Waiting for Joan to take an interview-length break, I sit in the dressing room with manager/producer Kenny Laguna. Brash, semi-crazed and attending to business, both on and off the phone he relates a torrent of tales concerning the lack of belief in the Blackhearts displayed by employees of record companies. Especially American ones.

"They're all a bunch of arseholes," he observes, "guys who couldn't get laid in high school." He sticks a digit in the dial, still pursuing the original tape of the 'Bad Reputation' LP to which they own the rights but can't possess the actual article due to Broadway Records going bust. Concurrently a song, 'Little Drummer Boy', is astray somewhere in Canada.

Meanwhile, this video has to be paid for today in cash (ten thousand dollars) and a fellow is despatched with a platinum American Express card to collect the notes as Kenny wrangles with the video company chief for a discount.

All this bustle at the heart of the Blackhearts stems simply from Joanie's desire to play "straight down the line rock and roll to the people of the world." They've toured continually for three years and one gets the feeling that if the constant motion was to cease the whole enterprise would collapse in rather a dramatic style.

Things are kept at a boil which explains why JJ hasn't slept for two nights, began filming today at 6am and doesn't plan on finishing until 4 tomorrow morning when she and her Blackhearts also catch a plane to Munich to begin a six week European tour.

Perhaps graciously in the circumstances, I am found time and Joan and I adjourn to the warmth of the tour bus.

While staggering around in a nearly somnambulist state when not required specifically to do anything – as if she's gained the necessary discipline of being able to sleep on her feet – she wakes up almost spectacularly when necessary.

I nibble on a biscuit and switch on my tape recorder. She fiddles with the top of an American Ginger Ale bottle.

"When I was 11 or 12 I finally got the balls to say 'Mom, Dad, I want a guitar for Christmas and I don't want no folk guitar."

The world shudders at the thought of Joan Jett playing a folk guitar.

"I was always aggressive, determined as a child, something of a tomboy, I loved sports, was very athletic. Me wanting a guitar didn't come as a shock to my parents. I mean, I wanted to be the first girl on the moon, the first female major league baseball player. There was something about being the first that motivated me. Besides, if my parents hadn't got me a guitar I probably would have run away."

Instead, at 14, she became a Runaway.

"The main thing that attracted me about being in a band was seeing the lights and all the kids yelling and screaming and I thought God! You can make all those people happy at once. That's still the main attraction. It wasn't the money and limousines – I was very naive then!

"But there was a time when I was very depressed. Between the Runaways and the time I met Kenny (like he'd been waiting for the cue, Kenny walks in, sits down, gets up to leave, "I was waiting for the cut down" – it doesn't come), just wanted to be in a band and on stage. I couldn't have settled for a job at a record company."

Sum-up the Runaways in a sentence?

"Probably the biggest influence on female rock and roll musicians that there will ever be. I'm the sort of person that reads a lot of mail. I found out that our music inspired tremendous amounts of girls to form bands, guys too. The fact that we could inspire people made me very happy."

Can pop music still be rebellious?

"Yes. But popular music is splintered into several different media terms. I consider us to be a rock and roll band ... straight down the line. I don't give a damn about my bad reputation, fake friends, sycophants. Oh yes, our music is rebellious in the traditional sense á la Chuck Berry, Elvis,these people are our idols."

The Blackhearts' touring itinerary has incorporated East Germany, Panama, Venezuela (their British tour is remembered by Kenny as "taking in about 20 cities, that's about how many people came") and a special highly secret appearance at the Olympics for the competitors.

"It was great to see all those athletes groovin'! All together from Sudan to Australia they got up and started dancing. Like the world had been brought together by rock and roll, it was just mind boggling. There were people dancing who'd never seen in the flesh rock and roll. American rock and roll."

Their Olympic invite tends to endorse the theory that the Blackhearts' take their 'straight down the line American rock and roll' around the world as (sort of) ambassadors of USA Kulture.

Tell me Joanie, are you proud to be an American?

"Of course! Freedom of speech, freedom of a lot of things. There's a lot you can do in the States that you can't do in other countries. Even the most mundane things.

"This is an election year and my vote is already in. I refuse to talk about politics but I'm aware of everything that goes on. I'm used to all the slang terms that everyone calls Americans but we've got some pretty good ones for other people. I'm a YANKEE!"

On her tombstone Joan Jett would like to have engraved: 'This girl did something extremely important for rock and roll.'

She's uncertain as yet whether this has been achieved.