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]