Joan Jett and her company Blackheart have entered into a partnership with hit songwriter Evan Bogart’s Seeker Music to oversee the legendary rock artist’s catalog together, The Hollywood Reporter can report exclusively.
The companies tell THR that the partnership gives Seeker a stake in Jett’s catalog, though neither Seeker nor Blackheart would confirm financial details of the agreement or say how much of a stake Seeker has acquired.
Carianne Brinkman, an executive at Blackheart and the daughter of Jett’s longtime collaborator Kenny Laguna, says they’d sought a partnership with Seeker as Blackheart was looking for more resources to help keep expanding on Jett’s Legacy.
“We reached a point where it felt like we either had to double the staff or partner with somebody to get to that next place that we wanted to go,” Brinkman says. “We spoke with many companies, but ultimately, Seeker is a creative-first company, they’re respectful of artists’ legacies, and they know how to take something without sacrificing the authenticity of the artists, which is what drew us to them.”
Jett is one of the most iconic artists in rock history. She started her music career as a co-founder of The Runaways in the ’70s and found success as a solo artist with her backing band the Blackhearts, nabbing hit songs like “Bad Reputation,” “I Love Rock ‘n’ Roll” and “Crimson and Clover.” Her albums I Love Rock ‘n’ Roll and Up Your Alley both went platinum, and she was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2015. She remains very active and plays shows frequently; she’s touring with Billy Idol this summer and was also featured on Idol’s upcoming album Dream Into It.
Bogart — whose songwriting credits include Beyoncé’s “Halo” and Rihanna’s “SOS” — founded Seeker back in 2020, with the company acquiring catalogs from artists like Run the Jewels and Christopher Cross. The deal with Jett, though, is particularly personal. Bogart’s father is the late legendary record executive Neil Bogart, who founded indie labels Casablanca and Boardwalk and signed Jett to her first record deal as a solo artist at Boardwalk in the early ’80s. Neil Bogart and Evan’s mother Joyce Bogart both contributed claps that can be heard on “I Love Rock ‘n’ Roll.”
“It’s a story I’ve heard since I was a little kid, that their claps are blended in on ‘I Love Rock ‘n’ Roll,’ which is pretty amazing,” Bogart says. “It’s special, ‘I Love Rock ‘n’ Roll’ was the last number one that my dad had before he passed away. So it feels like a story that I get to help continue. I feel like my father’s here with that. It feels like I’m in the right place at the right time. This is where I’m supposed to be because this is exactly what we were supposed to be doing. It’s that deep connection that drew me into the music industry in the first place.”
Neil Bogart and Laguna were particularly close. While the family history wasn’t the defining factor in finalizing the partnership, as Brinkman says: “How do you ignore that?”
Bogart and Brinkman say they’ve already started working on projects to put out previously unreleased music and to reinvent some of Jett’s catalog to be placed in more modern music as well. They also highlight looking to further push on Jett’s legacy as a trailblazing and influential woman in rock, pointing to modern artists like Chappell Roan who’ve called her an inspiration.
“There’s an entire generation of strong women, rebellious women — pop-rock artists like Chappell Roan — who look up to Joan Jett as as as the reason they got into music,” Bogart says. “We’re definitely going to look to collaborate where we can.”
Bogart and Brinkman say they’re already working on Jett’s first ever box set and are eying potential activations around the 45th anniversaries of “Bad Reputation” and I Love Rock ‘n’ Roll.
Kenny’s got two-inch reels hidden all over the house,” Bogart says. “This is a real opportunity for us to kind of dig into the archives. We’re excavating.”