Joan Jett's Life Lessons For Stirring Up Good Trouble

PRIDE 2025: Herizon Music celebrates

The Joan Jett documentary Bad Reputation (2018) inspired me to launch Herizon Music to promote gender equity in music and music media. I recently wrote about that rollercoaster ride here.

Originally, I saw the film for a SheSpark Magazine feature article. The e-mag covered style, beauty, and wellness for women over 40 and featured interviews from high-achieving women like actress and breast cancer survivor and activist Fran Drescher, to health and fitness coach and athlete Jenna Wolfe, to body-positivity guru and image consultant Dr. Carol Parker Walsh. Jett’s rock and roll edge fit perfectly with the modern woman 40+ who is bold and self-aware.

Joan Jett, 📸 photo by Olivia Jaffe

Preface

This article is a revisit of the first article. I planned to post it three weeks ago but was sidelined due to a reasons outlined in “Mourning, Music and Writing.”

Updated based on the times, I hope this serves as a reminder that we need women in music representing all walks of life, of all ages, all colors, all socio-economic backgrounds to give us encouragement. To provide comfort and understanding when family or community fall woefully short or are downright cruel. One line from a song or a speech could make the difference between a person moving forward or giving up.

PRIDE month embodies that spirit. I am a Gen X hetero woman who celebrates diversity, including our LGBTQIA sisters and brothers, because it makes us all better humans and spiritual beings. And loving and respecting your neighbor is the right thing to do. Hard stop.

PRIDE reminds people that love and freedom to love transcends the chains of oppression. Some people use religious scripture to condemn the PRIDE movement as a showcase of the deadly sin. To them, I ask: Who are you to judge others based on a sense of moral superiority? That mentality is the definition of sinful pride. PRIDE month destroys sinful pride in a colorful celebration of equality and individuality.

Where does destructive pride END and self-worth and pride in your merit BEGIN?

I found this article “The Deadly Sin of Pride” by Paul Sands (Associate Professor of Theology, George W. Truett Theological Seminary, Baylor University) to be thought-provoking.

Joan Jett's Life Lessons For Stirring Up Good Trouble

Joan Jett has carved out her reputation in the gay rights, women’s rights, and animal rights community. Rather than give lip service to the media or shine the spotlight on her personal relationships, she simply does the work.

Coincidentally, Jett recently launched her Youtube music video “Real Wild Child (Wild One),” written by Australian Johnny O'Keefe, with Johnny Greenan and Dave Owens. The song was released in 1958; Jett recorded it for 1998’s re-issued album Flashback. Iggy Pop’s version (1986) was my college alarm clock wake-up song.

Lesson One: “Stick-to-it-iveness”

My dad came up with this commitment humdinger to describe my son’s work ethic, and it’s with pure joy that I use it here. Jett sets her sights on a goal or a passion and sticks with it. Shining example of her Stick-to-it-iveness:

The breakup of Joan’s first band, The Runaways, in 1979 broke her heart. Literally. She spent six weeks in the hospital with heart valve infection and pneumonia. She could not imagine a world where she wasn’t playing rock and roll. After recovering, she committed to a rock and roll life. She formed The Blackhearts and started her journey as a lead-female act who has not stopped performing and recording since. Jett is a Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee (2019) and is dubbed the Godmother of Punk.

“There’s nothing more threatening than a girl with a guitar.” - Joan Jett

Can you imagine performing for an audience after musicians you look up to demean you backstage? Here is a quote from an interview with Loudersound.com: “One time, The Runaways opened for Rush, I think in Detroit,” she recalls. “I remember those guys standing at the side of the stage laughing at us. And, you know, if I was Rush I wouldn’t be laughing at me. Then there was Molly Hatchet. The guys said: ‘I can’t believe we’re opening for a bitch.’ And then Scorpions were mad because they were a German band and we were bigger in Germany than they were. People just don’t want to see girls doing things they don’t think girls should do.”

Lesson 2: Don’t Take No For An Answer

At age 13, Jett picked up her first guitar and signed up immediately for guitar lessons. Her guitar teacher’s response when she said she wanted to learn rock songs: “Girls don’t play rock and roll.” She quit the lessons but committed to teaching herself how to play hard, loud, rockin’ electric guitar.

She was quoted in a 2021 Forbe’s article: “I knew what he meant, and I knew he was wrong… He meant rock ’n roll was sexual, and girls can’t sing about sex because nobody is comfortable with it. He wasn’t telling me I couldn’t play acoustic guitar or folk music; he was saying I couldn’t play rock music specifically, because it was sexual.”

After forming her band The Blackhearts, Jett and her best friend and business partner Kenny Laguna pounded the pavement looking for a record deal. They were rejected by 23 labels despite her prior success with The Runaways. Taking matters into their own hands, they funded and built indie label Blackhearts Records in 1980 and recorded, printed, and marketed the music themselves - initially selling albums from the trunk of their car. She also produced albums for other bands like The Germs’ album (GI). The strategy became a leading model for other artists/indie labels. The first single from the first fully-recorded Blackhearts album was the title track, "I Love Rock 'n' Roll,”which was number one on the Billboard Hot 100 for seven weeks in a row in 1982.

Check out the artists Blackheart supports now.

Lesson 3: Uplift Others

It’s harder to stand up FOR people and causes than it is to fight against what makes you angry. Many of Jett’s interviews include raw stories of she and other women’s horrible treatment in the music industry. By not sugarcoating or making excuses for male chauvinism and discrimination (“it was a different time” or “boys will be boys”), she leads by example in moving forward in spite of the shitty things people say and do along the way. Lift yourself up, surround yourself with people who lift you up, and uplift others along the way.

“If you hold an anti-war rally, I shall not attend. But if you hold a pro-peace rally, invite me.” - Mother Teresa

Jett speaks out for animal rights saying, “We are all sisters under the skin,” as she advocates for ethical treatment of animals, especially in the food manufacturing industry.

And, of course there is PRIDE.

In 2012, artist Laura Jane Grace came out as transgender in Rolling Stone. Jett reached out to offer Grace career advice and support. Here is what Grace had to say about the experience.

Jett and Miley Cyrus then uplifted Grace in the most effective way artists can by taking it to the stage. Here is a cover of The Replacements’ “Androgynous.”

Most importantly, Jett sees rock music as more than just entertainment. In her RRHOF acceptance speech, Jett said,

“Rock n’ Roll means more than music, more than fashion, more than a good pose. It’s the language of a subculture that’s made eternal teenagers out of all who follow it. It’s a subculture of integrity, rebellion, frustration, alienation – and the glue that set generations free of unnatural suppression. Rock’n’roll is political. It’s a meaningful way to express dissent, stir up revolution and fight for human rights.”

That’s what the late congressman John Lewis called “Good Trouble.” Let’s be like Joan Jett and stir up some good trouble, sisters and brothers!

Peace, love, and happiness to all you dreamers, rule breakers, and rockstars. Thank you for making my life rich beyond compare.

Together, we rise! ❤️🧡💛🏳️‍🌈

Thea🎶