:50Marc:What do you have to lose ultimately after a certain point?

00:08:54Marc:Do you know what I'm saying?

00:08:56Marc:Huh?

00:08:56Marc:Do you?

00:08:57Marc:Also, speaking about lifers, about comedians, I talked to Rita Rudner in here last week.

00:09:04Marc:She's a great comic.

00:09:05Marc:She's been around a long time, always generating new material.

00:09:09Marc:I haven't seen her in a while, but she's got this new special out.

00:09:12Marc:You'll hear my interview with her in a few weeks, but we have a schedule.

00:09:16Marc:But I wanted to mention that her new comedy special, Rita Rudner, A Tale of Two Dresses, is now available from Comedy Dynamics on Amazon, iTunes, Google Play, and most on-demand platforms.

00:09:28Marc:So check that out, and you'll hear me and Rita in a few weeks.

00:09:33Marc:Great comic.

00:09:34Marc:And we had a great conversation, but I just wanted to give you a heads up for that.

00:09:42Marc:You know, I don't know.

00:09:43Marc:My parents are getting older, but they're both still with us.

00:09:48Marc:And throughout the years, you've heard me, you know, resolve things or have problems with or, you know, you know, not quite be able to get over resentments with my folks, with my dad, some of my mom, whatever.

00:10:01Marc:But they're still around.

00:10:03Marc:And as I get older, I'm very grateful they're still around.

00:10:06Marc:You know, it's nice to have them and be able to talk to them.

00:10:09Marc:I think I can appreciate them more than I have previous in the past.

00:10:13Marc:That's another thing that's evolving.

00:10:15Marc:If you let it, if you have the heart to do it.

00:10:19Marc:But I got this I got this email.

00:10:22Marc:And these kind of emails kind of get me, you know, they kind of they move me.

00:10:29Marc:The subject line is a letter from a fan involving a cross country trip with his son and your show.

00:10:35Marc:How am I not going to how am I not going to pop that one open?

00:10:39Marc:I'm already half crying.

00:10:40Marc:Hi, Mark.

00:10:41Marc:So I just got back home to Washington, D.C.

00:10:44Marc:after a month-long cross-country trip with my 19-year-old son, Connor.

00:10:49Marc:I helped move him to Los Angeles so he can pursue his many dreams.

00:10:52Marc:He's our only, so this one was special on many levels.

00:10:55Marc:But one of the coolest things for me was turning him on to your WTF shows as we burned rubber across this great, if highly imperfect, land of ours.

00:11:04Marc:We ate amazingly diverse, great food, observed how cool the vast majority of our fellow citizens are.

00:11:10Marc:And listen to your guests like we were sitting in your garage.

00:11:14Marc:You know how it is on long drives.

00:11:16Marc:You exhaust conversation quickly as mile after mile of the same looking shit blurs by.

00:11:20Marc:It becomes hypnotically boring, mentally deadening, no matter how great your Spotify playlist may be.

00:11:25Marc:But that's where your shows save the day.

00:11:28Marc:Our mutual enjoyment of your opening monologues and your thoroughly unique interview style had us sitting forward in our seats and

00:11:35Marc:We'd gobble up shows and then talk about them for a couple hours.

00:11:39Marc:It was fan-fucking-tastic, my friend.

00:11:41Marc:It was like you were in the car with us, in the backseat, chatting with a guest.

00:11:44Marc:It bonded my son and me in a way that I can't express in words.

00:11:48Marc:And for that, I'll forever be grateful to you.

00:11:52Marc:Later, I heard him talk about you and your shows with his friends, and I thought to myself, well, there's at least one useful takeaway he got from his flawed old man, and I'm totally good with that and proud of it.

00:12:03Marc:So thank you, Mark.

00:12:04Marc:Thank you for helping a father and son talk about real things like comedy, integrity,

00:12:09Marc:honesty, art, books, music, politics, and love.

00:12:14Marc:Thank you for giving us hope in a seemingly hopeless time and culture.

00:12:18Marc:Our time with you meant something.

00:12:20Marc:It counted, and we'll never forget it.

00:12:22Marc:Your fan and pal for life, John.

00:12:26Marc:Wow, John, I, you know, for most of my life, I was, you know, fairly kind of cornered and pigeonholed by myself and others as a somewhat selfish fuck, you know, and somewhat self-obsessed person or cynical or whatever.

00:12:43Marc:But again, and this goes along with what I was talking about earlier, as time goes on and things get weirder and things get darker, as I get older and as the country struggles on, I have to take,

00:12:56Marc:some comfort in that and you know knowing that one of the effects of this show which i could never have assumed would be something like that that letter and it happens all the time and i and i'm and i'm happy that i i've been there for people even though i don't i don't you know i'm just doing what i do but i i'm very grateful that it's had the effect it has i'm sorry if i'm a little mushy but maybe it's

00:13:22Marc:Just my age.

00:13:24Marc:Maybe it just happens sometimes.

00:13:28Marc:And maybe I dumped all my funny over the weekend.

00:13:33Marc:Joan Jett.

00:13:35Marc:an archetype, an original.

00:13:37Marc:She's fucking Joan Jett.

00:13:39Marc:There's a new documentary about her life and career coming out.

00:13:42Marc:It's called Bad Reputation.

00:13:44Marc:It comes out this Friday, September 28th.

00:13:47Marc:And as I said before, Joan's longtime producer and collaborator, Kenny Laguna, was with her for this interview.

00:13:53Marc:So you're gonna hear from him too.

00:13:55Marc:And there was a lot going on in here that day, a lot of stuff.

00:13:58Marc:The two of them, there's a little whirlwind

00:14:02Marc:And I hope you can feel that as you listen to me talk to Joan Jett featuring Kenny Laguna.

00:14:11Thank you.

00:14:21Marc:You know, I got a sense of you guys from the movie.

00:14:24Marc:It feels like an ongoing comedy routine.

00:14:27Marc:It's terrific.

00:14:29Guest:Yeah.

00:14:29Guest:But this is what happens, right?

00:14:30Guest:Everybody says it's like an old married couple.

00:14:32Guest:Yeah.

00:14:32Guest:But you're not married.

00:14:33Guest:That's true.

00:14:34Guest:No, we're not married.

00:14:35Guest:It's like an old married couple.

00:14:36Marc:His wife and your daughter run the company.

00:14:40Marc:Right.

00:14:41Marc:Black Heart Records still?

00:14:42Marc:Yes.

00:14:42Marc:Yeah.

00:14:43Marc:And you started that company.

00:14:45Marc:And your wife's still around?

00:14:46Marc:Yes.

00:14:46Guest:Yes, and she started the company with us.

00:14:48Marc:All right.

00:14:49Guest:And she and I met in high school.

00:14:52Marc:Yeah.

00:14:53Marc:Wow, a long time.

00:14:54Guest:Yeah, especially for this business.

00:14:56Guest:Yeah.

00:14:56Guest:You just had your anniversary, too.

00:14:58Guest:How long?

00:14:59Guest:48.

00:14:59Guest:48 years?

00:15:01Guest:That's crazy.

00:15:03Guest:Who makes it 48 years?

00:15:04Guest:It was a teenage wedding.

00:15:05Guest:Yeah.

00:15:06Marc:How much noise is Kenny going to make with bags and stuff?

00:15:08Guest:I know.

00:15:09Guest:Are we recording now?

00:15:10Marc:Yeah.

00:15:11Guest:Oh, sorry.

00:15:13Guest:I was looking for my pre-roll.

00:15:15Marc:I was waiting for it to stop, too.

00:15:16Marc:What do you got?

00:15:17Marc:What do you need?

00:15:19Guest:My pre-roll.

00:15:20Guest:Why don't you get up and walk away?

00:15:21Marc:What's a pre-roll?

00:15:22Marc:Is that drug talk?

00:15:25Guest:We're not druggies, by the way.

00:15:27Guest:The only thing we do is cannabis.

00:15:29Guest:Yeah, that's what I mean.

00:15:31Marc:Is that what a pre-roll is?

00:15:32Guest:Yeah, pre-roll.

00:15:34Marc:Never mind.

00:15:34Marc:Like already rolled?

00:15:35Marc:Yeah.

00:15:37Marc:So wait, how long have you lived in New York?

00:15:38Marc:Since 79?

00:15:39Marc:Yes, I moved there in 1979.

00:15:41Marc:Now when you come back here, does it trigger memories and shit?

00:15:44Marc:Definitely.

00:15:45Guest:Yeah?

00:15:45Guest:Yeah, it's bittersweet.

00:15:47Marc:Yeah?

00:15:47Guest:I mean, I love L.A., and I hate L.A.

00:15:50Guest:Yeah, right, yeah.

00:15:51Guest:You know, on two levels.

00:15:52Guest:It's not that I hate it, it's just that, you know, when The Runaways broke up, it was devastating to me, and it really, I could feel...

00:16:02Marc:or at least it felt to me like the people were laughing and saying we told you yeah you couldn't do this it wouldn't work but when you came out here you didn't like i for some reason when i watched the documentary i was like did she run away from home but you were you were around here right you you come from pennsylvania yeah were you lucky to get out of there i think

00:16:23Guest:No, I like Pennsylvania.

00:16:25Marc:You do?

00:16:25Guest:It's nice.

00:16:26Guest:Yeah.

00:16:26Marc:Was it rural?

00:16:27Marc:Was it the rural part or near Philly?

00:16:29Marc:Where was it?

00:16:29Marc:It was all suburbs, you know.

00:16:31Guest:I was born in Philly, but got out of there when I was six months old.

00:16:35Guest:Yeah.

00:16:36Guest:My parents moved to Pittsburgh.

00:16:39Guest:Yeah.

00:16:39Guest:Then I had a brother and sister were born there.

00:16:42Guest:Yeah.

00:16:42Guest:Lived in Erie, Pennsylvania.

00:16:44Guest:Wow, all over.

00:16:44Guest:I was about eight.

00:16:45Guest:Yeah.

00:16:45Guest:Then I moved to Rockville, Maryland.

00:16:48Guest:Yeah.

00:16:48Guest:Funny enough, Rockville.

00:16:49Guest:Yeah.

00:16:49Guest:And that's where I sort of fell in love with rock and roll.

00:16:54Marc:So would you say you have like a Pennsylvania accent like a Philly?

00:16:57Marc:Because you do have a twang.

00:16:59Marc:There's something to it.

00:17:00Guest:It's East Coast.

00:17:03Guest:It's more like a, yeah, it would be Philly.

00:17:05Guest:Right.

00:17:05Guest:Maryland.

00:17:06Guest:Yeah.

00:17:07Guest:Maryland kind of is like Philly in the South at the same time.

00:17:10Marc:And Jersey too.

00:17:10Marc:Jersey, Philly, and New York, they're definitely defined accents.

00:17:15Marc:Yes.

00:17:15Marc:It's a tough accent.

00:17:16Marc:Yes.

00:17:16Marc:You lucked out.

00:17:17Marc:It's a good accent to have.

00:17:19Marc:So when you were, okay, so you're in Pittsburgh, and you have two older, you're the oldest or what?

00:17:23Marc:I'm the oldest, yeah.

00:17:24Marc:Yeah.

00:17:24Marc:Are they either of your sibs in music business?

00:17:27Marc:No.

00:17:28Marc:No.

00:17:28Marc:They're both just regular jobs.

00:17:30Marc:Yeah?

00:17:31Marc:So, okay, when you say, where'd you start getting hip to the music?

00:17:36Marc:When did it start turning you towards it?

00:17:38Guest:i lived in in rockville maryland a little suburb of uh washington dc and it was just sort of i guess you know you as you age as you come out of being a little kid yeah and just listening to going from like donny osmond to the osmonds yeah something like well that was on the radio was that when we were kids with the osmond brothers the osmond brothers yeah right yeah well you know for a teenage partridge family

00:18:07Guest:A little younger.

00:18:10Guest:No, but I didn't really.

00:18:11Guest:I mean, I like the songs.

00:18:13Guest:They were okay.

00:18:14Guest:Yeah, yeah.

00:18:14Guest:But then something shifted around 11, something like that.

00:18:19Guest:My ear.

00:18:20Guest:Yeah.

00:18:21Guest:Hearing things like All Right Now by Free.

00:18:25Guest:There was something in the rhythm guitar sound.

00:18:29Marc:Yeah, yeah.

00:18:30Guest:That I wanted to make those sounds.

00:18:32Marc:Yeah.

00:18:33Marc:That guy was a good guitar player.

00:18:34Marc:He died.

00:18:35Marc:Was it Kossoff?

00:18:36Marc:Was that his name?

00:18:36Marc:The guitar player from Free?

00:18:38Marc:Oh, Paul Kossoff, I think.

00:18:39Marc:Paul Kossoff.

00:18:40Marc:Yeah.

00:18:41Marc:I could be wrong.

00:18:41Marc:No, that's right.

00:18:42Marc:He had a good sound, that guy.

00:18:44Guest:But it was just a little bit out of tune.

00:18:46Guest:Yeah, yeah.

00:18:47Guest:A few songs like that.

00:18:49Guest:T-Rex, Bang-A-Gong.

00:18:50Guest:Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:18:52Guest:So I just wanted to make those sounds.

00:18:54Guest:And you were like 11?

00:18:54Guest:Yeah.

00:18:56Guest:Probably when it started.

00:18:58Guest:And by 13, I worked up the courage to ask my parents for an electric guitar for Christmas.

00:19:06Guest:They gave me an electric guitar.

00:19:07Marc:Like a good one?

00:19:08Guest:A Sears Silvertone.

00:19:09Marc:Oh, yeah.

00:19:10Marc:Oh, that's right.

00:19:11Marc:It kind of came with an amp and stuff.

00:19:12Marc:You plug it right in.

00:19:14Marc:Those are worth a lot of money now, the Silvertones.

00:19:15Guest:I hear.

00:19:16Guest:I have no idea where it is.

00:19:18Guest:I'm sure.

00:19:19Guest:I just don't know.

00:19:21Marc:How long did it take before you learned how to play rock?

00:19:26Marc:Did you have to start with folk stuff and get bored?

00:19:29Guest:Yeah, actually, I went and I took a guitar lesson.

00:19:33Guest:And when you're young, you're exuberant.

00:19:37Guest:And you think you can do everything right now.

00:19:39Guest:So, of course, I go in there and I say, teach me how to play rock and roll.

00:19:44Guest:And without the basics.

00:19:46Guest:So, first of all, he says, girls don't play rock and roll.

00:19:50Guest:So, that kind of...

00:19:51Guest:It kind of hit me strangely because I'm in school with girls playing Beethoven and Bach on their violins, so what are you saying?

00:20:02Guest:So I went through the lesson.

00:20:04Guest:He was trying to teach me on top of old Smokey.

00:20:08Guest:But, you know, obviously you have to learn the basics first.

00:20:11Guest:It's always those weird dumb songs.

00:20:13Guest:Well, if you just said, look, you can play rock and roll, you just have to learn the basics first.

00:20:17Guest:Then I would have been like, oh, okay, teaching the basics.

00:20:20Guest:But saying, no, you can't do that.

00:20:23Guest:I just went to that one lesson and quit and bought a learn how to play chords yourself.

00:20:29Marc:You need those three chords.

00:20:30Guest:Yeah, and I listened to those singles that I went out and bought, like, all right now.

00:20:34Guest:Yeah.

00:20:35Guest:And I just played along with it.

00:20:37Marc:Did you have the chord charts, like the book of chords, where to put your fingers and that kind of stuff?

00:20:41Guest:No, I can't really.

00:20:42Guest:Just the, yeah, basically just the basic chords, but I don't read music, so.

00:20:47Marc:Right, yeah, you know, the ones, just, no, not the music, but just the chord structure.

00:20:51Marc:Yes, just the how to play an E, how to play an E. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:20:54Guest:And then bar chords.

00:20:55Guest:So that's really how I learned to play.

00:20:57Guest:And I didn't push myself at that age because I didn't, beyond just kind of playing, I didn't see anything coming of it.

00:21:08Guest:Then my family moved to California.

00:21:11Guest:Which part?

00:21:12Guest:Los Angeles.

00:21:14Guest:Yeah, yeah.

00:21:16Guest:I had an aunt out here, and my mother wanted to get out and be by her sister.

00:21:21Guest:So my father worked at Transfer.

00:21:22Guest:He worked for an insurance company.

00:21:24Guest:But once I moved to California, then I'm thinking...

00:21:28Guest:You know, I could actually form a band.

00:21:30Guest:I can't be the only girl in L.A.

00:21:34Guest:that wants to play rock and roll.

00:21:36Guest:So if I'm doing this, there's got to be other girls out there.

00:21:39Guest:But first, so I knew it was possible.

00:21:41Marc:It's weird that there were really no models for it.

00:21:43Marc:Like, you know, when I watched a doc, you know, and it came up and I look at the years, there really was no...

00:21:48Marc:You know, hard rock girl groups at all.

00:21:51Marc:Not really, no.

00:21:52Marc:Yeah, I mean, there were girl groups, right?

00:21:55Marc:But they were singing groups or pop groups.

00:21:57Marc:But there was no, like, rock groups.

00:22:00Marc:I never really thought of it until I saw the documentary that you guys were really one of the first ones.

00:22:05Marc:The Runaways, right?

00:22:06Marc:Yeah.

00:22:07Marc:Okay, so how did you go about pulling this band together?

00:22:10Yeah.

00:22:10Guest:Well, I used to go to a club that I actually read about in all my rock magazines and Cream and Circus.

00:22:18Guest:I read about this club when I still lived back east called Rodney Bingenheimer's English Disco.

00:22:24Marc:Yeah, I see him at Cantor sometimes, Rodney.

00:22:26Marc:Yeah, do you?

00:22:26Marc:In that booth by himself with the hair.

00:22:29Marc:Nice.

00:22:29Guest:Yeah, well, I mean, I'll tell you, he was a very important person in rock and roll.

00:22:36Marc:So tell me about that place, because that was the first time I really knew about it from watching the documentary.

00:22:41Guest:Yeah, it was great.

00:22:42Guest:It was a disco for teenagers.

00:22:45Guest:There was no booze.

00:22:46Guest:And Rodney played all the English hits that the American kids didn't get a chance to hear.

00:22:53Guest:Yeah, he's...

00:22:54Guest:You know, Bowie, all the stuff that were hits in England.

00:22:58Guest:Sweet, Slade, Suzy Quatro.

00:23:01Guest:Full glam.

00:23:02Guest:Yeah, the full Gary Glitter.

00:23:03Guest:This whole vibe that just was non-existent in the States.

00:23:08Marc:He was on the radio.

00:23:08Marc:He was like the first guy to bring Bowie to the States, too, wasn't he, I think?

00:23:11Marc:Or wasn't he one of them?

00:23:13Marc:Yeah, he was.

00:23:14Marc:Yeah.

00:23:14Marc:Kenny's nodding.

00:23:15Marc:You can say yes.

00:23:17Yeah.

00:23:17Guest:Yeah, I know that he went to the club.

00:23:21Guest:There's pictures of- Of Bowie there?

00:23:22Guest:Bowie there at, you know, in 72, 73.

00:23:26Guest:Those were like the heydays.

00:23:27Guest:I got there right at the end.

00:23:29Guest:They closed maybe eight months after I started going.

00:23:33Marc:Why'd they close?

00:23:34Marc:They get in trouble?

00:23:35Guest:I don't know.

00:23:36Guest:I don't know if they got in trouble.

00:23:37Guest:I think it was just maybe business, you know.

00:23:40Marc:Yeah, because it was an underage disco, right?

00:23:42Marc:Yeah.

00:23:42Marc:It was primarily for young people.

00:23:44Marc:Yeah.

00:23:44Marc:I can't imagine that that wasn't a problem in the 70s.

00:23:47Guest:I can only imagine.

00:23:49Guest:They couldn't make money.

00:23:50Guest:They couldn't make money.

00:23:51Guest:There was probably illicit drugs being sold like every club.

00:23:55Guest:Yeah.

00:23:55Guest:But they couldn't make money without the liquor.

00:23:57Marc:But it wasn't full of like predators and weirdos?

00:24:00No.

00:24:00Guest:I didn't, you know, I didn't see it.

00:24:02Marc:Yeah.

00:24:03Guest:Like, it wasn't, my brain wasn't there.

00:24:05Marc:Well, it didn't come at you, so you would know of that.

00:24:08Guest:Right, exactly.

00:24:09Marc:Yeah.

00:24:09Marc:You know, you can only assume.

00:24:11Marc:Sure.

00:24:11Marc:Yeah.

00:24:12Marc:Yeah.

00:24:12Marc:It had to be around.

00:24:13Marc:So, that's where you started to get into, like, meeting people?

00:24:16Guest:Meeting people and just being around like-minded people.

00:24:21Guest:And I thought, well, wow, man, there's got to be girls around someplace in this scene that play instruments.

00:24:30Guest:So I just tried to put the word out.

00:24:33Guest:I knew a girl named Carrie Crome that wrote lyrics.

00:24:37Guest:She was a lyricist.

00:24:38Marc:Where'd you meet her?

00:24:38Marc:There?

00:24:39Guest:At the club, yeah, at Rodney's.

00:24:41Guest:And I thought she played an instrument.

00:24:43Guest:So I said, do you want to form an all-girl band?

00:24:46Guest:And she said, I don't play.

00:24:47Guest:I just write lyrics, but maybe you should talk to my publisher.

00:24:50Guest:And that was Kim Fowley.

00:24:52Guest:Yeah.

00:24:52Guest:So I did.

00:24:54Guest:I got the nerve to call Kim up and said, you know, I play guitar, and I want to form an all-girl band.

00:25:01Guest:And he said, well, can you send me a demo tape?

00:25:05Guest:And I didn't even know what a demo was.

00:25:07Guest:I mean, I'm talking serious naive, you know?

00:25:10Marc:Right.

00:25:10Marc:Well, how old are you, 15?

00:25:11Marc:15.

00:25:12Guest:Yeah, probably 15 at the time.

00:25:14Marc:How could you know?

00:25:14Guest:15, 16, yeah.

00:25:15Marc:And you didn't know anything about him either?

00:25:17Guest:I didn't know anything about him, you know, very peripherally, just from the club, maybe seeing him standing around and stuff.

00:25:24Marc:He was sort of an ominous guy, wasn't he?

00:25:26Guest:To other people, yeah, he was ominous.

00:25:28Guest:He was very tall, double-jointed, and he used that kind of stuff.

00:25:34Guest:He would dance, and he just was very...

00:25:38Guest:Could be very intimidating to a lot of people.

00:25:41Guest:And I guess that's what he did.

00:25:42Guest:He intimidated a lot of people.

00:25:43Marc:Well, he had this weird solo career, right?

00:25:45Marc:For years, right?

00:25:46Marc:Yes.

00:25:46Marc:Like, I don't know a lot about him other than he's sort of this bizarre Hollywood character, you know, and outside of producing the right ways that he had this almost demonic presence here and there.

00:25:57Guest:He made some hits.

00:25:58Marc:Right.

00:25:59Marc:And he comes from the same area you did, right?

00:26:00Marc:The pop hits in a way.

00:26:02Guest:Yeah, but he was an L.A.

00:26:03Guest:version.

00:26:04Guest:Right.

00:26:04Guest:But he produced a group called The Mermaids with Popsicles and Icicles.

00:26:09Guest:Right.

00:26:10Guest:I think I was the number one.

00:26:11Guest:And he was also in the band...

00:26:13Guest:band, singing group.

00:26:15Marc:Yeah.

00:26:16Guest:That did Alley Oop, the Hollywood Argyles.

00:26:18Marc:The original Alley Oop.

00:26:20Guest:Yeah.

00:26:20Marc:I think the Beach Boys covered it at some point, too.

00:26:23Marc:What a great song.

00:26:25Marc:I know, in the doc, you got Iggy singing it.

00:26:27Marc:All right, so you meet up with Kim.

00:26:29Marc:And he's asking for a demo.

00:26:31Guest:So he asked me for a demo.

00:26:32Guest:I'm like, I don't have a demo.

00:26:35Guest:And, you know, we have a short conversation and that's it.

00:26:38Guest:And I'm like, wow, I fucking blew that.

00:26:42Guest:You're 15.

00:26:43Guest:Yeah, yeah.

00:26:45Guest:But so...

00:26:46Guest:He knew my name.

00:26:48Guest:So anyway, a couple nights later, Sandy West, who was the drummer of the Runaways, she lived down in Orange County in Huntington Beach.

00:26:56Guest:And she played in a lot of bands with guys, like high school bands and doing local stuff.

00:27:03Guest:And she was 15.

00:27:04Guest:And she played drums like John Bonham.

00:27:06Guest:She was so intense.

00:27:08Guest:I mean, rest her soul.

00:27:11Guest:I mean, she's not with us anymore.

00:27:13Guest:Oh, sorry.

00:27:13Guest:But...

00:27:15Guest:Anyway, she drove up to Hollywood and hung out in the rainbow parking lot.

00:27:20Guest:And that's, I guess, at the time, a lot of people would, after the rainbow closed, people would hang out and a lot of stars would go there.

00:27:27Guest:That's crazy.

00:27:28Marc:It was crazy there.

00:27:29Guest:People would go and look for the stars.

00:27:32Yeah.

00:27:32Guest:Sandy went up there, and I guess she knew who Kim was.

00:27:35Guest:She walked up to him and said, Kim, I'm Sandy, and I play drums.

00:27:40Guest:And he said, that's really interesting.

00:27:42Guest:I met a girl the other night who plays guitar.

00:27:46Guest:I think he gave her my phone number.

00:27:48Guest:Yeah, she called me up.

00:27:51Marc:And that's how it started.

00:27:52Marc:Who were the bands like at the time, like at the Rainbow and at those places?

00:27:56Marc:I mean, we're talking, what are we talking, like 1973?

00:27:58Marc:75?

00:28:00Marc:Yeah, so who was on the scene?

00:28:03Marc:Who were you watching?

00:28:03Marc:Who were you able to... I mean, I guess you're a teenager, so it's hard to get in clubs, but who were the bands at that time that were really hot?

00:28:11Marc:Do you remember?

00:28:11Marc:I don't know.

00:28:12Marc:I wasn't seeing bands live.

00:28:14Guest:We were more or less just hanging out at that club, but I know...

00:28:19Guest:Led Zeppelin was really big, and they were still the band.

00:28:26Marc:Did you like Zeppelin?

00:28:27Marc:I did, definitely.

00:28:29Marc:Okay, so you meet Sandy, now there's two of you, and you still need to fill out the crew.

00:28:34Guest:Yeah, so I took a bus to Sandy's house, four buses actually, with my guitar, and we went to her rec room.

00:28:40Guest:We got along great.

00:28:42Guest:We hit it off really well.

00:28:45Guest:And we just started jamming on simple, wild thing kind of songs.

00:28:51Guest:Stuff like that.

00:28:52Guest:So after 15 minutes or so, we call up, let's call Kim.

00:28:57Guest:We call up Kim, put the phone down, say, listen to this.

00:29:00Guest:And we start playing whatever.

00:29:02Guest:Right, right.

00:29:04Guest:And he said...

00:29:05Guest:Sounds great.

00:29:06Guest:Let's go find some other people.

00:29:08Guest:So that's what we started to do.

00:29:10Guest:Sandy found Lita somewhere, I guess, through friends that she knew.

00:29:16Marc:It's amazing to me, though, that he could hear the drums and the guitar, and he's like, I can work with this.

00:29:23Guest:Well, it was definitely unique, and we could play.

00:29:27Guest:So it was, wow, this is something that could work.

00:29:30Marc:How great was that feeling to just be in that rec room?

00:29:33Marc:I mean, just for that first time.

00:29:34Marc:Oh, it was great.

00:29:35Marc:It must have been really, you know.

00:29:36Marc:Like, those are those memories, right?

00:29:38Marc:Totally.

00:29:38Marc:And it was, you know, your teenage dream happening.

00:29:42Marc:Yeah.

00:29:43Marc:So you got the other girls.

00:29:45Marc:Yeah.

00:29:45Marc:And then what happens?

00:29:46Marc:Do you make a demo or do you make the record?

00:29:49Guest:How does it work?

00:29:50Guest:We recorded really quickly.

00:29:51Guest:Yeah, we went in the studio right away.

00:29:54Guest:We actually made a recording as a three-piece as well.

00:29:59Guest:It was you and Sandy and... And Mickey Steele was the first bass player who then went on to form the Bangles.

00:30:08Guest:Oh, okay.

00:30:09Guest:So she was the original bass player, but it just didn't work out.

00:30:14Guest:I don't know if she wasn't grooving or whatever.

00:30:18Guest:We came to part ways.

00:30:19Guest:Yeah.

00:30:19Guest:Didn't get too ugly, though?

00:30:20Guest:no not no no not at all and um so yeah then we went out looking for another lead singer yeah him and I were hanging out in a disco yeah saw Cherie Curry and her twin sister uh-huh dancing yeah said they look like they'd be great if they sing on stage if they could sing and so we yeah we asked Cherie if she sang and she said she did we said come and audition and

00:30:45Guest:Back in the rec room or did you go to the studio?

00:30:47Guest:No, no, we went to a rehearsal studio.

00:30:50Guest:And she showed up with sort of a, I don't even, I can't remember what the song was, but it was something, it was easy listening.

00:30:58Guest:Yeah, oh really, yeah.

00:30:59Guest:And we were not into that, you know, and so we didn't know what to do.

00:31:03Guest:And so Kim says, we're going to write a song.

00:31:06Guest:So Kim and I went out to another part of another room, another rehearsal room, and just started jamming.

00:31:16Guest:I started playing some chords.

00:31:19Guest:Actually, we came up with a chorus first, and so it went from...

00:31:26Guest:writing hello daddy hello mom i'm your cherry bomb yeah and then we came up with the with the rest of it we probably didn't come up with a finished lyrics right at that point but had enough for her to sing so after 20 minutes we went back in there and said sing this yeah and uh and she did and she she owned it you know she took a hold of it and made it her own and yeah that was that and in that in the the runaways are born yeah basically and then you recorded like shortly after that

00:31:54Guest:Yeah, because we had already had several songs we had written since the couple months we had been together.

00:32:01Marc:Right.

00:32:01Guest:We were writing and working and writing and touring, you know, not touring, but playing all around the city.

00:32:08Marc:You did play out?

00:32:09Guest:Oh, yeah, yeah.

00:32:10Marc:We played everywhere but Hollywood, yeah.

00:32:11Marc:Before the first record came out.

00:32:13Guest:Yeah.

00:32:14Marc:And how were you received in general, you know, when you're playing these little clubs, right, or bars and stuff?

00:32:20Marc:Yeah.

00:32:21Yeah.

00:32:22Guest:Hard to say initially.

00:32:23Guest:I don't remember.

00:32:25Guest:It was good.

00:32:26Guest:It was okay.

00:32:29Guest:We were playing things like house parties, things like that.

00:32:33Marc:Who was booking you?

00:32:34Marc:Kim was just getting you these gigs?

00:32:36Guest:Yeah, Kim and I, I'm sure there were some other people involved because he wasn't a businessman on that level.

00:32:44Guest:He didn't really book the tours and stuff.

00:32:46Marc:But you didn't feel the pushback yet?

00:32:47Marc:Because I know, like you said early on, even your guitar teacher at first was wary of a woman playing rock music.

00:32:54Marc:And in the documentary, you go into a bit about that, but you didn't feel that immediately that people were like, what the fuck are these chicks doing with guitars?

00:33:01Guest:No, I think I was too overwhelmed with being excited with what we were doing.

00:33:06Marc:Sure, having fun.

00:33:07Guest:Yeah, yeah.

00:33:08Guest:It wasn't until we started doing press and things like that where they started, yeah, I don't even know if it was specifically for the record, but I'm sure it was.

00:33:19Guest:And, you know, we started getting asked all kinds of weird questions that I couldn't even tell you.

00:33:24Marc:So when the record came out, the first record, that's like 1976.

00:33:29Marc:You're like 18 years old?

00:33:31Marc:No, I was 17.

00:33:32Marc:17.

00:33:32Marc:And it's a big deal, right?

00:33:34Marc:I mean, how was the first album received when it came out?

00:33:37Marc:What was the push behind it?

00:33:39Marc:How did it go?

00:33:40Guest:Well, we were on Mercury Records, I believe.

00:33:44Marc:Big label, right?

00:33:45Guest:Yeah, and I think they actually worked on promoting it.

00:33:50Marc:It had a good angle, right?

00:33:51Guest:And we were on the charts, I believe.

00:33:54Marc:For Cherry Bomb.

00:33:55Guest:Yeah, for that first album, you may have charted.

00:33:58Marc:And Cherry Bomb definitely charted.

00:34:00Marc:Yeah, we charted.

00:34:02Marc:And so now you're like, what happens next?

00:34:05Marc:I didn't realize until I looked it up after I watched the movie that you're coming out at the same time really as the Ramones, as the Sex Pistols.

00:34:13Marc:That all happened simultaneously because I know you had relationships with these bands later on.

00:34:18Marc:Yeah, yeah.

00:34:18Marc:But you're right there.

00:34:19Guest:No, I had it right there.

00:34:20Guest:I had relationships with them right then.

00:34:22Marc:Oh, you did?

00:34:22Marc:Yeah.

00:34:23Marc:So you were on their radar, even though it was a different coast, so everyone knew about everybody.

00:34:26Guest:Pretty much.

00:34:27Guest:And being on the road, we'd run into each other.

00:34:29Marc:Oh, yeah?

00:34:30Guest:The Runaways eventually wound up, we did a three-month tour with the Ramones, which was amazing.

00:34:35Guest:But Led Zeppelin knew who they were, too.

00:34:37Guest:What's that?

00:34:38Guest:Led Zeppelin knew who the Runaways were and came to one of their gigs.

00:34:41Guest:Oh, yeah.

00:34:41Guest:Oh, yeah?

00:34:41Guest:Wearing runaway t-shirts, yeah.

00:34:43Guest:Yeah, there's pictures of Joan with Robert Plant when she was 16 or something along that.

00:34:48Marc:Yeah, yeah.

00:34:49Marc:Is that true?

00:34:50Marc:Do you get to meet him and hang out?

00:34:51Marc:Oh, yeah, yeah, definitely.

00:34:52Marc:And they were decent guys, right?

00:34:54Marc:They were very nice, yeah.

00:34:56Guest:And then friends in the 80s.

00:34:58Guest:Yeah.

00:34:59Guest:We went on tour with Robert when we had whatever hits it were for us at that moment, and he had...

00:35:05Guest:I'm in a mood for a melody.

00:35:07Guest:Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:35:08Guest:Now and Zen.

00:35:08Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:35:09Guest:So, yeah, we were touring with it.

00:35:09Marc:Like that first solo record or second solo record?

00:35:12Guest:Yeah, yeah.

00:35:12Marc:After Zeppelin?

00:35:13Guest:Yeah.

00:35:14Marc:So at that time, like music is blowing up, right?

00:35:16Marc:There's a whole New York scene and you're part of the L.A.

00:35:19Marc:scene now into like 76.

00:35:21Marc:So who are the other bands around that were kind of breaking through then?

00:35:25Guest:In L.A.?

00:35:26Marc:Yeah.

00:35:26Marc:Oh, man.

00:35:28Marc:Because you must have seen him when you were playing out and around.

00:35:30Marc:Because after the first record, you were able to play in town, right?

00:35:32Marc:Van Halen opened for the Runaways.

00:35:35Guest:Really?

00:35:35Guest:Oh, yeah.

00:35:36Guest:They were a band that was struggling to get noticed.

00:35:40Guest:Tom Petty opened for the Runaways.

00:35:42Marc:He opened for you, the Heartbreakers did?

00:35:43Marc:Yes.

00:35:44Guest:No kidding.

00:35:47Guest:Contemporaries of her, the talking heads.

00:35:50Guest:Chrissy Hine, who was friends with her.

00:35:52Guest:Before Joan was well known, Chrissy adopted her.

00:35:56Marc:It's so weird that time of music, right, Kenny?

00:35:58Marc:There was so much different types of music going on.

00:36:00Marc:That was really sort of like all variations.

00:36:02Marc:Because if you look at the Heartbreakers and Van Halen and then the Runaways, they're all different type of bands.

00:36:08Marc:It's all rock music.

00:36:09Guest:But it all worked together.

00:36:10Guest:Of course.

00:36:11Guest:Yeah.

00:36:11Guest:yeah but but it was also like i i felt tom petty and the runaways and obviously the ramones and talking heads was part of what they later called new wave yeah sure yeah but van halen to me was not part of the new wave no no no i think i think the first heartbreakers album might have snuck in there yeah but they right new wave but then they became more of a pop you know a rock yeah yeah yes yes yes

00:36:37Marc:All right, so now you're making it, and now you're feeling, how's the band holding up under the success, and now is when you start getting pushback for being a girl group a little bit?

00:36:49Marc:Totally, yeah.

00:36:50Marc:But not from other bands, necessarily?

00:36:52Marc:Do you feel it from other bands?

00:36:53Guest:Some bands, yeah.

00:36:55Guest:Some bands, but most bands were okay.

00:36:58Guest:But there were definitely, you know, vibes from some bands.

00:37:01Guest:People making fun of us and laughing side stage, throwing stuff on the stage.

00:37:08Marc:Really?

00:37:08Guest:Oh, yeah.

00:37:09Marc:Just because you were girls.

00:37:11Marc:Yeah, yeah, I guess.

00:37:12Marc:Just because you were women.

00:37:12Guest:Maybe we were doing well and they, you know, worried about their gig or something.

00:37:18Guest:I don't know, you know?

00:37:19Marc:Well, you know, it's a shitty business trying to make it in rock and roll or in comedy.

00:37:24Marc:There's always going to be jealous assholes.

00:37:26Marc:I was one of them for years.

00:37:26Guest:Well, it was always weird to me that people would be so nasty.

00:37:29Guest:I get it if you don't like it.

00:37:30Guest:It was a gender thing.

00:37:31Guest:Don't listen, you know, but... It was a gender.

00:37:34Guest:Totally a gender thing.

00:37:35Guest:It was a gender bias.

00:37:35Guest:Yeah, yeah.

00:37:36Guest:When I was in England and they made a law...

00:37:38Guest:that they had to hire an equal amount of women or at least a better percentage.

00:37:44Guest:Yeah.

00:37:44Guest:Because there were no women in the recording industry.

00:37:48Guest:Yeah.

00:37:48Guest:And I remember one of the execs said, you know, studio is a stag scene.

00:37:55Guest:There's really no place for a woman.

00:37:57Guest:Right.

00:37:59Guest:Yeah.

00:37:59Guest:Yeah, of course.

00:38:00Guest:But then, why?

00:38:03Marc:But when you were younger, I mean, they were definitely girl groups, but they weren't looked at in the same way.

00:38:08Marc:They had to be dainty.

00:38:10Marc:Uh-huh.

00:38:10Guest:They had to be dainty.

00:38:11Guest:And do cute songs.

00:38:12Guest:Some of the...

00:38:15Guest:r&b groups yeah could do the church thing and sweat a bit yeah like our friend darlene love yeah but even when she was in the blossoms on shindig yeah they were just really not supposed to be sweating yeah oh right right they were supposed to be ladylike ladylike yes didn't tina turner break that shit open

00:38:36Marc:Well, there's always like... Wow.

00:38:39Guest:You can't sweat.

00:38:40Guest:I mean, come on, man.

00:38:41Guest:But you know what?

00:38:42Guest:Tina did not become big until much later.

00:38:46Guest:I mean, really big, big.

00:38:47Guest:Right.

00:38:48Guest:As a solo act.

00:38:49Guest:She was Phil Spector's great failure with River Deep Mountain High.

00:38:54Guest:That didn't achieve what he thought it would achieve.

00:38:57Guest:But then later on, she had that in her 50s, I think she was.

00:39:01Guest:The Stones helped her get going.

00:39:03Guest:Yeah, yeah.

00:39:03Guest:She had those hits.

00:39:04Guest:Huge hits.

00:39:05Guest:Yeah.

00:39:05Guest:Did you know Spector?

00:39:06Guest:yes did you see it coming whatever happened he was a nasty guy yeah yeah he was not a nice fella he wasn't warm and fuzzy yeah and and he was a bully yeah very threatened by everything threatened and then he would have bodyguards or he would some of the people he worked with like anderson poncia great writers wrote some hits with him

00:39:29Guest:They were tough guys.

00:39:30Guest:Yeah, right.

00:39:31Guest:So he had a songwriter who could write hits and still beat up people because he always wanted to start fights with people.

00:39:38Marc:Yeah, well, he ended up very badly.

00:39:40Marc:Bad man.

00:39:42Guest:Well, karma.

00:39:43Guest:Yeah, he probably deserved to be there a long time before that.

00:39:46Guest:God knows what he did that he got away with.

00:39:48Guest:Yeah, right, right.

00:39:49Marc:All right, so what happened to the Runaways?

00:39:53Marc:You charted on the first album, then you put out, you only did three albums in a live album, right?

00:39:57Guest:We did four studio albums in a live album.

00:40:02Marc:One right after the other.

00:40:03Marc:Pretty much, every year.

00:40:04Marc:One a year, pretty much.

00:40:05Marc:And you're touring bigger venues as each one happens?

00:40:08Marc:Is it getting bigger or are you just kind of- Yeah, to a degree.

00:40:11Guest:Yeah.

00:40:12Guest:We played different gigs with different bands, so some were bigger and some were smaller.

00:40:17Marc:You did some opening?

00:40:19Guest:1,000 seats, 1,500 kind of.

00:40:22Marc:Did you open for the big bands?

00:40:24Marc:Were you on that kind of trajectory?

00:40:26Marc:Were you open for like a...

00:40:28Marc:The Zeppelin or somebody like that?

00:40:30Marc:You opened for the Tubes.

00:40:31Marc:I know that was something.

00:40:33Guest:Yeah, that was early on.

00:40:34Guest:That was early 76, maybe even 75.

00:40:37Guest:Fee Weeble, was that his name?

00:40:39Marc:Fee Weeble?

00:40:40Guest:Fee, yeah.

00:40:43Guest:Something like that, yeah.

00:40:43Marc:Was it White Punks on Dope?

00:40:45Marc:Was that it?

00:40:45Marc:Was that their big role?

00:40:47Marc:Yes, yes.

00:40:48Marc:Did you do that up in San Francisco or were they down here?

00:40:50Guest:I think we did it up there.

00:40:51Marc:Yeah, because I think they're a Bay Area outfit, right?

00:40:55Marc:They are.

00:40:55Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:40:55Guest:Yeah, and actually their choreographer, Kenny Ortega, who's now a big director, worked with us to help us work on some stage moves.

00:41:09Guest:I guess we felt, it wasn't really moves, I guess.

00:41:13Guest:Some of it was, but more about just being comfortable in the space.

00:41:18Guest:And also knowing when to move up to the audience and when to go back.

00:41:24Marc:you know just having a sense of the stage yeah yeah putting on a little show you know a little bit of choreography you know the guitar is moving but that was right in the beginning of that you know now it's so cliche that sure yeah yeah and now you've got your own moves yeah now you don't have to hopefully it just comes out right yeah eventually so what so now the popularity in the states didn't take off as much as it did elsewhere is that what happened

00:41:50Guest:Yeah, well, I never really felt the runaways achieved what they could have.

00:41:55Guest:I mean, I guess I always sort of felt the push from the press.

00:42:01Guest:I never felt really successful in the United States, even though we got okay coverage.

00:42:08Guest:But a lot of it could be nasty.

00:42:10Marc:Yeah, they just kind of marginalized you?

00:42:13Guest:Yeah, depending on what... Or just took shots.

00:42:17Guest:Made everything we were doing seem like it was unnatural.

00:42:20Guest:Uh-huh.

00:42:20Guest:When it's totally natural for... There were people that were offended.

00:42:24Guest:Uh-huh.

00:42:24Guest:That's what I would say.

00:42:25Guest:Offended?

00:42:25Guest:Yeah.

00:42:26Guest:Oh, yeah.

00:42:26Guest:Very offended.

00:42:27Guest:There were people who were offended that... We had the audacity.

00:42:31Guest:Yeah, they were going into...

00:42:33Guest:a stag scene.

00:42:35Guest:We had the audacity to dare do this.

00:42:40Guest:You know, once you get that vibe, you know, once they get, they show you that they think it's audacious that you're doing that.

00:42:47Marc:Right.

00:42:47Marc:Who are you to do this?

00:42:48Guest:Then it's like,

00:42:49Guest:okay man all shit okay now now jacket gets thrown down on the ground it's it yeah i'm in we're going all the way you know and this that's you know pretty early on that you felt this yeah you know all the girls feel it

00:43:05Guest:I'm sure we all did to a different degree, but we all handled it, I think, differently.

00:43:11Guest:I remember early on somebody asking me a question about sex.

00:43:18Guest:And I thought, if I answer this question...

00:43:22Guest:That's all the Runaways music will be about.

00:43:24Guest:I mean, already people are focused too much on the sexuality or whatever.

00:43:29Guest:I mean, that just comes with the nature, I guess, of being girls playing rock and roll.

00:43:33Guest:Right.

00:43:33Guest:Obviously.

00:43:34Guest:But if I answer this question, that's all it's going to be about.

00:43:38Guest:What was the question?

00:43:39Guest:I don't even remember, but I have to steer them to music.

00:43:42Guest:This is about music, dude.

00:43:43Marc:Right.

00:43:43Marc:Yeah, but you caught that right away.

00:43:47Guest:Yeah, and it was like that universe thing where it comes into your head loud, don't answer this, you know?

00:43:55Guest:Yeah, because it would have trivialized you.

00:43:57Guest:Totally, totally, and I got it on a deep level.

00:44:00Marc:right level they were trying to box you in don't you know don't let them do this and so you know that's kind of been well that's interesting because like it did that well how did like you were you were sort of the leader of the band right no i didn't think of it that way i thought we were all kim used to say she was the soul of the band uh-huh

00:44:23Guest:We all were integral pieces of the band, I felt.

00:44:31Guest:It was like a team.

00:44:33Guest:So it was easy for me to brag about that because it wasn't about me.

00:44:38Guest:But that's Joan's humility.

00:44:39Guest:Joan was writing the songs and singing half of the leads.

00:44:43Guest:So yeah, I'd say she's a leader.

00:44:45Marc:So now, when you go to Japan and wherever you went, toured Europe, were you getting the welcome that you... Were you all of a sudden playing for 5,000 people, big ass shows?

00:44:57Marc:Yes.

00:44:58Marc:That must have been tremendous.

00:45:00Marc:It was unbelievable.

00:45:01Marc:And that was after what, the second album?

00:45:03Marc:After...

00:45:04Guest:Yeah, I guess our first tour overseas was after the second album, I believe.

00:45:10Marc:And is that when you met Chrissy Hynde and that crew and those people over in England?

00:45:13Guest:No, I've known Chrissy probably before then.

00:45:17Guest:I'm not really sure.

00:45:18Marc:Because she was living in England for a while, I know that.

00:45:22Guest:They were on the road too.

00:45:23Guest:She might have ever since when I met her than me.

00:45:27Marc:So that was sort of, you at least had some camaraderie there.

00:45:30Marc:At least you had some, you know, a strong woman.

00:45:33Guest:I felt like the British, the British certainly were exposed, and the Europeans as well, were exposed to a wider variety of music in general, I think, as popular music.

00:45:45Guest:So I think they were just generally more accepting.

00:45:48Guest:They...

00:45:49Guest:They thought it was different and weird, but... It was still rock and roll.

00:45:54Guest:They didn't give us that same level of shit, like you should not be here kind of thing.

00:46:01Marc:It seems like between the press and some of the other bands that they were really threatened here.

00:46:07Marc:And I think that, you know, going overseas, like you've already got that freedom.

00:46:11Marc:Like you're not, you know, you're not in their scene.

00:46:14Marc:You're not, you know, you're not English.

00:46:16Marc:So like you're just a band from America.

00:46:17Marc:That sounds good.

00:46:18Marc:And that must have been like a relief to go into that environment.

00:46:23Marc:Did you meet like that first tour of like England?

00:46:25Marc:Is that where you met like the pistols and those people?

00:46:29Guest:We met all kinds of people.

00:46:31Guest:Yeah, a lot of the cool bands.

00:46:32Guest:Lemmy, did you meet Lemmy over there?

00:46:33Guest:Yes.

00:46:33Guest:In fact, Lemmy, we did our first show in London with Motorhead.

00:46:39Guest:We opened for them.

00:46:40Guest:Yeah.

00:46:41Guest:And Lemmy let me wear his bullet belt.

00:46:45Guest:I thought he was giving it to me.

00:46:46Guest:I'm like, oh my God, he's giving me that belt.

00:46:48Guest:And right after the show, he was like, give me my belt.

00:46:51Guest:But Lemmy and I were close his whole life.

00:46:54Guest:And that shows you, he's a guy...

00:46:57Guest:You know, that's a man.

00:46:59Guest:He's not threatened by strong women.

00:47:01Guest:Yeah.

00:47:02Guest:You know?

00:47:04Guest:It didn't seem like he was threatened by much.

00:47:06Guest:Yeah, but I mean, you know, when you're around a guy like that, he's not threatened by you.

00:47:10Guest:It's very easy to just...

00:47:12Guest:Relax.

00:47:14Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:47:15Guest:You know?

00:47:15Guest:Yeah.

00:47:16Guest:And not have to be on guard all the time.

00:47:17Guest:Did you feel more comfortable over there in England?

00:47:19Guest:Well, I wouldn't say more comfortable than being at home.

00:47:23Guest:Yeah.

00:47:23Guest:I felt musically comfortable.

00:47:26Guest:Yeah, definitely.

00:47:27Guest:And, like, when we went to Japan, oh, man, it was like, you can only compare it to something like The Beatles.

00:47:34Guest:Right.

00:47:35Guest:And it was all girls.

00:47:37Guest:All teenage girls.

00:47:39Guest:So that was kind of, we didn't get it.

00:47:40Guest:It was kind of confusing.

00:47:41Guest:And then we realized, you know, oh, women have a tough time here too.

00:47:46Guest:Kind of looked at as second-class citizens.

00:47:48Guest:So we were sort of heroes, I guess.

00:47:51Guest:And it was, I mean, they were rocking the car.

00:47:53Guest:I mean, it was really intense.

00:47:55Guest:You know, I think a little scary to some of us.

00:47:59Guest:Not for me.

00:48:00Guest:I thought I was excited.

00:48:01Guest:And Mark, to be clear,

00:48:04Guest:Japan, they were superstars.

00:48:06Guest:Yeah.

00:48:07Guest:In Scandinavia, they were superstars.

00:48:09Guest:Oh, yeah.

00:48:09Guest:It wasn't so much England.

00:48:11Guest:England, they were in the papers, but they were treated like cartoon characters almost.

00:48:16Guest:Oh, really?

00:48:17Guest:Yeah.

00:48:17Guest:In England.

00:48:18Guest:But in Sweden, they were having hit singles.

00:48:21Guest:Right.

00:48:22Guest:In Sweden, we got off a plane and totally unexpected.

00:48:26Guest:All teenage girls...

00:48:28Guest:All these blonde teenage girls wearing real pacifiers, real like rubber pacifiers.

00:48:35Guest:I'm like, what the fuck is this?

00:48:36Guest:You know, I guess it was some, I never found out.

00:48:39Guest:It must have been some fad that teenage girls wear real pacifiers.

00:48:44Guest:So somebody, I guess, was it you?

00:48:47Guest:You gave me a pacifier, a silver one, you know, a little silver pacifier that I wore for years and years to commemorate that.

00:48:54Guest:Oh, wow.

00:48:54Guest:Until my dog chewed it up.

00:48:56Marc:Right, but you guys weren't together then, though, right, yet?

00:48:59Marc:No, not for that.

00:49:02Guest:We met at the tail end of what was the Runaways, the wreckage of the Runaways.

00:49:08Marc:So what happens to the Runaways, ultimately?

00:49:10Marc:You do four records.

00:49:12Marc:Is it getting worse?

00:49:13Marc:What's pulling it apart?

00:49:15Guest:Yeah, it's getting worse.

00:49:16Marc:I never understand this with bands.

00:49:18Guest:Yeah, it's getting worse.

00:49:20Guest:What is?

00:49:20Guest:I think, well, just the whole cohesion of the band.

00:49:25Guest:When we went to Japan, I think that was the beginning of the end.

00:49:30Guest:Something happened over there.

00:49:32Guest:I mean, it's discussed a little bit in the movie.

00:49:35Guest:With Cherie.

00:49:36Guest:Cherie did a big tour booklet.

00:49:40Guest:Right.

00:49:40Guest:You know, and it was sort of like, you know, all in her bathing suit and her corset.

00:49:44Guest:It was very sort of soft...

00:49:46Guest:Poor pornish.

00:49:47Guest:Yeah, yeah.

00:49:48Guest:And, you know, she told us that she didn't know, that we didn't know.

00:49:55Guest:But look.

00:49:55Guest:Who set it up?

00:49:56Guest:We were together all the time.

00:49:58Guest:There's no way that she wouldn't say, as an aside, hey, Joan, I'm doing this photo shoot, or are you guys doing one?

00:50:05Guest:Yeah.

00:50:05Guest:You know, I knew.

00:50:07Guest:So obviously they were trying to keep it secret until there was nothing the rest of the band could do about it.

00:50:11Guest:And Kim set it up?

00:50:12Guest:I don't know who set it up.

00:50:13Guest:Kim, we had another guy that was kind of a...

00:50:15Guest:Road manager guy named Scott.

00:50:19Guest:He might have set it up.

00:50:21Guest:But I don't know.

00:50:22Guest:And it was in conjunction with the record label.

00:50:24Guest:So everybody knew but the rest of us.

00:50:29Marc:And this was upsetting to the rest of the band.

00:50:32Marc:Why?

00:50:34Guest:Because it made it seem like The Runaways was all Cherie and just sex.

00:50:40Marc:Right.

00:50:42Marc:The big no-no, the thing you wanted to avoid.

00:50:44Guest:Totally, totally.

00:50:45Guest:And it was like, what?

00:50:47Marc:Yeah.

00:50:47Guest:What are you, out of your mind?

00:50:49Guest:Yeah.

00:50:50Guest:And at this point, Cherie was like, I don't care.

00:50:55Guest:She thought she didn't need us.

00:50:57Guest:She was like, you guys are holding me.

00:50:59Guest:Because really, Cherie's more into poppier music.

00:51:04Guest:She's softer music.

00:51:06Guest:She's not...

00:51:07Guest:doesn't really love rock and roll right it's not her thing yeah um and you know i was i respect that but she you know had had it i guess she was done and wanted to go pursue her own thing and thought you know i don't need this so she just kind of kind of left right after japan yeah so that was after so in in that was you'd done that you did did you do a record without her you didn't

00:51:31Guest:Yes, we did two albums after that, actually.

00:51:35Guest:Yeah, and you did all the singing?

00:51:36Guest:I did all the singing, yeah.

00:51:37Guest:Most of it.

00:51:38Guest:Actually, Sandy sang lead on a song.

00:51:40Guest:Lita Mina sang lead on a song on our last album.

00:51:45Marc:With Cherie, is that your third name?

00:51:47Marc:Yeah.

00:51:47Marc:You guys are friends again, no?

00:51:49No.

00:51:49Guest:After the band broke up, we didn't really speak much.

00:51:53Guest:Oh, yeah, we speak now.

00:51:55Guest:But right afterwards, it was very weird.

00:51:59Marc:So after you do the two records with you being the front person, what stops the band after that?

00:52:05Marc:How did it come unhinged again?

00:52:08Marc:Or finally disband?

00:52:09Guest:Well, you know, I think for the press and for the record label and everybody, they felt they lost the lead, the blonde lead singer.

00:52:19Guest:Yeah.

00:52:19Guest:You know, and they're looking at it like that.

00:52:21Guest:I was just this sort of punk rock rhythm guitar player, you know.

00:52:26Guest:Right.

00:52:26Guest:I'm not going to be that person that gets people excited.

00:52:30Guest:Oh, really?

00:52:31Guest:Yeah.

00:52:31Guest:I guess.

00:52:32Guest:I mean, that's what I'm guessing, you know, the way they look at girls.

00:52:35Guest:Yeah.

00:52:36Guest:I was just, you know, too whatever.

00:52:38Guest:Right.

00:52:38Guest:For them.

00:52:39Guest:And also then within the band, musical differences started coming out because Sandy always, you know, she was a heavy drummer.

00:52:49Guest:She liked heavy music.

00:52:51Guest:Zeppelin and, you know, hard rock.

00:52:54Guest:And so did Lita.

00:52:55Guest:Yeah.

00:52:56Guest:And they both liked heavier music than what I liked.

00:52:59Guest:I was more straight up rock and roll, punk rock.

00:53:02Guest:Right.

00:53:02Guest:Kind of stuff.

00:53:03Guest:And so...

00:53:05Guest:The last album that we did was a producer named John Alcock, who did hard music, I guess.

00:53:15Guest:Personally, I feel he probably worked on those differences.

00:53:19Marc:Oh, really?

00:53:21Guest:Right, right.

00:53:21Guest:I don't really know, but I just know that a lot of the songs were harder.

00:53:26Guest:Yeah.

00:53:26Guest:And I thought, you know what?

00:53:28Guest:I don't like the direction this is going.

00:53:30Guest:I don't want to get fired from a band that I started.

00:53:33Guest:Yeah.

00:53:34Guest:So why don't we just dissolve this?

00:53:37Guest:Because they wanted to go in a heavier direction and I didn't.

00:53:41Guest:And so instead of having a big argument, let's just part ways.

00:53:45Marc:I don't know, but that was it.

00:53:46Marc:So it was musical differences.

00:53:47Marc:Pretty much, yeah.

00:53:49Marc:So now you're out.

00:53:49Marc:You're out of a gig.

00:53:50Marc:You're out of a band.

00:53:51Marc:Did you ever meet Johnny Thunders?

00:53:53Marc:No, I don't think so.

00:53:55Marc:From the New York Dolls and from the Heartbreakers?

00:53:58Guest:When we did the Bad Reputation album, which was originally Joan Shedd, we did it in the Who's studio called Ramport in London.

00:54:06Guest:And Johnny Thunders was recording at night.

00:54:11Guest:And we were recording during the day.

00:54:15Guest:So, yeah, Johnny doesn't remember.

00:54:17Guest:I was going to say, because he died soon after that.

00:54:19Guest:We used to see him almost every night.

00:54:21Guest:They would be...

00:54:22Guest:When we came in the morning, they would be leaving and there would be the residue of white powder all over the desk.

00:54:33Guest:They were pretty wild.

00:54:35Guest:He must have died soon after that.

00:54:38Marc:Yeah, it couldn't have been that much longer.

00:54:39Marc:Maybe a couple years or something.

00:54:40Marc:Yeah, sad one.

00:54:41Marc:That was sad.

00:54:42Marc:A hotel room in New Orleans or something.

00:54:45Marc:Someone robbed them and OD'd bad.

00:54:48Marc:So in the doc, it really depicts that time where your bandless is existentially horrendous.

00:54:58Marc:You just didn't know what you were going to do, where you were going to go.

00:55:01Marc:Yeah, I was really lost.

00:55:01Marc:I was down, down.

00:55:02Marc:And you were here in this town.

00:55:03Marc:Yeah.

00:55:04Marc:Yeah.

00:55:04Guest:and you got what you were getting pretty up pretty up yeah how long that go on for um i guess i i don't know we met in the summer i thought we met in the early summer of that year like yeah maybe it was earlier it was we met yeah

00:55:27Marc:But when you met him, were you like, you know, you're in trouble.

00:55:31Marc:You got to get cleaned up.

00:55:33Marc:We got to figure out what we're going to do here.

00:55:35Guest:I didn't know the extent of the drug use.

00:55:38Guest:I think she put on her best face anyway.

00:55:42Guest:And although she didn't look, she wasn't well groomed.

00:55:49Guest:Did you get strung out?

00:55:51Guest:No, I wasn't addicted to anything.

00:55:55Guest:I just partied too much.

00:55:56Guest:But she was drinking a lot.

00:55:57Guest:Oh, the drinking.

00:55:58Guest:And it bloated her.

00:56:00Guest:Yeah.

00:56:00Guest:So she was, like, just different than she was in the runaways.

00:56:05Guest:But when I met her, I just got taken with her...

00:56:11Guest:Yeah.

00:56:12Guest:You know, we wrote, she played the guitar, she sang the song, and the first song that we worked on together was You Don't Know What You Got Till It's Gone.

00:56:21Guest:And that one, she got to the chorus and she went, oh, baby!

00:56:27Guest:And I went, whoa!

00:56:28Guest:There's, you know, somebody who looks like Joan with a black leather jacket and, you know, I remembered, I don't think she really had the razor blades, but I always remembered, like,

00:56:39Guest:Yeah.

00:56:39Guest:Razor blades.

00:56:41Guest:And, you know, it was a scene.

00:56:43Guest:And she came in.

00:56:45Guest:But she also knew how to let it hang out.

00:56:48Guest:We met to do a project.

00:56:51Guest:Right.

00:56:51Guest:The Runaways, it's signed to do a movie.

00:56:54Guest:And I was supposed to write songs for it.

00:56:56Guest:Yeah.

00:56:56Guest:And then we broke up.

00:56:58Guest:But I didn't want to get sued.

00:56:59Guest:Right.

00:56:59Guest:Because the movie thing was still happening.

00:57:01Guest:Yeah.

00:57:02Guest:So...

00:57:03Guest:uh my manager at the time toby mamas thought you know we should write these songs so he what movie reached i don't even know it wound up we call being called dabidio but it was one of some mama we're all crazy now was the original yeah mama we're all crazy now it was a weird porno you said yeah like dabidio it's called or something yeah yeah they

00:57:25Guest:I don't know what it is.

00:57:27Marc:But you honored that contract.

00:57:29Guest:I honored the contract and met Kenny to write the songs.

00:57:33Guest:We had to write six songs in three days or something, which we did.

00:57:37Marc:You and Kenny.

00:57:38Guest:Yes.

00:57:39Guest:And it could have just ended there.

00:57:41Guest:It could have not even happened.

00:57:43Guest:My wife was reading about Joan and the British, those music magazines.

00:57:50Guest:And Meryl said...

00:57:52Guest:you should meet this john jett she's gonna be something she's looks significant my wife she spotted it in the newspaper oh yeah yeah she thought yeah because otherwise i probably wouldn't have gone no i had to go all the way from england to california you were in england at the time i was in england i got the phone call were you living there

00:58:11Guest:Yeah, I had a residence in New York and England at the same time for a while.

00:58:16Marc:Now, when you were in that zone where you were sort of like rudderless or depressed, was there part of you that got scared of where you were in the sense that a lot of the people you hung out with, it seemed like, were dying?

00:58:33Marc:Yeah.

00:58:34Marc:I mean, like, you know, you'd spend time with Sid Vicious.

00:58:37Marc:Yeah.

00:58:37Marc:And that, like, ended, like, as bad as a drug scene could end, it ended that way for him.

00:58:42Marc:Totally.

00:58:43Marc:And you must have seen a lot of that shit.

00:58:44Marc:Totally.

00:58:45Marc:And you didn't want to go down like that.

00:58:47Marc:Did you have that moment where you're like, fuck?

00:58:49Guest:And I knew I was kind of heading in that direction, and...

00:58:55Guest:Yeah, it's definitely scary because I always felt really very alone.

00:58:58Guest:It's when, you know, nobody's around and no one wants to talk to you.

00:59:03Marc:Oh, yeah, you're that person.

00:59:04Guest:Drinking a lot and doing other things.

00:59:06Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah, I definitely know.

00:59:08Marc:Yeah, yeah, I got off of that shit, too.

00:59:11Guest:But, you know, then I thought, well, you know what?

00:59:15Guest:Maybe I'll join the military, you know?

00:59:19Guest:But I was serious.

00:59:20Guest:I thought, otherwise I'll die.

00:59:23Guest:I'll learn something.

00:59:24Guest:I'll get some discipline.

00:59:26Guest:I'll travel.

00:59:27Guest:I'll meet people, you know.

00:59:29Guest:Better than prison.

00:59:29Guest:I won't die, yeah.

00:59:31Marc:Or prison, right?

00:59:31Marc:Right, yeah.

00:59:32Guest:That'll get you in shape.

00:59:33Guest:You know, I was seriously thinking about it.

00:59:36Guest:And then I met Kenny, and I didn't have to go that route.

00:59:41Guest:But it always made me recognize that... And that's why I like to, when I can, do stuff for the troops and play for them and do different things.

00:59:52Guest:Because they're just like me.

00:59:53Guest:They are me.

00:59:54Guest:It could have been me.

00:59:55Guest:I almost went.

00:59:56Guest:So, you know, it just...

00:59:59Marc:just have that sort of recognition sure yeah yeah everybody doesn't join to go fight and kill people right yeah yeah so yeah because you do a lot of stuff for the troops right i've done things yeah yeah yeah so i think that's interesting about the partnership that you guys created is like your your music history is very specific before her

01:00:20Marc:That Buddha Records was making a specific type of music, and we talked about that a little before, with Kim Foley, who also did, what would you call it, bubblegum pop?

01:00:29Marc:What's the word for it?

01:00:31Guest:Well, I get the very smallest definition for bubblegum, which was the Buddha thing, and the head of Buddha, Neil Bogart, named it Bubblegum.

01:00:44Guest:Yeah.

01:00:44Guest:Ohio Express, 1910 Fruit Gum Company.

01:00:47Guest:Other people define it like...

01:00:49Guest:Jeff Barry says it's Teddy Bear by Elvis.

01:00:54Marc:Right, right.

01:00:55Marc:It's a type of hit, though.

01:00:56Guest:You're trying to make hits.

01:00:58Guest:Yeah, well, it's the way of looking at it.

01:01:00Guest:I look at it that this Buddha thing that I was part of, that's the bubblegum and other pop music.

01:01:06Guest:But then other people think,

01:01:09Guest:Tommy Rowe, who did Dizzy, and maybe even the Partridge family.

01:01:14Guest:I look at them as a television phenomenon, like the Monkees, but I don't look at it as bubblegum, but other people do.

01:01:23Guest:Well, what were some of the songs you were involved in?

01:01:25Guest:It's pop music, though.

01:01:26Guest:Yeah, definitely.

01:01:26Guest:Well, Yummy Yummy, Chewy Chewy, One, Two, Three, Red Lights.

01:01:31Guest:Moany Moany.

01:01:32Guest:Moany Moany.

01:01:33Guest:He's the big dun, dun, dun.

01:01:36Guest:Oh, that's him on the piano?

01:01:38Guest:On organ.

01:01:39Guest:Yeah, there's a piano there too, but what you hear is the organ.

01:01:42Guest:And you played with Tommy James.

01:01:43Guest:Oh, yeah.

01:01:44Guest:Tommy was the Led Zeppelin of Bubblegum.

01:01:46Marc:Yeah.

01:01:47Marc:And then you guys covered Crimson and Clover.

01:01:50Marc:You did the best job with that song.

01:01:52Marc:And I like Tommy's version, but I love your version.

01:01:55Marc:I can listen to your version.

01:01:56Marc:It kills me.

01:01:57Marc:It kills me.

01:01:57Marc:Tommy's version doesn't kill me as much.

01:02:00Marc:You did something with that song.

01:02:03Marc:And you were producing and playing.

01:02:05Marc:playing, sometimes writing.

01:02:07Marc:So when you saw her, and coming from where you come from, sort of a hit-making ideology, because if you listen, your first record rocks hard, but there's something about the production that made it very accessible.

01:02:22Marc:Now, are you conscious of that?

01:02:23Marc:Yes.

01:02:24Guest:Yes, and I'm also conscious that, you know, because John being a woman, me being a guy, it's backwards because the poppy parts come from me and the deep...

01:02:39Guest:heavy menacing rock and roll parts come from uh you know not a hundred percent no but it's an incredible balance yeah what was the song that really pushed pushed you guys through was it was it um bad reputation well bad rap was one of the very first on the radio and do you want to touch me yeah that also the both of them were happening on our own label at aor radio at once

01:03:03Guest:Yeah.

01:03:04Guest:And, you know, that's something that really doesn't happen today.

01:03:06Guest:I suppose there's another form of it happening on streaming services.

01:03:11Guest:But we were able to take a record that had no label behind it and bring it to radio stations.

01:03:18Guest:Which is crazy.

01:03:18Guest:And they played those two songs.

01:03:19Guest:But, you know, we didn't know how to— You drove it around, what, in the car?

01:03:22Guest:Yes.

01:03:23Guest:We would go to—we'd book clubs.

01:03:25Marc:Was this on—is this after you couldn't get a label?

01:03:28Marc:Yes.

01:03:28Marc:Was this on your label?

01:03:29Marc:Yes.

01:03:30Marc:So her first record was an independent record?

01:03:32Marc:Yes.

01:03:33Guest:because you couldn't sell it anywhere exactly because of the same problems you always had because yeah well it got worse yeah the polygram which was mercury yeah every girl in the runaways sandy west leader sheree those three they all got record deals right and um joan didn't get a record deal from the american company and so what was the reasoning

01:04:00Guest:They don't give it to you.

01:04:01Guest:It's all crazy things.

01:04:02Guest:You know, like the head of marketing for Atlantic Records once said to me, she's got to stop hiding behind that guitar and get out there and rock like Pat Benatar.

01:04:13Guest:What the fuck?

01:04:14Guest:I mean, give me a break.

01:04:17Guest:And there was... No slight to Pat Benatar, but it's just, you know.

01:04:22Guest:Yeah.

01:04:22Guest:Joan was a punk rocker in the band.

01:04:24Guest:The others were not punk rockers at all.

01:04:27Guest:Cherie, I think, you know, going back to that story, I think the song she brought in to sing was Mandy by Barry Manilow.

01:04:34Guest:Yeah, for The Runaways or something like that.

01:04:36Guest:I think it was a Manilow song.

01:04:37Guest:Oh, yeah.

01:04:38Guest:Oh, man.

01:04:39Guest:We don't want to take our head off.

01:04:41Guest:And then the other girls were Ronnie Dio fans.

01:04:45Marc:That's all right.

01:04:46Marc:It is sort of a punk-glam hybrid, almost, right?

01:04:50Marc:That's what we were shooting for.

01:04:51Guest:That's exactly what, yeah.

01:04:53Marc:So after the first record you put out on your own, you get some juice, right?

01:04:56Marc:I mean, it was a big record, right?

01:04:58Guest:It was pretty big, but it still wasn't enough that people kissed our ass around.

01:05:03Guest:And this is the thing, because Kenny, like you said, he knows a bunch of guys and people in the business.

01:05:08Guest:He's been in the business.

01:05:10Guest:So he figured, I'll get you on a deal in a heartbeat.

01:05:13Guest:He thought it was going to be easy.

01:05:15Guest:Yeah.

01:05:15Guest:And then he started running into these walls, which, I mean, you saw in the movie, all the letters of these guys writing, saying... And at the top, which is the best part, it refers to all the songs they heard.

01:05:28Guest:I Love Rock and Roll, Crimson and Clover, Do You Want to Touch Me, Bad Reputation, and I think one other one.

01:05:33Guest:Yeah.

01:05:34Guest:All of which were hits.

01:05:36Guest:And all these letters say, you need a song search...

01:05:39Guest:Yeah.

01:05:40Guest:Sorry.

01:05:41Guest:Right.

01:05:41Guest:Not for us.

01:05:42Guest:Right.

01:05:42Guest:So either, you know, they don't listen to what they get.

01:05:45Guest:They've already decided.

01:05:46Guest:Right.

01:05:46Guest:No matter what, we don't want her.

01:05:47Guest:Let's just give some lame excuse.

01:05:50Guest:Yeah.

01:05:50Guest:You know, but whatever, they heard all these hits and they're passing.

01:05:53Guest:So it just shows...

01:05:55Guest:I don't know.

01:05:57Marc:They prejudged or they still like ingrain sexism to the whole thing or whatever.

01:06:01Guest:And he thought it was going to be easy but it wasn't easy and then he got pissed.

01:06:05Guest:A lot of bands when they start people don't hear it.

01:06:11Guest:The Beatles were turned down by Mercury of all labels every week for a year.

01:06:17Guest:in the beginning.

01:06:18Guest:I mean, you know, it's hard.

01:06:20Guest:A lot of bands still get turned down.

01:06:22Guest:But there was that other thing going on that you referenced.

01:06:25Guest:The sexism.

01:06:26Guest:Yeah, the sexism was pretty intense.

01:06:29Guest:And I was kind of really surprised.

01:06:32Guest:It was like people were emotionally...

01:06:34Guest:offended as i said before is that something yeah i mean why am i saying that it's completely obvious but it wasn't just like an intellectual sort of no we're not interested kenny yeah it's like they had they got emotional too about it like yeah they were insulted right and so kenny yeah knowing me and now being friends right he's insulted back when what do you

01:06:57Guest:you know what do you mean now yeah not just me being angry about life and trying to explain it to everybody and nobody gets it now he gets it and he's with me and he gets it from the ground level yeah what i'm feeling he's getting that same stuff yeah even more because they're probably saying shit they wouldn't say to me to him right yeah you know and you say fuck you i'm gonna put out the next album too well

01:07:21Guest:We had no choice.

01:07:23Guest:By then we were just like treading water.

01:07:25Guest:No, we wanted to be on a label.

01:07:30Guest:But they didn't want us.

01:07:31Guest:And thank God they didn't want us because now we own everything.

01:07:35Marc:It works out.

01:07:35Marc:Thanks a lot, dudes.

01:07:37Marc:So I Love Rock and Roll, you put out.

01:07:39Marc:And that was it.

01:07:40Marc:That was the big one, right?

01:07:41Marc:Right.

01:07:42Marc:Yeah.

01:07:42Guest:But we were doing a lot of things that became the future.

01:07:47Guest:We were selling the records at the gigs.

01:07:49Guest:No rock and roll bands were doing that.

01:07:50Guest:No pop bands were doing it.

01:07:52Guest:As a matter of fact, when we finally made a deal, we did a deal with CBS Records, Sony.

01:07:58Guest:And I told them I wanted to sell the records at the gigs.

01:08:01Guest:They were going, that's ridiculous.

01:08:04Guest:Then it became a thing.

01:08:06Guest:Now we don't even have records.

01:08:07Guest:Right.

01:08:08Guest:So you were schlepping the records around?

01:08:10Guest:Yeah.

01:08:11Guest:We had them in the trunk of the car, yeah.

01:08:12Guest:At the end of the gig, we would open up the trunk and I'd sit there and I'd be collecting like $3 a record.

01:08:17Guest:And I wasn't thinking about royalties or nothing.

01:08:18Marc:Is it the first record or the second record?

01:08:20Marc:The first record.

01:08:21Marc:First record.

01:08:21Marc:So how much are you touring at that point?

01:08:23Marc:A lot?

01:08:23Marc:Oh, yeah.

01:08:24Marc:A lot.

01:08:25Marc:A lot.

01:08:25Marc:And how many of the original bands are still with you?

01:08:28Marc:Nobody.

01:08:29Marc:Nobody.

01:08:30Marc:Yeah.

01:08:31Guest:Just us two.

01:08:32Guest:Yeah, the two of us.

01:08:33Guest:But the drummer, who's now off the road because he had an illness, but he's still with us and does the records, Tommy Price.

01:08:43Guest:Yeah.

01:08:44Guest:He started with us in 84.

01:08:46Guest:Yeah.

01:08:46Guest:And he actually played for a minute in 80.

01:08:49Guest:So he's been around a while.

01:08:52Yeah.

01:08:52Marc:And so, okay, so the second record is a huge hit.

01:08:55Marc:Now you can tour big rooms again, and you're a rock star, right?

01:09:01Guest:Yeah, to a degree.

01:09:02Guest:To a degree?

01:09:03Guest:Still to a degree?

01:09:04Guest:Well, you're not going to get her to admit she's a rock star, but I admit it.

01:09:08Guest:She's a rock star.

01:09:10Marc:But you're having a profound effect.

01:09:13Marc:What's interesting is in the book, Kathleen Hannah's in there a lot from Bikini Kill, and that you had no real idea how many of the next generation of women in rock music you were influencing.

01:09:28Guest:No, I don't really have a... And I didn't... I think I just kind of keep my head down and plow forward.

01:09:36Guest:And, you know, once in a while you look up and you see people, you know, what you're affecting.

01:09:41Marc:And I had no idea that you produced that Germs record.

01:09:44Marc:I mean, that's like... Oh, yeah.

01:09:45Marc:That's like one of the most important L.A.

01:09:46Marc:punk records ever.

01:09:47Marc:And that was in your downtime, right?

01:09:49Marc:Yes.

01:09:50Marc:When you were lost.

01:09:51Guest:Yeah, pretty much.

01:09:52Marc:And you were just like bouncing around L.A.

01:09:54Marc:in that scene.

01:09:55Marc:And you were a little older than them, right?

01:09:58Marc:Yeah, yeah, a couple years.

01:10:00Marc:And so you were hanging out with this generation of kids who were doing that music, and that's one of the most important punk rock records ever.

01:10:08Marc:It's amazing when people tell me that, you know?

01:10:10Guest:It's just, I was lucky, I've been really lucky to be in the right place at the right time with a lot of these bands.

01:10:18Marc:What was your relationship with them?

01:10:19Guest:Well, the germs of Darby Crash, who's the lead singer, and Pat Smear, who's a guitar player, who's now the Foo Fighters.

01:10:26Marc:Right, and he played with Nirvana as well.

01:10:28Guest:Yeah, Nirvana as well.

01:10:30Guest:Wow.

01:10:30Guest:I mean, that's a career, too.

01:10:32Marc:Right, yeah.

01:10:33Guest:But they were huge Runaways fans.

01:10:36Guest:Uh-huh.

01:10:36Guest:and they i remember them we met they were hanging out outside the studio in i believe it was santa monica brothers studios which was yeah beach boys studios i believe were studio they worked at um and that's where we were recording some of the the runaway second album and they were out there hanging out yeah they said they were fans and they wanted to form a band and

01:11:03Guest:And they did.

01:11:03Guest:I said, do it.

01:11:04Guest:And so we just always stayed friends.

01:11:07Guest:They give credit for the runaways.

01:11:08Guest:It's just the reason they became a being.

01:11:10Guest:Oh, yeah, yeah.

01:11:11Guest:And the funny thing, the bass player that we had for I Love Rock and Roll.

01:11:17Guest:Yeah.

01:11:18Guest:Gary Ryan, Gary Morse Ryan.

01:11:20Guest:Yeah.

01:11:21Guest:His girlfriend at the time was Lana Doom, the bass player of the Germs.

01:11:27Guest:So, yeah, it was like a little family scene going on.

01:11:30Marc:And when you, like, in Darby was it, like, kind of out of control, but, like, beautifully out of control.

01:11:34Guest:He was beautifully out of control, definitely.

01:11:37Guest:He was a beautiful spirit.

01:11:41Guest:Yeah, yeah.

01:11:42Guest:He just was a wild man.

01:11:44Guest:Yeah.

01:11:44Guest:Couldn't, this world couldn't contain him, you know?

01:11:47Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:11:48Guest:Very smart.

01:11:49Guest:He was a very smart guy.

01:11:50Marc:But was the booze get him?

01:11:52Marc:What was it?

01:11:54Marc:Just everything?

01:11:54Guest:He OD'd.

01:11:56Guest:I'm not specifically sure.

01:11:58Guest:He OD'd the day John Lennon got shot.

01:12:02Guest:So that was not a good day for us.

01:12:04Guest:That was terrible.

01:12:05Guest:For rock and roll.

01:12:07Marc:So you put out a record pretty much almost every couple of years since Bad Reputation, right?

01:12:14Marc:Right.

01:12:15Marc:And you've had several hits over the years, and you're still out there.

01:12:18Marc:You play, right, all the time?

01:12:19Marc:Yeah, pretty much.

01:12:20Marc:And in the doc, it really shows that...

01:12:24Marc:a lot of these women that you inspired have come forward and brought you into the fold in a way.

01:12:31Marc:Now, I have to assume that that must be pretty emotionally gratifying and nice.

01:12:38Guest:It is.

01:12:38Guest:It's very gratifying.

01:12:40Guest:Because you didn't know it.

01:12:42Guest:No, I was not really aware of that.

01:12:45Guest:I wasn't aware of how much it was actually reaching women.

01:12:49Marc:yeah girls yeah yeah and now they come up to you and they and like there must be hundreds of them there are it's it's it's really really special and um you know it's motivating yeah it keeps me motivated yeah and tell me about this event because i talked to a friend of mine who's from seattle about the uh the gets in that in that situation because i didn't know about it

01:13:15Marc:When Mia Zapata was murdered, raped and murdered up there.

01:13:20Marc:And you heard about that.

01:13:21Marc:What year is that?

01:13:22Marc:That's 80... No, it was in the 90s.

01:13:26Marc:Oh, it was in the 90s?

01:13:27Guest:90, like 90... Oh, I don't want to say the wrong year.

01:13:31Guest:It was early 90s.

01:13:32Marc:Uh-huh.

01:13:32Marc:Yeah.

01:13:33Marc:And how'd you hear about it?

01:13:34Marc:What happened?

01:13:35Guest:I was doing a lot of work out west up in Seattle.

01:13:39Guest:I was writing a lot of- Black Heart Records had a band in Seattle right around the grunge explosion called Metal Church.

01:13:48Guest:They were originally an indie band, so they were the first one and they charted.

01:13:52Guest:So we were there and then- And did you know Mia?

01:13:56Guest:No, I did not know Mia or the Getz.

01:13:59Guest:But I knew a lot of the people, the same scene.

01:14:03Guest:We're all in the same scene.

01:14:05Guest:So when I heard about it, I just thought, oh man, it so easily could be any of us.

01:14:13Guest:How many times have I walked home late at night, maybe a little drunk, just alone.

01:14:21Guest:And that's the situation she was in.

01:14:24Guest:And you figure you can handle yourself.

01:14:26Guest:she couldn't.

01:14:30Guest:I don't know.

01:14:31Guest:So everybody wanted to try to do something to raise money to help the cops because the cops could do a limited amount, I suppose, or people felt they weren't doing enough to hire a private investigator.

01:14:43Guest:So initially, we did a benefit concert in Seattle.

01:14:48Guest:Initially, it started out as just this one night.

01:14:50Guest:And we thought, wow, that was really

01:14:53Guest:really weirdly cool yeah you know um in a sad way but yeah but it was honoring honoring her yeah so we thought you know why don't we do a little tour and use that money to yeah you know keep the private eye going and they got him so we did that yeah we did that and uh they did you know like 10 years afterwards no kidding that long

01:15:16Guest:It was 2003, somewhere around there.

01:15:19Guest:I get a phone call.

01:15:21Guest:No hello, no nothing.

01:15:24Guest:It was Steve Moriarty, the drummer from the Gitz.

01:15:27Guest:He just said, we got him.

01:15:29Guest:Wow.

01:15:31Guest:And they got him down in the Keys someplace, down in Key West or something.

01:15:36Marc:That hardly ever happens.

01:15:38Guest:Yeah, some other thing.

01:15:39Guest:He'd done something else, and they ran the DNA.

01:15:42Marc:Yeah.

01:15:42Marc:interesting that whole scene was so like um unique really that how many bands came out of there yeah yeah really tons and like you were up there for that so you like you saw it sort of starting i mean because that was like it was like way post-punk and it was a new approach to you know raw rock and roll yeah it must have been fucking exciting it was it was i didn't see a lot of live shows i was there though no you don't seem to see a lot of live shows do you no i'm always working yeah

01:16:09Guest:I saw a lot more shows when I was younger.

01:16:12Guest:You know, when I was sitting around, I lived across from the whiskey in L.A.

01:16:17Marc:That's where I just saw Slash.

01:16:19Marc:Oh, yeah?

01:16:19Marc:It's a great room.

01:16:20Marc:It was the first time I ever been there.

01:16:22Guest:Yeah, I live beyond the gas station.

01:16:24Guest:The apartment building is still there.

01:16:26Guest:Every time I drive by, I live there, I live there.

01:16:28Guest:It was a perfect party place.

01:16:31Guest:You're in the middle of everything.

01:16:32Guest:And I saw so many shows then.

01:16:34Marc:It's a magic room, that room.

01:16:37Guest:Yeah, it's very nice.

01:16:38Marc:Have you played there lately?

01:16:39Guest:No, not lately.

01:16:40Marc:Yeah?

01:16:41Guest:Not in a long time.

01:16:42Marc:Oh, it's still really good.

01:16:43Marc:I mean, I assume.

01:16:44Marc:I just didn't have it.

01:16:45Marc:Like, I don't go out to a lot of live shows.

01:16:47Guest:It's a lot smaller than I remember.

01:16:50Marc:Right, tiny.

01:16:50Guest:You know, when you're a kid, it seemed big.

01:16:52Marc:Yeah, yeah.

01:16:53Guest:But now, you know, you go in there, it's like, wow.

01:16:56Marc:So what do you guys do now?

01:16:57Marc:Like, you know, you're producing a lot of bands?

01:16:59Marc:L7's back?

01:17:01Yeah.

01:17:02Guest:Yeah, L7's back, and I think they're a good fit for our label.

01:17:07Guest:We have a band called Fea, which grew out of a band called Girl in a Coma.

01:17:13Guest:And Fea, incredible.

01:17:15Guest:They're a punk band from San Antone, Texas.

01:17:22Guest:We have the soundtrack from this movie.

01:17:26Guest:Yeah.

01:17:27Guest:Which is, we have a great, it's in the movie, but we have Miley, Lord Jane Grace, and Joan doing Androgynous.

01:17:40Guest:Oh, that's great.

01:17:41Guest:The Paul Westerberg song?

01:17:42Guest:Yeah, the Paul Westerberg song, yeah.

01:17:43Guest:It's great.

01:17:44Guest:We have Joan singing Smells Like Teen Spirit.

01:17:48Guest:From the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame when Nirvana got inducted.

01:17:53Guest:That was something.

01:17:54Guest:You were great.

01:17:55Guest:It was so great.

01:17:56Guest:It was so fun and so scary at the same time.

01:18:00Guest:Well, think about it.

01:18:01Guest:It's like...

01:18:03Guest:You're going to play Smells Like Teen Spirit, Nirvana, at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

01:18:11Guest:With Nirvana, yeah.

01:18:12Guest:Now, it's like petrifying, but you have to do it.

01:18:18Guest:Of course.

01:18:18Guest:I mean, I was compelled.

01:18:21Marc:Who asked you?

01:18:23Guest:Dave.

01:18:23Guest:I think Dave did.

01:18:25Guest:And then he said, you're going to go first.

01:18:31Guest:Yeah.

01:18:32Guest:Okay.

01:18:33Marc:How long did it take you to get comfortable?

01:18:35Marc:A second?

01:18:37Guest:I actually was very strangely not nervous.

01:18:40Guest:I'm usually very nervous, like too nervous.

01:18:43Guest:You know what I mean?

01:18:44Guest:Like overly nervous.

01:18:45Guest:You got to work on getting your head out of that.

01:18:48Yeah.

01:18:48Guest:I was pretty calm, actually.

01:18:50Marc:And Pat was up there, too, right?

01:18:52Marc:Pat was up there.

01:18:52Marc:So that must have been comforting.

01:18:53Guest:Yeah, and we all do know each other.

01:18:55Guest:We played together before, so I hadn't played with Chris, but I think we had a sound check, so we had a chance to run it.

01:19:02Marc:So outside of the dock that's coming out, what are you guys doing?

01:19:05Marc:Are you just touring all the time?

01:19:07Marc:Because I know you do a lot of festivals now, and you seem to be involved with some good causes.

01:19:11Marc:What do you spend your time doing, mostly?

01:19:13Guest:touring yeah really yeah we're on the road all the time we're going to um australia for in january then i don't know what's happening i know you've been there before yes not for a while you like it what are you doing sydney melbourne the whole country brisbane a lot we're doing a lot oh yeah yeah it's just it's a sold out tour thank god because it's a long way to go to be empty well they're very happy you come

01:19:37Marc:They're excited you come, make the trip.

01:19:41Guest:That's nice.

01:19:42Guest:And we will do a little bit of politicking.

01:19:46Guest:Yeah?

01:19:47Guest:Yeah.

01:19:48Guest:Where, here?

01:19:49Guest:In the United States, yeah.

01:19:51Guest:Rock the vote kind of stuff?

01:19:52Guest:No, we don't have to work that hard.

01:19:54Guest:Well, we should actually for some of those congressional California...

01:19:57Guest:Yeah, we're going to help Tammy Baldwin in Wisconsin, Randy Bryce for Paul Ryan's seat.

01:20:07Guest:We're working for him.

01:20:08Guest:What does that entail?

01:20:10Guest:You do a gig?

01:20:11Guest:We might do a gig.

01:20:13Guest:Sometimes we go to people's apartments and they raise money that way.

01:20:17Guest:And that's my preference because the concerts, you're dealing with people that don't do concerts normally and you tend not to make a lot of money that way.

01:20:26Guest:The best way is if a celebrity can draw some people in and say maybe, they bring like 20, 30 big donors.

01:20:34Guest:And Joan will stay there and we'll- Meet and greet.

01:20:37Guest:Yeah, exactly.

01:20:39Guest:And I like that way the best.

01:20:41Guest:And for Howard Dean, when we were with him, who we adore, we actually went on a roll with him.

01:20:49Guest:And we both gave little speeches and whatever.

01:20:52Guest:That's great.

01:20:53Guest:During the primaries.

01:20:54Guest:Yeah.

01:20:55Guest:We were on stage when he said, we're going to do it.

01:20:59Guest:Yeah.

01:20:59Guest:It was much less crazy than the news made it out to be.

01:21:03Guest:It was totally normal.

01:21:04Guest:He had 3,000 college kids who were really freaked out.

01:21:09Guest:They were all crying, man, because he lost.

01:21:12Guest:And he was trying to help.

01:21:14Guest:That was a Democratic establishment, you know, wiping out the guy.

01:21:18Guest:The way ABC sent the feed in, you couldn't hear the crowd.

01:21:22Guest:The crowd was going...

01:21:22Guest:Dean, Dean, Dean, Dean, Dean.

01:21:25Guest:And everybody was there that Candy Crowley, is that her name?

01:21:29Guest:And all these famous people were on the plane with us.

01:21:32Guest:And nobody noticed, and John always says this story, nobody noticed anything weird at all until the next day when we saw what they did with it on the TV.

01:21:42Guest:Right.

01:21:42Guest:Yeah, it wasn't like the press was on the plane going, oh, my God, look what Dean did.

01:21:46Guest:Yeah.

01:21:48Marc:Of course not.

01:21:48Guest:It was they were working because Dean was winning.

01:21:50Guest:They had to figure out how can we make him look bad with what he did last night overnight.

01:21:55Guest:Yeah.

01:21:55Guest:So whatever they see at 6 a.m., he looks like a nut.

01:21:59Guest:Yeah.

01:21:59Guest:Why did they do that to him?

01:22:00Guest:Because he was the outsider and he was taking on the establishment.

01:22:04Guest:Right.

01:22:04Guest:He said, I'm the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party.

01:22:07Marc:Right, right, yeah.

01:22:10Marc:Wow.

01:22:11Marc:So, you know.

01:22:12Marc:So now, Joan, are you able to stop working long enough to appreciate what you've accomplished?

01:22:18Marc:I mean, do you have fun?

01:22:22Guest:I don't really have too much downtime.

01:22:25Guest:When I do have downtime, I don't want to go anywhere because I'm always traveling, which is kind of a drag.

01:22:30Guest:There's a lot of places that I'd like to see or things I'd like to do.

01:22:37Guest:Something as similar as just driving Highway 1.

01:22:39Guest:Oh, yeah, it's great.

01:22:40Guest:You've never done it?

01:22:41Guest:No, but my bus driver just did it to meet us someplace, and he took all these amazing pictures, and I'm like, damn, you know?

01:22:51Marc:Everybody gets to do all this stuff.

01:22:53Marc:But you never stop.

01:22:54Guest:no I haven't when I do it's not for too long and I've got animals at home and so I just want to be with them sure yeah that makes sense you know what I'm saying which is kind of you go oh man what a sad life she does things though no I don't think so when her mom was alive she and her mom

01:23:10Guest:cleaned the cages at the animal shelter.

01:23:16Guest:And she'll go out, just like people know, because she's so good.

01:23:21Guest:Go out in a freezing cold, one o'clock in the morning, give food to the stray animals.

01:23:29Marc:Sure, yeah.

01:23:30Marc:My mom is feeding iguanas in South Florida right now.

01:23:33Guest:Really?

01:23:34Guest:There you go.

01:23:36Marc:That's great.

01:23:37Marc:I talked about it on the air, and some woman wrote me.

01:23:39Marc:She's like, that's part of the problem.

01:23:40Marc:You're not supposed to feed them because there's millions.

01:23:42Marc:It's thousands of them.

01:23:43Marc:Right, right.

01:23:44Marc:But my mother can't not feed the animals.

01:23:46Marc:What are you going to do?

01:23:47Marc:They're there.

01:23:48Marc:Go feed the lizards.

01:23:49Guest:Hey, the animals are...

01:23:51Guest:Yeah, we're in their spot, people.

01:23:53Marc:You know what I mean?

01:23:54Guest:Calm down and learn to live together.

01:23:56Guest:I mean, first of all, you don't even want to get me talking about animals.

01:24:00Marc:Because you're a vegetarian too, right?

01:24:02Guest:Yeah, basically vegan.

01:24:04Marc:Yeah.

01:24:05Marc:And did you have a moment with a hamburger?

01:24:07Marc:What did it?

01:24:08Guest:I mean, I used to be like a bloody meat eater.

01:24:10Guest:Yeah, right, yeah.

01:24:12Guest:It was just a slow dawning of what am I doing?

01:24:15Guest:Yeah.

01:24:16Guest:You know, I love animals and I'm eating this thing.

01:24:21Guest:that thinks and feels and all that stuff.

01:24:24Guest:And when you get into it and you recognize the more science proves the sentience of animals that we really, you know, say, you know, that's nothing.

01:24:37Guest:I mean, you know, paper wasps can recognize each other by their faces.

01:24:42Guest:That's a wasp.

01:24:43Guest:Yeah.

01:24:43Guest:A wasp, a bug.

01:24:45Guest:Yeah.

01:24:45Guest:Okay, so I'm not...

01:24:49Guest:I'm not to assume that I'm better or know anything.

01:24:55Guest:That I'm above that.

01:24:58Guest:Because I don't understand their language or what they do.

01:25:03Guest:So, I don't know.

01:25:04Guest:I find it very hard to eat an animal.

01:25:07Guest:To me, it's like...

01:25:08Guest:why don't you just throw your grandmother up there?

01:25:11Guest:Or why don't we try some babies?

01:25:14Guest:Because baby meat got to be nice and tender, just like the lambs and stuff.

01:25:18Guest:To me, it's like... Same thing.

01:25:21Guest:It is.

01:25:22Marc:Sorry, but... Do you find that at this point, are you at peace with your past for the most part?

01:25:28Marc:I mean, do you have a relationship with Cherie?

01:25:31Marc:I mean, with the other ones, the people that you played with and that kind of stuff, do you...

01:25:35Guest:I don't have any kind of... I have no bad relationships with anybody or bad...

01:25:45Guest:thoughts about anything we all did something really special and I think important together and I would hope whether they enjoyed it or not that they recognize that as well and I hold no sort of animosity towards anyone and yeah Sheree and I are friendly last time I spoke to Lita we were friendly but that hasn't been for years Jackie I haven't spoken to her for years either

01:26:13Marc:What was your reaction to that, her posthumous accusation of, you know, Kim?

01:26:19Guest:Well, she made that apparently before he was dead, too.

01:26:22Marc:Oh, yeah?

01:26:23Marc:You never saw it?

01:26:25Guest:No, I mean, look, that was not my experience.

01:26:27Guest:Right, yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:26:28Guest:I did not have that sort of thing, so I can't really speak to it.

01:26:33Marc:Right, right.

01:26:34Marc:But, all right, well, that's, like, I was honored to talk to you guys.

01:26:38Yeah.

01:26:39Marc:Thank you.

01:26:40Marc:It's an honor to talk to you, too.

01:26:42Marc:I think it was great.

01:26:42Marc:I'm glad you hung out, Kenny.

01:26:44Marc:Is that your real last name, Laguna?

01:26:46Marc:Yeah.

01:26:48Guest:What kind of name is that?

01:26:51Guest:Well, I grew up thinking it was Italian, and now I've done the... I did that, yeah.

01:26:58Guest:Apparently it's Spanish.

01:27:00Guest:Oh, it's Spanish?

01:27:01Guest:Didn't you say Portuguese?

01:27:03Guest:Well, that was a theory for a few years in my family, but it turned out not to be.

01:27:08Marc:and you can you can pass as a jewish too like i'm a jew and like i assume record business it must have been kenny goldstein but no it's not no italian guy portuguese italians and jews after a certain age they're interchangeable sometimes no i'm half jewish anyway oh you are yes but uh there you go but yeah it's it's funny though because um a lot of people say what's your real name so where you guys go now you staying in l.a for a couple days

01:27:36Guest:One more day, and then we head up to Washington State.

01:27:40Guest:Yeah, to play?

01:27:40Guest:Do a couple gigs up there.

01:27:41Guest:Yeah, we're doing gigs with Cheap Trick.

01:27:43Guest:Three, that's all.

01:27:44Guest:It's a good combo.

01:27:46Guest:Joan's been playing with them since she was 15, 16 years old.

01:27:50Guest:No, I was 16, 16, 17.

01:27:52Marc:With Cheap Trick.

01:27:53Guest:We are not here to tell the truth, Joan.

01:27:55Guest:We are here to create perceptions.

01:27:57Marc:All right, well, great to talk to you.

01:27:58Marc:Good luck on the road.

01:27:59Marc:Thank you very much, Mark.

01:28:05Marc:That was exciting, wasn't it?

01:28:07Marc:It was actually very fun.

01:28:10Marc:Sometimes it's hard for me to manage two people, but characters and icons.

01:28:16Marc:Right there, folks.

01:28:17Marc:As I said earlier, the documentary about her life and career is called Bad Reputation.

01:28:21Marc:It comes out this Friday, September 28th.

01:28:24Marc:Go to WTFPod.com to get tour dates, buy one of the new t-shirts, and sign up for WTF premium access to get all past WTF episodes, not just the most recent.

01:28:35Marc:and uh i don't know you know i i got a little choked up not this is not emotionally but like you know confidence wise after i talked to slash on my guitar and my arm's been fucking bothering me and i hope it goes away but like i talk to people you know i talk to people i ask people on stage about this tennis elbow tendonitis fucking thing and they just say it never fucking goes away and

01:28:59Marc:I don't want to stop exercising because I'm in the groove with that, but I don't want to lose the ability to play guitar.

01:29:05Marc:God damn it.

01:29:06Marc:God damn it, I'm going to play.

01:29:08Marc:I'm going to play anyways because I know you demand it, you four people who wait all the way through this shit at the very end to listen to me noodle in a distorted way.

01:29:20Marc:Not even noodle lately.

01:29:22Marc:It's almost meditative.

01:29:23Marc:... ...

01:29:48Marc:Boomer lives!