The EM Poll

The Donnas

Mar 14, 2008 5:48 PM, By David Simons

           

BASHING THE NIGHT AWAY

All photos: Steve Jennings

On a frigid January night in Boston, Allison Robertson, Maya Ford, Torry Castellano, and Brett Anderson — known collectively as the Donnas — file into a Commonwealth Avenue pizza joint for a quick bite. The quartet slips in, unnoticed by the college-age crowd queuing up across the street at the Paradise Club where the band will perform later that evening. The band's famous, but not that famous … yet, anyway.

That could change in a hurry. Things are going well for the Donnas. Earlier in the week, Spend the Night, the group's major-label debut, jumped 60 notches to become Billboard's greatest gainer for the week (the payoff from a pair of high-profile gigs on Saturday Night Live and MTV). At a nearby table, a customer scans a prominent Boston Globe feature marking the band's arrival, complete with a large, alluring color photo depicting group members with hair perfectly coifed and waist flesh prominently displayed.

At the moment, however, the four young women eating pizza in the back booth look nothing like the hottest rock band in town. Brimming with nervous enthusiasm, Robertson, Ford, and Anderson could easily pass for a trio of college seniors hanging out. And with her plain white parka and hair in pigtails, the diminutive Castellano is the last person you'd expect to see behind a set of drums.

Looks Can Be Deceiving

In reality, it's everything the Donnas aren't that makes them so appealing. Despite what the suggestive pix and lurid song titles (“Gimme a Ride,” “Hot Pants”) might have you believe, offstage, guitarist Robertson (aka Donna R., daughter of session guitarist Baxter Robertson), bassist Ford (Donna F.), drummer Castellano (Donna C.) and vocalist Anderson (Donna A.) are anything but man-eating nymphs. Instead, they're funny, articulate, and gear savvy. They're also remarkably casual about their late-breaking burst of success — mostly because they've been around long enough to know what's what. Even though they're all just 23 years of age, the Donnas have been plugging away for a full decade (they marked their tenth anniversary this May), refining their act over a four-album span with indie imprint Lookout Records before signing with Atlantic near the end of 2001.

Having gradually worked their way into the pop arena largely through word of mouth, the Donnas understand the importance of touring and have been careful to maintain the integrity of their stage act. “A lot of people can't figure us out just from seeing a picture of us, or even from hearing a few of our songs on CD,” notes Robertson. “But we've managed to convert a lot of them once they've been to one of our shows.”

That turned out to be the understatement of the evening. At 11 p.m. sharp, a few transparent hand-painted props were moved into place, and the Donnas took the Paradise Club's stage — still looking very much like the casual crew in the pizza shop. They immediately launched into a pile-driving version of Spend the Night's opener “It's on the Rocks,” then spent the next 90 minutes blowing through new cuts “Take It Off,” “All Messed Up,” and “Dirty Denim” with machine-gun efficiency. Anderson's between-song banter was cute, bassist Ford's jokes ranged from bad to worse, but congeniality isn't what the band's about. Tonight — as on every other night of this, their first tour as a major-label act — the Donnas' goal was to remind doubters that there's still nothing more powerful on God's green earth than a handful of short, tuneful pop songs performed live, loud, and at breakneck speed. By 12:45 a.m. they'd succeeded in delivering an amazingly torrid hard-rock show.