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INDUSTRY REPORT # 34
Catching Up With
A Conversation with Donita Sparks
August 5th, 2025 by Traci Turner
In these “unprecedented times,” we need badass bands who fight for what is right and make no apologies. Gender is unimportant, but I think it is extra badass when the band is made up of some of the most incredible women in music.
L7 stormed the Los Angeles music scene in 1985, taking on the dominantly male punk rock world.
Often labeled grunge thanks to being on Sub Pop records with Nirvana, their 1992 album, “Bricks Are Heavy,” gave us the legendary hit, “Pretend We’re Dead.”
Whether we call them grunge, alt rock, modern rock, or punk, L7 remains magnificently dangerous with Donita Sparks (lead vocals and guitar), Suzi Gardner (guitar), Jennifer Finch (bass), and Demetra Plakas (drums).
When we last spoke to Sparks, the band was prepping for their 2024 Fast and Frightening Takeover. This time around, the event will serve as the 40th anniversary bash on October 3rd The Belasco Los Angeles. Sparks was once again kind enough to give us the intel.
Traci: Hey Donita! How are you?
Donita: Good. How are you doing?
Traci: Awesome! You and I talked in April of last year, and you were doing so many things! You had No Values, then you went to Europe, Australia, Brazil with Garbage, and the cruise. Plus you had your Fast and Frightening Takeover. So now you’re home – are you bored?
Donita: Well, no. I’ve had a slew of weddings that I’ve had to travel to recently. And we just played a festival in Chicago called Motoblot, which was cool. We just played the OC for a show with The Garden, a festival called One Strange Night, and that was really great.
In August, we’re going up to Olympia, Washington to play another festival, which is going to be really fun.
Traci: Is it hard for you to go from being a rock star, and then you go home and somebody tells you to take out the trash?
Donita: Well, nobody tells me anything. (laughing) I tell my significant other to take out the trash and the recycling. So I’m the micromanager around here! But wearing different hats, I’ve been accustomed to doing for a long time. I need to put on my writer’s hat is what I need to do. I’ve got to deliver a couple of songs in the next couple of months, so that’s the hat I’ve really got to wear.
Traci: Deliver for L7 or something else?
Donita: For L7, to release some new stuff and maybe do a video or something just to keep the content flowing and the fans excited and just do some creating.
Traci: Content pretty much has to be all the time now, doesn’t it?
Donita: It does, but we have a helper now. I find, if I get on Instagram or something, it’s so addictive. I almost missed an interview because I hadn’t been on Instagram in a while. I’m just, “Oh, yeah. Look at that. Oh, like, like, like,” and then, “Shit!”
Traci: Could you imagine if social media and Instagram were around in the ‘90s?
Donita: I can’t. I think that we, as a band, really would have had a blast with that. Well, first of all, back in the day, you weren’t allowed to film the band, and all the club rules and usually the band rules, no videotaping. But I regret that now because we don’t have a lot of footage of L7 live back in the day. There’s a few tapes out there, and we have a few of our own, but those would have been really great to have in the archives. And now we really don’t want to be filmed at all. (laughing) We would have dug it, but now it’s just like, “Oh, turn that Jumbo Tron off, please.” We don’t want to see ourselves that big.
Traci: You did your Fast and Frightening Takeover last year. Are you guys going to do that again?
Donita: We are putting it under the moniker of L7’s 40th anniversary bash this year.
Traci: Ah, the concert on October 3rd.
Donita: Yeah, and if we had called it Fast and Frightening Takeover with the 40th anniversary of L7, it would have just been too confusing of messaging. So it is our festival, but it is our 40th anniversary bash this year. Last year we had 15 bands, which was insane. This year we’re probably going to have about four or five and a DJ, maybe a performance artist or something.
She continued: We already have Lunachicks from New York City, our sisters in mayhem and rock. And we have CSS, our sisters from Brazil, who bring the electro party pop and humor. They’re really great and Lunachicks have always been great, so this will be very cool. Hopefully, we can get a guy on the bill. I mean, this was not planned to have it all females in these bands. I think the drummer in CSS is a guy. So that’s good.
Traci: A little bit of testosterone.
Donita: A little testosterone on the stage. But we’re looking forward to that. Tickets are on sale, and they’re selling great, and it’ll probably sell out. So don’t dawdle because when we do the next announcement, it may be time to buy your tickets!
Traci: As you look back on 40 years, what was that like the first time you heard one of your songs on a major market radio station?
Donita: Well, it was a wild time because never in our wildest dreams could we imagine that we would get on the radio, even on college radio. But I will say that the year, six months or so before our record came out, Nirvana’s record came out and because we knew them personally and we were friends with them, the fact that they got on the radio, we were like, “Oh, my God, what if we get on the radio?” And we did. Of course, it wasn’t to the numbers of Nirvana, but it did seem like there was a possibility, not a probability, but a possibility that we might get on the radio because we had signed with Slash, who was a part of Warner Brothers at that time. So that was our leap to a major label. It was very exciting, and getting on MTV was exciting. All that stuff. I really felt we were infiltrating the masses in a powerful and subversive way.
Traci: Was KROQ the first station in Los Angeles that played it?
Donita: I believe so, yeah. I don’t think the hard rock stations were playing us at that time, in LA anyway. In other parts of the country, a couple of them were. But I think KROQ was definitely the first station in LA to play us.
Traci: You mentioned that you had to put on your writer’s cap and when you and I talked last year, you said you had a lot of “unfinished masterpieces.” Although you did add “Well, they’re not necessarily masterpieces.” But I asked what inspires you and you said, “Sometimes I’m inspired by anger. And I think L7 has some anger anthems.” That was a year ago and look at us now. I’m tired, and I’m sure you’re tired.
Donita: Yeah. It’s funny because we just played Motoblot in Chicago, like I said, and it was like our set of anger. It was all the anger anthems. It was like, “The Masses Are Asses” and “I Came Back to Bitch.” I crack up about it because if you were seeing us for the first time at Motoblot, it would have been like, “God damn, these women are pissed!” It didn’t have a lot of humor. In fact, it probably had humor only because it was so angry. But we decided to pull out “The Masses Are Asses” because it’s sadly…”
Traci: Sadly, needed right now.
Donita: It is. And listen, I wrote that in 1996 and I thought the masses were asses then! But I was so angry. We were all so angry about how the Latina and Latinos are being treated in our city. That boiled up and I spit it out in Chicago because it’s happening there, too. But, yeah, it’s time to get angry.
Traci: I don’t want to minimize the seriousness of it, but I laughed when a certain someone sent ICE and military to LA. I was thinking, “Seriously? You want to fuck with LA on this?” That is not where you want to go to pick this fight.
Donita: Yeah. And even Santa Ana. It’s like, “No, don’t fuck with Santa Ana.” Yeah. It’s weird times, weird times. But you know, weird times sometimes can generate really cool new music and some bands that really have something to say. And that’s a good thing because being frivolous and being very light-hearted is great. It’s a good palate cleanser, right? But just as the pendulum swings in politics, it also swings in music to a more aggressive scene, to a lighter fare, and then back again to anger, and then another respite of like, “Let’s just have fun.” And now I think the pendulum is swinging towards anger again. I like both, and L7, believe it or not, is somewhere in the middle. But I do wish that some bands would get a little more specific in what they’re angry about, maybe.
Traci: Are there some newer bands that you’re seeing that are impressing you? Not necessarily political-wise, but just in general.
Donita: I think it’s probably the ones I said to you last year. Amy Taylor of AmyL and the Sniffers continues to blow my mind. Her frontperson chops are amazing. She’s really great. She’s badass and she’s outrageous. And so I just love her.
Traci: Is there anything else coming up that you’re allowed to talk about besides the October show?
Donita: I can’t talk about it, but there is something coming up, but I can’t…
Traci: I don’t want to get anyone in trouble! (laughing) Ok random question: What is your most interesting scar?
Donita: Oh, that’s a tough one. It’s either when I fell on the ice in Chicago, when I was in my 30s, and I got a big scar on my upper lip, and the scab looked like a Hitler mustache. I had it on a plane back to LA, and the people sitting next to me were looking at me, didn’t know if I had been battered or bruised or whatever. So that’s one, but you can’t really see it. But I would say that my other… It’s not my favorite scar, but I was stabbed in New York City in my knee.
Traci: Oh, my God.
Donita: Yeah, in 1989. It’s a long story, but I was stabbed in the knee, and it still gives me problems. A crazy woman stabbed me in the knee in New York City.
Traci: So you really, truly are a badass.
Donita: I had to tour the rest of the tour with a cane and this big bandage. And then, of course, I turned the cane into a stage prop and really milked it like I tend to.
Traci: Every conversation I have with you is phenomenal, and I love it.
Donita: Thanks for always having the interest, and it’s always fun to talk to you. I hope to see you sometime.
Thank you, Donita! Soon we will all be in the same room with Sparks, her incredible scars, and L7 bandmates as they celebrate their 40th anniversary.
Get those tickets now – Sparks warned you and I would NOT mess with her!
TO FOLLOW
SID 250806 | JIMMY ALVAREZ | EDITOR
