(Credits: Far Out / Joan Jett)
Thu 23 April 2026 14:47, UK
Joan Jett. Joan fucking Jett. Is there any one name as powerfully associated with rock? Even saying it captures the feeling. It’s punchy, it’s fun, it’s fiery, it’s literally everything rock and roll is, and everything Jett herself is. Still is.
In this day and age, though, rock fans have had to become accustomed to being let down. So often, the icons who were once beacons for rebellion and liberation, who built a legacy off outspoken activism, have fallen into nothing but apathy. Case in point? John Lydon, Roger Daltrey, Gene Simmons. Get some money into an ageing rock star, and all too often the anarchy falls away.
But despite her hard-earned success in a hyper-male-dominated industry at a time when misogyny, exploitation and mistreatment were commonplace, Jett remains open, vocal and connected.
Jett’s passion hasn’t faded; it has only been rearranged. There are moments where the 16-year-old version of herself that first launched with The Runaways appears, especially when discussing her upcoming shows in the UK, which will be her first in over 15 years.
“I thought we always had great shows there,” she said of the band’s 1976 tour of the UK, adding, “They could be pretty boisterous, which is good, you know, as long as nobody gets beat up,” daring to admit that maybe she always preferred UK crowds, that they seemed to simply ‘get it’.
(Credits: Far Out / Joan Jett)
But in other moments, she appears analytical, like a historian for herself, as she contemplates in equal measure to reminiscing. “The Runaways had a different career in the UK than we did in the States,” she tells me. “I think in the States, we had an OK career, but the record industry didn’t want to know. In England, I felt that the music scene was much more aware of us.”
“There’s something that I always noticed from my time in The Runaways, or just being a music fan, that in the UK, it seems like the kids, certainly during the early punk rock stuff, were much more plugged in to politics than American kids were.” In these chaotic and divided times, many of Jett’s old peers prefer to avoid political topics, but she goes straight to the point.
She speaks with a sense of responsibility for her younger self, her present self and the broader world around her, knowing there is no separation between art and the world we are living in – just as The Runaways arrived in the UK when punk was emerging and rallying against classism, economic struggle and the incoming era of Thatcherism, she is equally aware of the climate she is making music in today. A few days before our conversation, an ICE agent shot and killed civilian Renée Good.
“With American kids, it wasn’t really about politics initially, but it became that. Now I think that people are having that same thing, where politics is becoming all-encompassing,” she said. At a time when you have Kiss’ Gene Simmons outright saying “Do your art and shut up”, Jett is a vital antidote.
“Even if you aren’t a political person, or don’t want to be a political person, it is forcing its way into people’s lives,” she declared, stating that things need to reach a breaking point, but for that to happen, people have to start paying attention and stop pretending it does not affect them. “It still needs to reach a critical mass to make anything change, which I think is a scary proposition because it’s still a while away, and I hate to see what’s coming.”
(Credits: Far Out / Joan Jett)
With genuine fear for her country in her voice, she adds, “That’s what we have to wait for. I don’t even know how to speak about it yet, but it’s pretty, pretty horrifying.”
She’s not all talk. Jett is as actively involved in the fight now as she always has been, using the platform for good as she said a while back on the Music Makes Us Podcast, “Saying ‘shut up and sing’ has never really been what musicians or artists do, from way on back.” In fact, politics and the state of the world are her main inspirations right now.
“I don’t really do anything specific to stay inspired. I just stay plugged into life,” she said, “It’s kind of crazy to put today’s stuff in context, so that’s been inspiring to want to get back to the music and do things that are joyful, even if sometimes they’re about heavy subjects.”
That’s also what has drawn her back onto the road, as if to check in on everyone. “To be part of people’s interior dialogue is pretty special and a unique thing,” she offered, recalling all the times people have said, “‘Your music has got me through the worst times of my life’, or some of the best, most beautiful times of people’s lives.” Decades on, Jett is still enamoured with her view from the stage, “That’s what I love most, is to be out on stage visibly seeing people enjoying themselves, and I’m looking forward to it very much.”
Usually, when asked the question of whether performing still feels the same after so many years, a familiar reply rolls around: that the energy and the thrill never fade. Instead, Jett grows serious: “I know too much now.”
(Credits: Far Out / Joan Jett)
While her career could have made her cold, she’s simply allowed it to make her wise and forthcoming with that wisdom, telling me, “There’s just a thing that comes when you’re young, and I was definitely naive about a lot of things.” She distils her experience into advice with sincerity, continuing, “You know, you got to have common sense, and you got to be able to take care of yourself. I wish I knew then what I know now, you know.”
Jett has a clear determination not to do what some of her peers have – she refuses to grow cynical. She said, “I want to believe, because what else is there to be? You know, otherwise you’re just a nihilist and waiting for everything to just be destroyed, and that’s not any fun.” With politics floating back in as it lingers on her mind, she adds that it would also be adding to a wider, dangerous issue – “We’re getting a taste of that now, and nobody likes it.”
So rather than nihilism or pessimism, Jett happily takes on her role as a sage. She offers wisdom in abundance – “I think you’ve got to stay in the moment. All our brains race ahead or race to the past. You know, you’re worrying about the future, or going, ‘Oh shit, what just happened?’ Or, ‘Oh, I wish I could do that again’. If you’re never right here, right now, then you miss all the great shit when it happens,” she revealed as life lesson one.
For the second, “It’s just really important to be present and be kind. I’ve learned you don’t get anywhere by being anywhere else, or at least I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else. Kindness goes a long way. Even if you don’t notice its effects right away, it lasts. The other way, hate, it just burns you up like acid inside.”
At a time when ‘don’t meet your heroes’ is growing more apt with each sigh-inducing headline, Joan Jett is a figure who restores faith, urging her fans to carry it forward and keep on going with wisdom and passion as their guard and sword.
Joan Jett will be arming those fans during her first UK tour in 16 years this summer.
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