Naughty-girl foursome the Donnas have “made it” by all industry standards — already five albums strong, the girls have gone from indie-label stardom to being the hardcore darlings of Atlantic Records. Their appearances on MTV and Saturday Night Live — not to mention a couple of Hollywood films and Lollapalooza 2003 — have made them into familiar faces for mainstream and alternative households alike.

Home away from home for most rock stars usually involves fancy accommodations with the strictest of privacy and the best security money can buy. Yet when bassist Maya Ford sits down to talk with Curve on a foggy San Francisco afternoon, she does it from a concert stopover at the Phoenix Hotel, the former 1950s celebrity hangout now revered for its bargain rooms and kitsch-and-funk atmosphere, located smack in the armpit of the seedy Tenderloin District.

“I was so excited to come back to the hotel and have a pool party,” says Ford, 24, half-screaming, half-mumbling into the phone. “But of course, it’s all rainy.”

Where people choose to rest their heads can be worth more than a thousand words, and the Donnas — true to their accessible-yet-jarring delivery — seem to have chosen their night’s refuge perfectly.

These girls, after all, remain happily married to their dorkdom of the past; their shared adolescence in the affluent Bay area suburb of Palo Alto was marked by the kind of social clumsiness and hostile taunts that only furthered their resolve to keep on doing what they love to do.

Formed 10 years ago as the AC/DC-inspired eighth-grade band Screen and known next as Ragady Anne, the four friends at first just wanted to show the boys they could do what others said they couldn’t. As their musical skills expanded, so did their influences; they count everyone from Madonna to Poison among their idols.

In 1995, as the hard-rocking Electrocutes, they garnered the attention of a local producer who was looking for a female band to fulfill a shtick he dreamed up: a group of girls he called the Donnas, who would dress up like nerds and deliver prewritten Ramonesy pop nastiness. They became the Donnas for some gigs, but still remained the Electrocutes for others. And while the girls simultaneously played in both bands through high school, the edgier Electrocutes would bad-mouth the more gimmicky Donnas at all their shows.

“Yeah, the Electrocutes hated the Donnas, and would call the Donnas ‘goodie two-shoes,’ stuff like that,” says Ford, acknowledging that the tactic probably only generated more interest for the four “Donnas” — Ford, 24 (Donna F.), vocalist Brett Anderson, 24 (Donna A.), guitarist Allison Robertson, 23 (Donna R.), and drummer Torry Castellano, 24 (Donna C.).

The girls eventually parted ways with their producer and began writing and performing again in their own style. The result is a straightforward approach to songs fashioned after the concept of “cock rock,” or, as Robertson once called it, music that is written and performed as if they were “just a bunch of guys.” It was the Donnas who caught the ear of local Lookout! Records.

Crowing about traditionally “male” themes — in other words, having fun and causing trouble — has made the Donnas stand out in a world not used to hearing about men as objects or women as forces to be feared. “Forget about feminism; how about reverse sexism?” wrote one reviewer in 2001. “It’s the ultimate bad-ass rock revenge on today’s limp misogyny.”

Their unlikely success story is almost hard to believe, given the fickle nature of teenage interests. When the high-school Donnas weren’t rehearsing in Donna C.’s garage, they were cutting class, buying CDs, and watching classic 1980s videos on VH-1. At an age when many young women are tempted to turn on their friends, the Donnas remained fiercely loyal to each other, an oddity that encouraged almost as much talk as their music did.

“There were all these rumors, like we were crackheads, lesbians, that my dad was Ozzy Osbourne,” remembers Ford. “Even when we were seniors, we’d be in art class and these people would throw papers and erasers at us. We’d be like, ‘We’re seniors! Why are these younger kids throwing shit?’ We weren’t really bummed about it, though. We were more like, ‘Fuck you.’”

The Donnas’ first album, a self-titled lo-fi compilation of rough and catchy sound bytes, alluded to some of this defiance. The 1998 album American Teenage Rock ’n’ Roll Machine, released by the independent Lookout! Records, defined the Donnas’ attitude with lyrics like “Are you ready to give me some sin / ’Cause I’ve been waiting all night long / So come on and stick it in.” The 1999 acclaimed Get Skintight added a layer of depth to the routine story line of sex, drugs, and rock ’n’ roll, with warnings like “I can try, but I’m not promising / To keep you safe, baby, when you’re with me.” The 2001 release that celebrated their birthdays, The Donnas Turn 21, was an instrumental evolution, hailed for its mature guitar riffs and production tone. And last year’s hit Spend the Night, released by the major label Atlantic Records, secured for them a place as the outsiders among girl bands who paradoxically seek admiration while rejecting any kind of exposure that tries to paint them as cute, sentimental, angry, sad or happy.

“I’m really excited for our band to get bigger because for all the girls in high school who aren’t fitting in, there’s something to listen to, and not be bummed about their situation,” says Ford. “It’s OK to be a dork and have fun with your friends.”

Such an unapologetic female presence in rock, acknowledges Ford, probably accounts for the band’s large dyke following, a demographic that emerged way back in the early days.

“In high school I had two gay girl fans who liked us, and they wanted to start a band, too. They would write me love letters and they would follow me around,” says Ford. “It was a little too weird, but at the same time they were different, and being themselves, and they weren’t falling into typical high-school cliché categories, so it was cool that I inspired them in some way.”

With the Donnas’ broad fan base — which includes listeners with interests in everything from punk to glam to metal to pop — comes some natural queer-straight crossover.

“A lot of girls like us. I really like it when girls come to our shows and say they want to start a band,” says Ford, who remembers going to San Francisco clubs with the Donnas to see girl bands like Bratmobile and Tribe 8 but feeling out of place “because we weren’t punk enough.”

Which has been another oft-reported result of crossover appeal: the tendency to be labeled as a particular “type” of music, particularly punk, a category the Donnas do not claim for themselves.

“Maybe because we’re not pop and not very polished and we started as a garage band, we get categorized a lot as punk. But I think we’re really just a rock band,” says Ford. “Punk is all about politics and safety pins and spikes and that’s cool, but our songs are more about fantasy. We’re the fun generation. We sing about taking revenge on guys if they’re dicks. We don’t hate all guys; there’s also some love songs in there. But guys can be really rude.”

For the record, the Donnas aren’t lesbians. Not that they would comfortably lock themselves into any predictable behavior.

“I’m kinda queer,” Ford offers matter-of-factly. “I’ve never made out with a girl or anything, but I like a lot of stuff that’s really gay. I like Elton John,” she laughs, then adds that one of her favorite shows was an appearance with the gay band Pansy Division, whose material is out and proud and “really good and funny.”

“To me, gay is cool,” says Ford. “Maybe one day I’d make out with a girl, if I found one I really liked.”

Still, strong females can be intimidating, and while Ford currently does have a boyfriend, she admits, “Some guys I want to go out with are afraid of me; they think I’m going to write an evil song about them.

“Some people are put off by us, based on some preconceived notion,” she says. “They’ll say, ‘Oh, I heard you did this at some show,’ or, ‘Wow, you’re not as lame as I thought you’d be.’”

Like an up-tempo bass backdrop, Ford’s maligned monologue quickens when she talks about trying to dispel the rumors that go hand in hand with fame. “I mean, why do people have to make things up about you and judge you before they see you play?” she wonders. “It’s stupid to judge a band, anyways. Either be into the music or don’t be.”

While the Donnas’ more recent releases may have a slicker production value, their messages remain the same. “Your pants are slung way too low / I see stuff I don’t wanna know,” they sing on Spend the Night’s “Dirty Denim,” in a jab at trendy guys who believe they’re special. “I hate to say it, but they’re all the same / Thinkin’ everybody knows their name / But how can they break my heart / If I can’t even tell them apart.”

Consistency like this challenges critics who claim that the Donnas have somehow sold out by entering the big league. Commercial success, says Ford, has always been a goal, although never at the expense of who they are; to this day, the band writes all its own material, and members remain close to their families and a handful of outside friends.

“In general, we just have the attitude that we do what we want,” says Ford. “Maybe we don’t fit in with other bands out there. But we’ve been together for 10 years doing exactly what we’ve wanted to, and we’re real stubborn. We won’t ever compromise our music. We want people to like us just the way we are.”


Q&A: MAYA FORD

At a time when your peers were going to college or starting “real” jobs, how did the Donnas decide to stay together for the long haul?

I think it was when we signed with Lookout! [the Bay-area indie label that launched their career]. It happened right before we graduated high school, in 1997. We went to college for a semester and decided not to go back. We went on tour and it was so much fun that we thought it would be a good idea to keep doing it.

How did the Atlantic Records deal transpire?

We’d been offered major labels in the past, but none of them was good enough. We had reached a point on Lookout! where we couldn’t get any bigger or go any further, and a couple of labels came to a show of ours in New York, and we liked Atlantic the best.

Have you always had musical dreams?

Yeah, ever since I was like 4 or something. There’s a little scrapbook I have from that age where I say I want to be a music star. Music is the one thing that has always kept me, you know, happy.

Is there something political about such a conscious refusal to be a political band?

Well, yeah. I think especially because there’s so many political bands in the Bay area, we would get labeled “bubble gum” or “cheesy” because we’re not singing about women’s rights. But I think it makes a bigger statement if you do it rather than whine about it, because you’re showing that you’re empowered and can have fun and don’t care what anyone thinks.

Is there any type of character development that goes into your stage shows?

Really, we just think of ourselves as a rock band, and whatever character comes out on stage is us. We’re just rocking out and having a good time. We’re not like KISS or anything; we don’t put that much thought into it. I don’t think to myself, “Yeah, Donna F. is this and this, and I have to get into Donna F. mode.”

Will there be another album soon?

We’re going to write one, but we’re lazy and we procrastinate. But I did think of a rhyme yesterday.

What is it?

Um … It’s stupid. I don’t want to say it.

Search Curve    All Categories travelstoriescommerceabout   
search our shop and forums, too!