The following year, they released Queens of Noiseand quickly became associated with punk. We didn’t want barriers put up on what we were allowed to sing about, say, or play.” By 1976, they were signed to Mercury Records, releasing their debut album, and touring with Cheap Trick, Van Halen, Talking Heads, and Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. “Not much different from what the Rolling Stones were doing. The Runaways were “trying to express ourselves the way we knew how,” Jett says in her interview with Smith.

“We went in the studio right away,” she tells Maron. At fifteen years old, without songs or a demo tape, she called producer Kim Fowley, then started assembling the Runaways, starting with drummer Sandy West, then, after playing as a trio with Micki Steele, recruiting lead guitarist Lita Ford, bassist Jackie Fox, and singer Cherie Currie. With no examples to look to, Jett figured it out on her own, finding a club that played glam rock for teenagers and finding her people.

Then, when her family moved to L.A., she sought out other like minds to form an all-girl rock band. Undaunted, she quit lessons, taught herself, and learned her favorite songs (Free’s “Alright Now” topped the list). Before she even learned to play, Jett was told by a guitar teacher, “girls don’t play rock and roll.” The ugliness women in rock faced in the 70s is depressingly familiar. That didn’t stop her from forming The Runaways despite the sexist roadblocks the band faced.” So goes the description for Marc Maron’s recent interview with Jett on his WTF podcast. She “wanted to be a rocker ever since she got a hold of a guitar, even though she was told girls don’t play rock and roll. Jett herself expresses some discomfort with the label of feminism (“I’m for people being what they want to be”), but her career has served for decades as a model for women seizing power in the music industry, and she’s never had any patience with sexist discrimination.

Early joan jett