Patti and Juliette: Born to Raise Hell

"Patti Smith will survive the media blitz and everybody's hunger for another 'superstar,' because she's an artist in a way that's right old-fashioned." So said Lester Bangs in 1976, and the maverick rock critic's wisdom stands unchallenged to this day.

Pulling up a seat next to the legendary Smith (singer-songwriter, poet, journalist, author, mother), and Juliette Lewis (actress, singer-songwriter, hellraiser) – two countercultural heroines of the late 20th century and beyond - it seems almost clumsily token to broach yet too significant not to engage with the issue that lies at the heart of many a pub debate gone sour: where are all the women in rock'n'roll?

Juliette takes up the challenge: "I don't know if it's a cultural thing, but it's not like there's a lack of talent," she asserts, rolling her eyes. "There's some cool girls with unique voices around today, whether it's Beth Ditto (The Gossip), Karen-O (Yeah Yeah Yeahs) or Shingai (of the Noisettes - also playing at this J.D bash we're assembled for) – real power. But then why do they sell so much porn at truck stops?"

Good question, if slightly abstract.

The Skinny had the honour of meeting one after the other a few hours before they went on to join forces with Shingai and rock the 'JD Set'– so called in celebration of Jack Daniel's birthday, an intimate event that has previously welcomed the likes of Flaming Lips, Frank Black, Guy Garvey and Richard Hawley to the stage - held in the dusty, friendly village of Lynchburg, Tennessee (population 350). It seemed prudent to get into the spirit of things and forget about the battle of the sexes and the porn lovin' truckers for a minute and learn more about the passions that drove these household names to the top of their respective games, and find out how they've maintained their hard-headed motivation through turbulent times.

Those formative years in retrospect...

Juliette Lewis: "Being in my thirties, I look back and think of this niche I kind of carved with the choices I made. I worked with some of the best directors in edgy movies - like Cape Fear – which were intense, they're all high stakes drama pieces. Natural Born Killers of course was a real counterculture film and I feel like, as time has gone on, it was ahead of its time. I think it's radical now more than when I participated in it. Back then we were like, 'I wonder what this is going to be?' but we trusted Oliver Stone in his vision. Then, doing the Woody Allen thing and Gilbert Grape... I've made this decision that I only want to do movies that mean something. The music thing's gone pretty good – knock on wood – so I don't need to go and make movies just for the sake of it."

Patti Smith: "I wrote some [articles for music magazines like Creem and Rolling Stone] but all the things I did in rock'n'roll was for the preservation of rock'n'roll. I wanted to write because I saw the whole trajectory of rock'n'roll as a kid; seeing Little Richard and then the Animals when I was in high school, then there was the Rolling Stones and of course Bob Dylan and in the Sixties all the great music. I really felt empowered, being this skinny, pimply weirdo from rural New Jersey, empowered by our cultural voice and I loved rock'n'roll so much. Then, in the very early Seventies it seemed to me that it was going downhill. It seemed that, politically, sexually and revolutionary-wise, it was losing its strength; getting glamorous, snotty and corporate. So I started writing and performing, really just hoping to get some kind of action going, to remind people where rock'n'roll was supposed to be; it's supposed to be grassroots, it's supposed to speak for the people."

In pursuit of a musical career...

PS: "What really happened was Bob Dylan came to see me in late '74 or '75 in some shitty little club and he never did stuff like that. For me, it was like, I loved him, and it got so much media attention that I got signed. I don't know if I deserved to get signed or not but his endorsement got me signed. I made my statement and then I thought 'alright, then I'll go back to being a painter or whatever I was going to be' but I wound up being pulled into the whole thing."

Video: Patti Smith - Because the Night (live on Jools Holland)

JL: "I'm a contradiction... in the Nineties I was listening to a lot of Sixties music, I was listening to a lot of classic rock: Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, Led Zeppelin, Lou Reed, y'know, all the good stuff. Then I went through this Jazz/Torch singer period, and, through relationships, I was finally introduced to the Pixies and only in the last seven years was I introduced to Sebadoh and Dinosaur Jr... but it's better late than never.

"It's an aching need of mine to sing and be a songwriter, but I was scared to do it for so long because I knew, once I started that journey, it was going to be all or nothing. It wasn't about: 'hey, it would be fun to play a couple of bars over the weekend.' It was terrifying and completely exhilarating at the same time, but the love outweighed the fear. I've never been a precious actress; I've worked in all kinds of circumstances that were quite challenging and I fit into the festival lifestyle quite well. The Warped tour was the first tour we did; it was perfect... the total boot camp. It's a show every single day and not a lot of luxury."

Juliette on discovering Patti...

JL: "It's funny because a lot of the movies I did have musical landscapes to them that introduced me to different music and [Natural Born Killers director] Oliver Stone introduced me to Patti Smith because that song Rock 'n' Roll Nigger is on there and it's radical. That track just wouldn't be made today; of course she's taking the piss out of that word and making it an outsider's anthem and if you listen to the lyrics they're just amazing. I think people get lost because they're so fear-based but she's just one of those tour de forces."

On Patti's covers album - Twelve - and her reinvention of Smells Like Teen Spirit...

PS: "I always wanted to do one, in the Seventies I always loved covering songs because I didn't start as a musician, I mean I'm not a musician, and I'm not a real singer or anything. When I did Horses I had no real track record. I didn't want to be a singer and people didn't have guitars where I grew up. Girls really didn't play guitar and I had no sense of myself doing anything like that."

JL: "Patti's somebody who has never wavered from her individuality and her activism. She's just a radical performer, visceral, and I love her covers record. I brought that to the band as an example of what you can do when you reinterpret other people's music. Her Nirvana cover – some people may not like it but I love it - she took the song and made it her own. It's like the past, present and future all in one track."

Video: Patti Smith - Smells Like Teen Spirit (live in Dublin)

PS: "Even if some people found it shocking or blasphemous that I should do this song in this manner, Kurt Cobain loved this style of music, he loved Ledbelly, he did In the Pines which is one of my favourite songs and I'd thought of covering that myself. I was listening to Teen Spirit on a car radio, really loud and there was a resonance - a pitch in there. I heard him, his voice, I could imagine him [adopts a nasal country yodel as she mimics the chorus]: 'Der-neh ner-ner, der-neh ner-ner - here we are now, entertain us.' I thought it would be so great to do that song in that way, as a homage and a thank you. Those lyrics, even at this time in my life - I mean I'm 60 years old and I've seen a lot of shit - when I sing those lyrics I feel right there."

On today's music industry...

PS: "I think that it's really in this pivotal, interesting state. I don't think it's going down or up. Imagine it's like a war: the people are gathering their forces, they're marshalling their energies, and so I find it interesting. The new guard is becoming more and more independent; record companies are in trouble and are scrambling. Right now, in certain ways, it's such a mess that it's not really owned by anybody. People are starting to redefine it, and I think that's what needs to happen in every generation. It's not a business, wasn't supposed to be a business, it's a voice. I think it's like it's re-birthing itself and I would rather that happen than for it to be all set in stone and corporatised."

On Rupert Murdoch and MySpace...

PS: "My daughter made me a MySpace – which I was horrified by at first - and all these people come and visit, like 200,000! Even though I hate Rupert Murdoch and that whole evil canopy, the idea that people come to these places and listen to each other for free is really nice. So I go to people's MySpaces and listen, sometimes they're funny and sometimes people really amaze me."

What gets Patti's goat...

PS: "The exploitation of young people by corporations, how people are being manipulated and moulded as the consumers of the future.

"The number one thing, of course, is the illegal and immoral occupation of Iraq by the Bush administration. That's the thing that makes me the angriest... take it from there. I know that the Bush administration in certain ways has defeated me, but I'm not going to crawl in a hole, I'm gonna be myself; I'll be a living thorn and I'm going to poke him until hopefully he bleeds.

"I get so angry when people just call me liberal because I'm opposed to this strike on Iraq. That's not liberal, that to me is just normal humanistic sensibility, it has nothing to do with right or left... and that's, eh, right!"