Joanna Angel (XXX director and starlet) gets legendarily brainy with LRI

 

We’ve interviewed enough adult stars and scenesters to know when someone completely breaks the mold and actually has a story that just doesn’t follow the porn “script”.  Joanna Angel is unconventional in a billion ways in the “sexy” biz both onscreen and off.  She has written for SPIN magazine and as a Rutgers graduate and English Lit major could probably teach most rock scribes a thing or two.  She’s been in front of and behind the camera  in some of the edgiest porn flicks around but is openly Jewish and uses her real first name as a stage name.  She’s been in the New York Times and on CNBC but still takes time to give us an interview and is as TOTALLY aware of brand recognition as much as the sharpest marketer in Manhattan.  If the human brain is indeed the biggest sex organ, Joanna Angel wants to turn you on.  She doesn’t hold back and doesn’t have a censor button so if you’re faint of heart or don’t wanna read inside info about her gig stop reading now….we understand.  If you want in… just read on…..

LEGENDARY ROCK INTERVIEWS:  You don’t have the background or baggage a lot of the girls have in the adult biz, tell us a bit about your upbringing, education and all that….

Joanna Angel:   Well, I grew up in northern New Jersey, with a fairly religious Jewish  family. I graduated from high school, then went on to attend Rutgers University after high school, and I graduated from there. And  um, naturally- then I started a porn site!

LRI:  With all due respect, you may be the sexiest Jewish porn star alive and we know you get asked this by everyone but we have to ask for those who are just getting to know you…..When you initially got involved with rock, XXX, tats, etc how much of it was truly rebellion and how surprisred were your close friends and family?

JA: It never felt like rebellion, it just felt like where I belong.  I went to a very snobby and preppy high school and had a hard time fitting in with most people there.   I always felt alone.  When I went to my very first punk show in a friend of a friend’s back yard in New Jersey- I felt like I found where I belonged.  It really didn’t feel so much like rebellion as it felt like discovering a part of myself.  I was always a pretty weird kid, my mother tells me stories about myself from when I was like, 2 or 3 years old and I would do odd things like put duct tape around the faces of my barbie dolls and draw things on the duct tape.  Or I would just randomly wander off to places and she would have frantically look for me for hours, and she would find me in a park – have some kind of tea party with all my duct tape covered dolls. I think I was just always pretty strange and did my own thing, and my parents were expecting me to be off the beaten path.

LRI:  You are  in a business which most people have a strong opinion about what you do whether it’s good or bad.  You manage to set yourself apart from the VERY CROWDED pack  with your niche work, your appearances and mainstream exposure.  Do you think it helps fans relate to you by  getting exposure outside of XXX?

JA:  I think the mainstream exposure I get just gets my name out to different people who may not have found out about me otherwise.    I also think it makes people feel less guilty or wrong about watching my porn.  It’s like  “Oh look- that’s the girl I saw on CNBC, she seems like a nice lady.  I should probably go watch her get fucked in the ass.”   Does that make sense?   It just feels less dirty or wrong or something than finding out about someone when you’re specifically LOOKING for porn on the internet.  Does that make sense? (laughs)

LRI:  It absolutely makes sense.  If you’re actively looking at porn that’s a fairly short window of time for you to make an impression wheras if you happen upon someone in a more mainstream setting it makes the whole experience more organic.  You’re well known in the music and tattoo scenes.  When people check out your tats or music collection what are they most SURPRISED by?

JA:  Ha!! I have this gangster looking skull on my back with a bandanna on and a gold tooth.  It usually surprises most people because  it kinda doesn’t fit in with the rest of my tattoos.  I like all kinds of music as long as it’s good!

LRI:   What is the funniest or strangest thing you’ve ever seen a “civilian” do on a porn set?

JA:  I don’t think you’re a civilian anymore once you’re on one of my sets!  You have then entered the dark side!!!   But uh… I don’t know.  No one really does anything all that odd on my sets to be honest and  I don’t let that many people come on who aren’t working so as  to avoid chaos.

LRI: There have been recent package tours that incorporated both rock bands and adult entertainers.  In your opinion is this a pretty easy marriag? Is it a great way to publicly  mix the two worlds? 

JA:  Rock stars and porn stars do have a lot in common- and most music is more or less about sex in some way or another- and most bigger acts have lots of sexy dancers on stage enhancing their performance- or you have people like J lo who seems to wear less clothing than most strippers when she performs on stage. However, I do think that it makes more sense to go to a concert- and then afterwards go to your favorite strip club. Or go to a strip club one night, and go to a rock show another night. I don’t think strippers can really like…. do their thing appropriately when they are on a stage AS strippers at a rock show, and I don’t think a rock show is the appropriate place to get a boner. Its a good place to dance and let out aggression and nerd out to your favorite band.

LRI:  How often have you worked with rock acts in your biz and how often have you been involved dealing with music business stuff?

JA:  We interview bands on the website, and I am always working with different bands and labels to get music to use in our movies- and in exchange for that we link to the band’s website next to the scene and it actually does get some smaller acts names out there quite a bit. Sometime I get calls to get some of our girls to be in music videos (music videos do always need sexy girls in them) and in the past year- the Bouncing Souls did their 25th anniversary tour (i think it’s 25? or is it 20… I can’t remember) and at these shows they played songs off all their different albums. They had a BurningAngel girl go on stage in her panties like a ring girl, and hold up a sign with the name of whatever album the band was going to play next. We had girls do this in just about every city they played in! It was a great cross promotional act. So yeah, we do a bunch of different things with the music industry.

LRI:   We’ve heard endless stories of rock stars crashing Dennis Hof’s place, strip clubs, etc and causing trouble.  Do they ever try to
crash your sets and just find out its a lot of friggin work ?

JA:  No. No one has ever tried to crash my set. If anyone did, it wouldn’t be pretty.

Q.  Again, in a biz that is always being forced to change many things still stay the same old same old.  However, you are often credited with creating a  new Subgenre, ALT PORN, and ushering in a new way of marketing erotica.  How do you feel about being credited with this?

JA:  I kinda hate the word “alt porn” but I embrace it anyways.  I just like to do what I do and not have it be put in a category but, I understand that when you are marketing just about anything it has to be described as something, and the term “alt porn” was the term given to categorize what I do.   The beauty of my um, business plan was that I didn’t have one in the beginning.  I didn’t know anything about porn, or the porn industry… I honestly had no idea that there were no “alt” girls in porn before I came around.  I started my website with my roommate in college in New Jersey and we lived in our own little bubble.  It wasn’t until years later when I actually started meeting people in the industry, and our name started getting out there- that I realized we were doing something very different than everyone else, and once I realized that I just took that angle as far as I could take it.  Does that make sense?

LRI:   That makes TOTAL  sense from a business and creative perspective.  In your mind is there a world of difference between the audiences for your product and the audience of what was traditionally called “FETISH”?

JA:  I think the technical term for a fetish is when you can achieve an orgasm or get aroused by something that isn’t traditional sex. Someone has a foot fetish when they would rather look at your feet than your pussy- or they could achieve an orgasm by licking your feet quicker than if they were fucking you. Someone who has a latex fetish would rather seal themselves up in a latex suit and sit in it all day, than get railed on a couch. So, therefore, I really don’t think what we do is a “fetish” it’s more of a niche, or a style. Our sex is pretty straightforward. We don’t cater to any crowd who is looking for a very unique and specific sexual act- we just have a bunch of rock n roll chicks having good old fashion hot sex.

LRI: Someone could find some pretty interesting concepts in your movies from a sociological standpoint beyond just wacking off, “Cum on my tattoo” is an amusing and sometimes funny study of human nature to be honest.
Where did the concept originate from, a desire to take the decades old “money shot” to new places?

JA:  I just like to have fun with my job. Cum on My Tattoo was my odd way of embracing a cum fetish and making fun of it at the same time. It’s not an actual fetish. People like seeing girls covered in cum. I just found a humorous place to collect it all. I don’t know. I just like to have fun with my job and I enjoy poking fun at traditional things in the porn industry.

LRI:  Is there still an issue with people treating porn fans, stars or production people as “outsiders”?  Even in this day and age as a mid thirties dad of 3 my wife and I can sense it….Shouldn’t grown people be able to be considered “normal” for being a occasionally naughty nowadays?

JA:  Of course John.  People are fascinated with porn, whether they love it or hate it.  Once anyone finds out I do porn I get punished with about 1000 questions about it, so if people don’t know who I am I usually just lie and say I’m like, a school teacher or something (laughs).   My whole life is surrounded by porn and sometimes I just don’t feel like talking about it on my off time.  But, ultimately people treat you how you want to be treated.  If you have confidence and carry yourself well, no one will treat you like shit.  If you are insecure about what you do then people will sense it, everyone will pick you apart and break you down.  Its like that music or any profession, no mater what you do.

LRI: You’re an innovator, we’ve heard everything from Tabitha Stevens wanting to take the biz back to plots and production to appeal to couples to people pronouncing  the DVD officially  dead.  Where IS the biz going,
Where are YOU going?  What are you gonna do to make this whole industry of turning people on more
interesting and attractive to market?

JA:  I am really not sure where porn is going. Everyone in all facets of the entertainment industry is just stuck trying to think of creative ways to get people to keep paying for their product.  It’s not an easy feat!   That’s the main problem right now.  I make a lot of different types of porn. We put out 18 dvds a year, and update all 6 of our websites in the network once a week with content.  That’s a lot of porn to shoot in a year!  So some of my porn has extensive plots and scripts and stuff, some of it is just your good ole’ fashioned girl walks into a room with a sexy outfit and gets fucked 2 minutes later kinda porn. Some of my porn has really high production value, with huge lighting teams and HD cameras,  and some of it’s shot on my cell phone camera in my bathroom.  It all really depends on  the project I am doing.  I like to do a little of everything.  It broadens our fan-base and keeps my mind going.  I do hope at some point that we can venture out to more things outside of the industry, and be able to have clothing stores and casinos and hotels and shit- like the old school big porn brands- like Hustler and Playboy… however, we have a long ways to go before I get there.  I just want to keep building my brand and take it as far as it can go.

 

Tags: burning angel, Joanna Angel

Category: Interviews