The EM Poll

The Donnas

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

           

BASHING THE NIGHT AWAY

All Rock, All the Time

There's a reason that the Donnas play as tightly and toughly as they do: they've put in the time, seeing more stage action in ten years together than have most current acts. The group's first incarnation was called Ragady Anne, which was formed by the girls while they were eighth graders living in the San Francisco suburb of Palo Alto. By the mid-'90s, the teen quartet had morphed into the Electrocutes and had begun making inroads into the ultrahip Bay Area. In 1995 they changed their name to the Donnas (the name was initially conceived as a pop alter-ego to the thrash-rock Electrocutes). Three years later they signed with Lookout. Tracks like “Well Done,” Midnight Snack,” and “Do You Wanna Hit It” showed not only the influence of mentor acts like the Runaways, the Breeders, and L7, but also such classic sources as Motley Crue, AC/DC, and Kiss.

Naturally, any band that uses one guitarist, plays three-minute songs, and has members who all share the same name invites comparison to punk pioneers The Ramones. “We get that a lot,” says Robertson, who even delivers her barre chords with one foot forward and bangs slung over her eyes. “It doesn't matter — to us, they were a band that played great guitar rock, like most of our idols.”

Great guitar rock has been in fairly short supply of late, and if nothing else, the Donnas' breakthrough into the musical mainstream gives modern-rock listeners something else to chomp on besides the usual parade of buzz-saw guitars and butt-headed vocalists. “It's the kind of stuff that's been absent from radio and MTV for so long,” laments Robertson. “I'm hoping we can help bring it back again.”

A Major Adjustment

After spending nine years in the relative calm of the indie world, life in the fast lane has been a bit of an adjustment for the normally road-ready Donnas. “The biggest difference is that we don't have very many breaks — three days off here and there is about as good as it gets,” remarks Robertson. “Even when the first part of the tour ended last Christmas, we still had to do all these different radio shows. So it's been a pretty hectic time. With Lookout we could just say, ‘We'd like to have about two months off here, if you don't mind,’ even when people were pressuring us to keep touring or not take as much time off if possible. Getting a breather from Thanksgiving on is a luxury that we missed this past year.”

Even with a tight schedule and the pressure of publicity, the Donnas aren't exactly wilting under the spotlight. “It's been a lot of fun so far, actually,” says Robertson. “For one thing, we aren't really in the pop-star category, where they work you to the bone. But the best part is we're out there touring on behalf of an album that came out way better than we'd hoped for. That makes a huge difference.”

They Know What They Want

It didn't happen by accident. In the studio the Donnas are by their own admission opinionated and highly principled. They leave nothing to chance — no matter who's running the controls. Several early versions of Spend the Night were summarily rejected before mixmaster Chris Lord-Alge came in and nailed the finished product. “We didn't want to have anything to do with those first few mixes — it wasn't us at all,” says vocalist Anderson. “Until Lord-Alge came in, and suddenly there it was. It was incredible — he was like a mind reader.”

As Robertson points out, it's worth the extra effort to ensure that the band has a product that will hold up onstage. “Which is why we like to be there for the mixes,” says Robertson. “I know we can be annoying sometimes because we don't always know what we're talking about. But in reality, the way we are hearing it usually makes the whole song sound better. If you've written a song a certain way, then you have expectations for how it should sound. And if it's not there in the final mix, naturally you're going to be disappointed.”

Though the band has occasionally relied on material from outside writers (such as current producer Robert Shimp, Robertson's husband), Spend the Night was a completely organic affair from start to finish.

“The way we work is I'll come up with a bunch of different guitar riffs, things that I can just store away for future reference,” notes Robertson. “I do it that way because I don't like writing songs without lyrics — I find that if I have an idea of what the songs are about, I can address the music a little bit better.” Once the lyrics start coming together, Robertson begins to pull out the riffs, “although if an idea pops into my head while I'm reading the lyrics, I'll go with that instead.”

From there, she tries to complete the song, doing a basic recording then bringing in the other band members. “The whole process of getting the material together for Spend the Night took about a month and a half,” says Robertson. “Then Robert [producer Shimp] came in to cut the demos, which was a little tough because we didn't have the money or the time to go into a big studio. Our rehearsal space was the size of a bathroom; we were using headphones, and it was hard to hear because the drums were live. But we managed.”