Keeping balance with Joanna Angel and Burning Angel’s growth

By Troy Michael

It’s not often we interview the same girl twice here at IWAdult.com, well in fact we never have, that is until now.

I have known Joanna for a few years now. A few months after lunching her punk rock website www.BurningAngel.com I met Angel who admitted she really didn’t really know what she was doing at the time. But over the years, Joanna Angel has gotten the hang of it and become one of the biggest players in the adult film industry.

Over the three years, the Burning Angel founder has amassed more than 60 performing rolls and more than a dozen films she has directed (not counting web content). Early on she directed and starred in films from Hustler and now has full ownership to her titles which are being distributed by porn legend Vince Vouyer’s own Vouyer Media.

I had a chance to catch up with the performer/director/dancer/writer and “porn mogul” if you will on one of her rare respites to talk about where she started, how far she has come and where she is going with Burning Angel Entertainment.

Is Burning Angel everything you have envisioned?

Well you know life has been really crazy. It’s kind of like things started happening to us (Burning Angel) three years ago and it hasn’t stopped. I always believed in what we were doing and it was huge before anyone knew about the crappy little website when it had nothing on it. I am not saying we are huge. I am not wealthy as my porn friends that’s for sure. But you know I was at convention earlier and I stopped to look around and I thought to myself “my life is really damn good right now and I am having a lot of fun.” That’s something you really can’t put a price on.

Burning Angel is one of the leading companies as far as “punk porn” goes. Does it bother you to see other companies, especially the bigger companies, who try to copy what you’ve created?

No not really. If I am considered the leader in “punk porn” then I will take that title. I like it. You can always tell what’s going on with porn, just like in music. There will be something that comes along and people will try to copy that. With the economy the way it is now people will pick and choose what they spend their money and they know what’s real and what isn’t.

Do you feel you have opened doors for girls who normally wouldn’t be booked by other companies based on their looks?

Well our fans are sensitive to the punk ideals and give us a lot of input on what they would like to see and not to see. And I think the girls we work with are fans of Burning Angel. I know a lot of the girls that do Burning Angel have a limited outlet as far as who they work with. I think we give them opportunities and that some do get rejected at other companies because of so many tattoos or piercings.

I think the “alt porn” tag has helped and hurt girls in the porn industry. I mean, if you’re a girl with huge boobs you get jobs in big boob films and if you’re a black dude with a big dick they get in big dick porn, but they also can get other work. I think tattooed girls get hurt by the “alt porn” movement because they are limited just because of that tag. 

With performing, writing, directing and more recently dancing, you are one of the hardest working girls in the business, how do you keep your authenticity?

I love what I do. I think people sell out when they want to make the quickest dollar. You can tell who is in it for the passion and the money. It’s hard sometimes to make a great film all the time. Sometimes you get fed up with things, but in the end it’s the love for my job. And if I can’t be there because of other things I know I have a great group of people around me who look out for what we do.

I consider you, Belladonna and Tristan Taormino in a female category all your own. How does it feel to be working alongside those two girls in the industry?

I think Bella is the nicest person in porn if not one of the nicest people I’ve ever met. I will always remember the first year I went to AVN to sign and present an award. We had to go to a presenters practice and it was my first time, so I walked in the room and there is Jesse Jane and Jenna Jameson talking and I felt like I didn’t belong, like the new kid in school. Then I see Bella and we’ve met before but I didn’t know her, and she said come sit with me over here. It was like the lunch room at school or something. Maybe she saw I was nervous but that was very nice, she didn’t have to do that. I rarely work with other companies but I love making time to work with Bella.

There are some message boards that aren’t too favorable to you or your boyfriend James Deen. How do you deal with negative comments?

Sometimes I feel bad because I like making everyone happy. But if I listen to everyone I won’t be happy myself. I don’t want to be the flavor of the month. You got to figure the people on message boards who say the negative things are only a small part of the general public who watch porn. For every bad comment there are good comments, so it all balances out.

Joanna Angel’s latest release is XOXO Joanna Angel, which features Joanna in every scene including her first five-guy gangbang.