Joan Jett's "secret life is so strange," says 'Up Your Alley' Producer: Inside the Album, Britny Fox

There's a very funny Britny Fox story you might  enjoy. John Mrvos was an A&R guy at Columbia   Records, and he signed this... I did this this  album that nobody's heard of called No Shame,   an girl band that I put together to be a female  Poison and uh it didn't do well and probably   deservedly not, but um anyway, I had three albums  in the top 100 - Poison, Faster Pussycat, and Joan   Jett and so he came in to me, and he said, I've  got this band Britny Fox, and um he said, I want   you to work with them. I was like, I don't like  them. I can't stand the way this guy just screams,   "Dizzy" (Dean Davidson), all the time. And so  I took them into this rehearsal studio and I   fired the I think it was a drummer, I fired one  of them, He just like was not very good. I said   you gotta get rid of this guy and you got to stop  this guy from screaming everything, but I'm not   going to do the album, and he was like begging me  to do the album and I was like, no I won't do it,   and then the album did really well. And I was  like, well, congratulations John but I would   have been I would have quit there was no way I was  going in the studio with those guys. I didn't like   their music. I just thought it was derivative. It  was very much like, I mean, when I first heard it,   it was like Cinderella. They were just copying  Cinderella's formula at the time. Well he didn't   have Tom Keifer's talent. I mean, Tom Keifer can  sing his ass off. I think Tom Keifer is still   pretty good and now is actually more interesting  than what he did then. Exactly. They were wearing   Poison's old clothes at the time, it was just  clown show as far as I was concerned, but yeah,   I was brought in, I was like going, John, I'll  arrange some songs for them or something like   that, but I'm not doing an album. He's like asking  me to do it but it's kind of funny. Well would you   be willing to um torture yourself another time  and let me grill you some more on some of the   other albums? Yeah, a little bit, but, I mean, you  know, I don't want to talk about Poison. I really   hope... No no no I got I got that we got all that,  but, again, I do like an inside the album thing so   like nobody's ever worked with Victory, Joan Jett  would be incredible, and um Dogs D'Amour, I told   you that as well. So yeah, I mean, I'll talk  about Dogs D'Amour any day, Joan, you know,   a few minutes but not really that interesting,  probably just because she stiffed me on the money,   or her manager did, both me and Desmond Child  um but I mean I've I've never listened to Joan   Jett to tell you the truth after I did it. I was  just brought in to basically be a songwriter at   first because they were having a lot of trouble  but they couldn't get their tracks right and   Kenny Laguna had been ordered by CBS they spent a  fortune signing her away from MCA and her albums   were in declining sales, the album before the one  that I did sold only 27,000 records This is like a   comeback album for her. Right and then she never  had a hit again um and and the story was she got   ordered and I didn't know this until later and  because I was managed by Leber-Krebs who were the   biggest managers. Wow, was all part you know L Ted  Nugent and Victory were there and you know they   were really neglecting my career but I I totally  respect David Krebs to this day um I wanted out of   my contract with David Krebs because he wasn't  doing anything for my career and he was just   sort of leaving me doing nothing and not really  answering my phone calls or things like that,   I threatened to sue him for mismanagement because  he had really screwed me on some things and uh at   the same time we were friends you know and um  I was like going you know you know you really   [ __ ] up my career and you you you cost me doing  some things and stuck me with Michael Schenker,   things like that um, He uh he goes well here's  this, you go away and take this Poison piece   of [ __ ] away from me, I'm not g to commission  that. So I got you know I could have lost 15% of   of Poison, my Poison royalties, you know, because  he he thought it was a piece of [ __ ] but yeah   that's how I ended up with Joan Jett. I never got  paid on Joan. I got my songwriting royalties but   nothing more than that but what an amazing band  she had and she's an amazing musician totally   underrated as a rhythm guitar player and as a  singer too but she's just so under the thumb of   Kenny Laguna that she'll never never be successful  again and that's the problem. But she's still out   there you got to give her props for being out  there and being able to survive on those beer   gigs that she does. I have friends who see her  periodically, her secret life is so strange,   she is a slave to Kenny Laguna, literally, and  um she was not allowed to know where she lived,   they would have a a ounce of pot come FedEx every  day and they just kept her stoned at all times   and it was just bizarre um she lived in Long  Island but didn't know where she lived she had   an affair with his... she and Kenny Laguna's wife  would sleep together and Kenny would sleep on the   floor and there were all these sex things going  on, and it was just bizarre and you know they   didn't want people to know that she was a lesbian  but how could you not know, it was just really,   really strange but you write a song and you know  with a lyrically and all her contributions so   you had to agree to give her writing credit on  everything was she would make every song gender   neutral that was her thing and uh you know but  she's the most talented person I ever met in terms   of playing rhythm guitar. Tightest guitar player,  can double anything, wouldn't want to hear what   she did but she would always double it perfectly  just like a machine, wow, I still to this day   can't figure out how she does that because she'd  play a track because everything Joan does is   doubled - vocals, lead vocals, guitar and she'd  double it and it would be perfect every time, I'd   just like go what the [ __ ] how did she do that?  To this say I can't figure out how anybody could   be that tight, and she's that person, totally  underrated but um she was so conditioned by Kenny   Laguna, I mean, the funniest thing was um I lived  in 113th in Riverside Drive in New York, virtually   Harlem at the time you know before New York  gentrified and they dropped her off at my house   which was very rare that they would let her go to  some place to to do some writing with um me and   Bob Halligan Jr were writing, Bob lived a couple  of blocks up from me and even less than that and   Bob Halligan had written for Judas Priest,  and Bob's a really nice guy. So um Joan goes,   she's hungry, I go, well let's go get a slice of  pizza and she goes, get, not have it delivered? I   said, no, let's go walk up the corner, there's a  pizza parlor literally up at the corner um up on   Broadway in 113th, one block away and she goes,  you mean you can do that? I'm like, what do you   mean, and she goes, you can walk up to the place  what if somebody sees us and I felt like the movie   The Producers, I go, Well, then they'll see you  and she goes, but what will happen and I go they   see you eating a slice of pizza and she looked  at it and it was like Margaret Mead in Samoa,   I was like ,what the [ __ ] , she was so enjoying  it just cuz she was told that she was such a star   that you know she should never go out alone with  anybody and and then she got yelled at for doing   that and I got yelled at for allowing her to do  that like... By who? By her manager and producer   Kenny Laguna, he's been controlling her for 50  years, he's a musical genius himself but he's so   controlling and he needs a he came out of Tommy  James and thean Dell and uh he's so controlling   he still plays on stage with her and he's in his  80s, he just could never let go and he could never   you know we did the one album it was a huge  hit, CBS allowed him to then do another album,   and they did that cover album that was a massive  failure and she's never had a hit ever since cuz   he's controlling her and he could never get past  um the certain preconceptions that he had but   she's a good performer, Thommy Price is a drummer  who was from Billy Idol who was you know a monster   drummer. Kasim Sulton from um Todd Rundgren's  Utopia, who was an amazing bass player and Ricky   Byrd, who was a really good guitar player and  um you know they've screwed Ricky on some money   from publishing and uh when Ricky left everything  fell apart, wheels went off and um you know this   it was a shame and but she still you know has  enough charisma that she can pack a bar, they   always market it as Joan Jett, the promoters can  sell beer and she does...Oh probably yeah I mean   she's a legend in many ways. She's in the Rock  and Roll Hall of Fame she's in her 60s now [Music]