It amazes me that a band that had seven studio albums and who were pioneers for women in rock during a time when it was even more misogynistic than it is today – with Jock Rock starting to heavily dominate the community and bringing along with it a bunch of assholes and idiots who didn’t belong there – that The Donnas don’t get anhwhere near the praise or love that they deserve, at least, not on a grander scale.
Those of us that followed the band from their first release – 1997s The Donnas LP – to their last – 2007s Bitchin’ – know exactly how fucking good and how fucking important The Donnas were, but, sadly, their influence doesn’t stretch far and wide enough, as far as I’m concerened, so I aim to try and change that, even if its only by converting one or two of you to The Donnas cause, in today’s Heroes of the Underground.
The Donnas were young when they started out. Like, really fucking young. At the age of 13 the four future Donnas – Brett Anderson, Allison Robertson, Maya Ford, and Torry Castellano – formed a band called Ragady Anne, a name they quickly changed to The Electrocutes. They weren’t exactly embraced by their local music scene in Palo Alto, California, and even less by the members of the High School all four attended, with Allison Robertson – Donna R – remembering in an interview in 2009:
“From what I gathered at the time, many of our classmates thought we were freaks and told us frequently that they thought we sucked or that our band was a joke.”
But they didn’t care. If anything, it lit a fire under the band and they set out to prove everybody wrong.
They would practise like girls possessed on a daily basis in Torry Castellano’s parents garage, and as the saying goes, practise makes perfect, then, while still in High School, The Electrocutes started a little side project called The Donnas, a band that wasn’t supposed to be anything more than a way to blow off steam and have a laugh with. Brett Anderson – Donna A – explained in an interview with Grammy Awards:
“…with the Donnas, it was a persona, because we started the Donnas as a joke band — like a side band. And our real band was called the Electrocutes.When we were doing the Donnas, it was a shtick — tongue in cheek. And I think some people didn’t know that we were in on the joke, because we’re too young and there was an older man who could have been a Svengali involved. They assumed that we didn’t understand the context with which we were living.”
The Electrocutes might have seen The Donnas as nothing more than a joke, but the music going public took them at face value. In more ways than one.
Before I get into how fucking kick ass The Donnas were as a band, we have to talk about the elephant in the room: misogyny.
I was in my 20s during the 1990s and I have to say that from a musical standpoint, the decade ws pretty awesome. There were so many bands who emerged during this time that have gone onto be seen as some of the most influential bands to ever walk the face of the planet, and it’s not just the obvious ones – such as the grunge movement or Britpop explosion – that can lay claim to making some of the best music that sounds as fresh today as it did back then.
A lot of them were also all-female acts or at least had female members in their ranks. Skunk Anansie, PJ Harvey, L7, Bikini Kill, Elastica, the list goes on and on, so it wasn’t like the idea of an all-female band or successful female musicians was as rare as unicorn shit, yet they – along with The Donnas – were still subject to the same sexist bullshit that had dogged the industry since vinyl met needle.
However, whereas somebody like Skin from Skunk Anansie would probably have just chinned anyone who wrote an article that objectified her, The Donnas – who were still at fucking school I would like to point out – had to deal with this crap from publications who should’ve fucking known better.
In the same Grammy Awards article, Donna A remembered:
“There’d be articles that would say something like our ‘bouncing nubile breasts.’ And we’re like, ‘Fuck.’ I wore two bras for a year after that — like, This is not what I want to be putting out there.”
Which is fucked up in so many levels that I don’t even know where to begin,
Yet despite this crap – and perhaps driven because of it – The Donnas hit the ground running with their 1997 debut, The Donnas.
It was – and obviously still is – a balls to the wall, four to the floor rock and roll album that is heavily influenced by The Ramones, but it is a great record that laid down a marker that The Donnas were a top notch band, even if they themselves still considered The Electrocutes as their main day job, with the band telling anyone who would listen that The Donnas probably wouldn’t survive past 1997, the year their self-titled debut was unleashed on the world.
From a personal standpoint, I’m glad they were wrong, as after The Donnas exploded onto the scene, they followed it up with American Teenage Rock N’ Roll Machine and Get Skintight, released in ’98 and ’99 respectively. It was on Get Skintight that The Donnas really found their feet.
Whereas the previous two albums had been great, but flawed, Get Skintight didn’t have a bum track on it and it showed that behind the facade of an all-girl party band, lay brilliant musicians with a sharp, lyrical wit.
The band continued to grow with 2001s The Donnas Turn 21 – yet another triumph of rock n’ roll – before their most commercially successful offering, Spend The Night.
If I had to pick one album by The Donnas to take with me to a desert island, it would be Spend The Night. It is a masterpiece record without a single misstep- at least as far as I’m concerened – and still, to this very day over 20 years later, gets at least one outing a week in my playlist. The previous offerings, along with their final two albums – Gold Medal in 2004 and Bitchin’ in 2007 – are solid favorites in my household, but it’s Spend The Night that I return to, again and again.
Musically and lyrically it is perfection and doesn’t let up from the word go. Every track is golden and absolute earworm material that – once they get inside your head – set up residency inside you head and never fucking leave. If you’ve never heard The Donnas before then Spend The Night is the record I urge you to start with.
Yet, after the success of Spend The Night and the quality of their last two albums, The Donnas just stopped.
Three years after the release of their final album, Bitchin’, drummer Torry Castellano announced she would be retiring from the band due to tendonitis of the shoulder, a condition she had developed by being self taught and not holding the sticks in the “correct” way. Even though it had felt right to her, the punishment she put herself through meant it got to the point where she just couldn’t play any anymore. As she explained in an interview:
“My doctors told me that the only way that I was going to recover was to stop being a touring drummer. So I kind of was forced into a career change.”
That career change saw her return to education and graduate from Harvard Law School, before taking up a position as at the Texas Office of Capital and Forensic Writs, which serves as a post-conviction public defender.
Brett Anderson took a different route as well, gaining a degree in psychology from Stanford University and Master of Social Work from UCLA. She now works in Palliative Care, offering support to people with life-limiting illnesses.
As for Allison Robertson and Maya Ford, I genuinely have no fucking idea. Both seemed to have just vanished, with no internet precense, no bands, no interviews, no nothing. I guess that they just decided to fade back into normality after the madness that was their lives from the ages of 13.
I understand that, I respect that, I think that the paths all these woman have chosen to now tread are honorable and I would never deny them their right to privacy and an existence out of the spotlight, but goddamn, do I miss The Donnas.
They were a breath of fresh air in an era where depression sold and rock and roll was almost frowned upon. They kicked ass when others would stare blankly at their navals and mope. They took on the male cliche of sex, drugs, and rock n roll and not only perfected it, but were self-aware enough to poke fun at it with tongues very firmly wedged in cheeks, and in this day and age – where everyone is so fucking serious and so afraid to just kick out the fucking jams for fear of being cancelled – we need a band like The Donnas more than ever.
