Joan Jett said it best with her smash solo single: “I Love Rock and Roll.” The song saw the ex-Runaways punk icon transition into a bona fide rock legend, endorsing a simple, anthemic approach to music that has endured for decades since.
Joan Jett’s approach to playing guitar was always firmly rooted in the Spartan, bare-bones approach of her early punk days. A humbucker-equipped guitar, plenty of amp drive, and absolutely no additional effects is all you need to broadcast your bad reputation and excellent tone.
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Joan Jett Guitars
As a founding member of the Runaways, Joan Jett, like many of her guitar-playing contemporaries, preferred loud, heavy guitars. Her taste in instruments was pure classic rock, with Jett brandishing a blonde-finished Les Paul throughout her time with the Runaways.
However, as the ’70s drew to a close, Joan Jett found herself increasingly dismayed with the tremendous weight of her Les Paul. Jett ran and jumped around on stage, and a solid slab of mahogany was taking a serious toll on Jett’s diminutive frame. Although she still has the Runaways Les Paul, Jett wanted a lighter, more efficient instrument.
That’s when Jett came across her signature guitar, a white Gibson Melody Maker, inherited from Eric Carmen of the Raspberries. This lighter instrument came into Jett’s possession in 1977 and has been the mainstay of her recording career ever since.
The Melody Maker was a big part of Joan Jett’s sound as she rose through the rankings to become the First Lady of Rock and Roll. The guitar’s specs are brutally simple: a solid mahogany body, mahogany set neck, and humbucking pickups.
Joan Jett’s Melody Maker was, spiritually, about halfway between a Les Paul and a Gibson SG. The guitar became so associated with Jett that Gibson released several signature models bearing her name.
Sadly, the Melody Maker is no longer in production, so we’ll have to look at some viable alternatives.
My first suggestion would be a Les Paul Junior, although the stock P90 pickup won’t capture the thick, warm sound of Joan Jett’s humbucker-equipped Melody Maker.
You could also get an Epiphone Les Paul Junior in a Joan Jett-esque white color.
If you look at a Junior, however, you’ll want to replace the sole P90 with a PAF-style humbucker like the Seymour Duncan 59.
Otherwise, my recommendation would be to get an SG-style guitar. The Epiphone SG Standard comes to mind, or this SG Standard in a Jett-style white finish.
If you end up using a two-pickup SG-style guitar, you’ll only need to use your bridge pickup for this tone.
I’d be tempted to remove the neck pickup entirely, or at least turn the volume control for the neck pickup down all the way to minimize interference and magnetic pull from the neck pickup when you’re playing Joan Jett riffs.
Joan Jett Amps
In the ’70s, with the Runaways, Joan Jett stuck to the standard hard rock guitar format of Les Paul and Marshall amp. Even when she adopted the Melody Maker in 1977, Jett was still pushing an all-tube British amp as hard as she could to get that classic hard rock tone.
However, in the late ’70s, Jett spent some time with Sex Pistols Steve Jones and Paul Cook. She actually recorded an early version of “I Love Rock and Roll” with them. Jett was enamored with Jones’ simple guitar-and-amp setup, as he ran his Les Paul Custom into a Fender Twin.
Jones played his guitars very loud and very hard, which gave his sound a serious edge when compared to other guitarists. Accordingly, Joan Jett sought to emulate this sound when she set her heart on re-recording “I Love Rock and Roll” in the early 1980s.
Jett wound up running a Fender-esque Music Man 212-HD 130 combo amplifier, featuring a curious combination of solid-state preamp and tube poweramps. This came to define her guitar tone through the 1980s: powerful and punchy, with plenty of headroom.
Needless to say, trying to nail down Joan Jett’s half-Marshall-half-Fender style sound is a task far easier said than done. Typically, I’ve found that you either get one tone or the other.
However, Fender recently released the Bassbreaker, a combo amp based on the Fender Bassman and Marshall Bluesbreaker (not that Fender would ever admit to the later), offering a combo of both sounds perfect for Joan Jett’s distinctive tone.
I’d recommend the Bassbreaker combo for this tone, rather than running a separate head and cab.
If you’re more interested in Jett’s Runaways-era guitar tone, I really recommend the Marshall Studio Vintage or the Marshall-style Blackstar HT-20R.
Joan Jett Amp Settings
When it comes to Joan Jett tones, crunch is the name of the game. We want minimal preamp “fizz” and maximum power amp grunt and push.
I’ve based the below settings on the crunchy, uncompromising power chord tone of “I Love Rock and Roll.” It works astonishingly well for just about any Joan Jett song, and for most anthemic power chord tones.
Make sure you’re running your guitar with the volume and tone knobs on full. You’ll want to play hard, too. This isn’t the time for John Mayer-esque caresses and strokes of the guitar. Pick nice and hard, near the bridge, and feel your guitar vibrate in your hands.
Volume: 10
Make no mistake. You need to run your amp very, very loud to get the kind of poweramp crunch that you need for this sound.
Bass: 3
Let the bass player occupy your low frequencies and keep the bass in your tone to a minimum.
Mids: 7
You want enough midrange to give your tone some articulation and power but not so much that your sound becomes nasal or spiky.
Treble: 8
Balance out the warmth of your guitar and amp with plenty of treble.
Final Word
Joan Jett’s sound is endearingly simple and incredibly effective for the style of music she pioneered and defined through the ’70s and ’80s. Joan Jett remains an icon of hard rock to this day, and you, too, can capture the essence of her legendary tone with the right gear.
