Allison had butterflies in her stomach before they met that day, but, after leaving nothing unsaid, felt better. She cried briefly in the car ride over, scared that her best wasn't good enough, mourning the end of an era, but then also relieved to know she didn't have to impress anybody but her friends. Torry flanked her, easily turning Allison's spirits around: "Don't say that you can't do better! Of course you can!" Brett drank wine and studied the menu, confident that nobody did anything wrong—people grow apart, people break up. Maya was happily humming the George Michael tune "Freedom"—ironically, a song about staying together.
On a very cold day in New York in early 2006, the Donnas—singer Brett Anderson, bassist Maya Ford, drummer Torry Castellano and guitarist Allison Robertson—met for dinner with their now-ex, Atlantic. After a day of meetings, both sides conceded that they wanted different things from their relationship.The quartet of women had been playing together since middle school and had become as notorious for their punk-rock attitude and raucous onstage presence as for their metal-tinged rock. They signed to California-based Lookout Records directly out of high school, releasing four records that, combined, sold more than 110,000 copies by the time they signed to Atlantic in mid-December 2001—shortly after they'd turned drinking age.
But after two Atlantic albums and more than 500,000 sales later, their partnership with the major label came to an end.
According to the group, it was the best meal they ever had with Atlantic. "We were all full of good food, having good conversation. You could tell that everyone loosened up—that things were over and that it was so right," Robertson says. "But, hey, we're still friends. It was for the best." Atlantic picked up the tab for dinner. The band announced the split on a fan message board in May.
Determined to move on, the Donnas have embarked on a new era in their career. In a joint venture with Redeye Distribution, the group has started its own label to release its currently untitled effort in mid-September.
"Whatever formula we were in wasn't working for us, so now we're carving out a new formula. After 14 years and a few other deals, I guess this makes it the new-new-new-new formula," Anderson says with a laugh. Ford adds: "This is what everyone has been waiting for."
'I don't wanna go to school no more, so/Radio radio. Gimmie gimmie.' —Lyrics From 'Gimmie My Radio'
In 1997, after having released a handful of raw singles through Bay Area indie labels, the Donnas signed with Lookout under the management of Joey Minkes and label co-owner Molly Neuman. The first of its four punk- and metal-influenced rock'n'roll albums was 1998's "American Teenage Rock 'n' Roll Machine"; the last was 2001's "The Donnas Turn 21." It was the latter album that earned the group its first Billboard chart ink on Heatseekers and Top Independent Albums, selling 4,000 copies in its first week.
The Donnas were poised to break to the next level, much like another well-known, former pop-punk Lookout band: Green Day. After making two albums for the indie in the early '90s, Green Day signed with Reprise, which would later release the blockbuster "Dookie." Green Day had sold only about 80,000 records before making the leap, so by comparison the Donnas seemed well-poised. Indeed, the Donnas were in search of commercial success on a grander scale than they felt Lookout could provide; they desired a label that was experienced with, and had the resources for, breaking new talent on commercial radio, TV and beyond.
"We knew we had something a lot bigger on our hands and that what we wanted to happen next couldn't happen at a label of Lookout's size," Neuman says. "The girls dream of arenas and knew they wanted to be on the radio. They wanted to be on MTV."
"When we were in high school, we were never cool and we wrote songs about it. We were like, 'We don't wanna come to your stupid party anyway.' And that was our first fan base—some people related to that. When things picked up for us, we realized we wanted to throw our own party. [Signing] was a way we could get heard and invite everyone," Anderson says.
Castellano adds, "We wanted to be on the radio. We'd still love to. We didn't expect MTV and radio to happen immediately, but we were ready for it."
The group negotiated with labels and ultimately chose Atlantic in 2001 under the direction of A&R reps Nick Casinelli and Mary Gormley. The appeal of the Donnas was immediate, Casinelli says, who was moved to work with the group after checking out one of its gigs. The Donnas were a commanding presence onstage and, more important, were ambitious offstage, insistent that they knew "who they were and what they wanted."
"Like any group coming from a very indie-minded background, it was a struggle signing them because they were so fiercely independent," Casinelli says. "Their big thing was that no matter what they did, they did it together and they did it their way. No one player would stick out and be 'the star.' All the photos and videos shot together, the interviews together, everything was as a group . . . They wouldn't be done-up or looking like anybody they weren't."
This was a group that was cutting its teeth with covers of Shonen Knife and riot grrls the Muffs at a time when other young girls swooned over the Whitney Houston/Kevin Costner match-up in "The Bodyguard." The band signed on the dotted line for Atlantic the same year Backstreet Boys moved millions of "Black & Blue" and Alicia Keys, Janet Jackson and Jennifer Lopez dominated the singles charts.
Ultimately, Atlantic's deal "was the least Big Brothery," Anderson says. "They had one of the smallest advances, but that's because of how much control we knew we would be given. When we heard other labels' initial pitches, it was like, 'So, how about you drop your instruments and we'll come up with a choreographed dance for you to do?' Atlantic was like, 'Yes, of course you may headbang.' "
The group's Atlantic debut, 2002's "Spend the Night," bowed atop the Heatseekers tally while its sassy single, "Take It Off," made some headway at radio, peaking at No. 17 on Billboard's Modern Rock chart. (It was later added to PlayStation 2's "Guitar Hero" repertoire.) The album has gone on to sell 424,000, according to Nielsen SoundScan.
The band posed for magazine covers, performed on "Saturday Night Live" and "TRL" and "did everything right, press-wise," says former Atlantic/Donnas publicist Nick Stern, who now runs 7-10 Music and manages DIY kings Clap Your Hands Say Yeah. "The Donnas were a press dream. They wouldn't say no to anything unless it was something raunchy, like a 'Playboy' spread or taking off their clothes for Maxim."
"They were a little hesitant at first to license or synch their music to anything because it was important to them that they don't push away their fan base, like it might've hurt their credibility," Atlantic Records Group senior VP Kevin Weaver says. Weaver spearheaded efforts to insert the Donnas' music into commercials (the 2006 Nissan Xterra), film ("Mean Girls"), videogames ("MVP Baseball 2003") and TV (theme song for the 2006 Winter Olympics U.S. Women's Snowboarding Team). "But after they saw the value and exposure it brought them, they started embracing almost anything that I presented. They'd skip out on girlie stuff, like maxi pads and shampoo spots, just because they didn't want to come off as just a girl band or a band that's pretty good . . . for a girl."
"We want anybody of any age to listen to us," Anderson says. "And if I was a 13-year-old boy in middle school, I wouldn't go around telling people I listen to a band that did a tampon commercial."
'It's time to tear it up . . ./I need another hit before I'm done/So don't wait up for me' —Lyrics From 'Don't Wait Up For Me' (Forthcoming)
For a multitude of reasons, the Donnas' October 2004 release "Gold Medal" fell flat. To date, the set has moved only 87,000 copies, though it bowed at No. 76 on The Billboard 200. Lead single "Fall Behind Me" topped out at No. 29 on the Modern Rock chart. "Gold Medal" sold 79,000 in its first 12 months, whereas "Spend the Night" moved more than 360,000 in its first year.
From 2003 to 2004, Atlantic underwent a number of changes because of Time Warner's spinoff of Warner Music Group to a new group of investors. The band saw a new lineup of personnel by the time it was working on "Gold Medal."
"No matter who was working there, everyone was working their hardest for us. Still, though—and I know everyone says this—if you join a major, a few months later it'll be like a new company," Castellano says.
"We ended 'Spend the Night' on a high note because of its real pop visibility and a pop fan base. But that's a transient fan base—they love it and then leave it. They're not going to be lifelong fans," Neuman says. She also mentions that the release came out on the still-experimental CD/DVD DualDisc format, which may have put off fans.
"We all knew they wanted more pop out of us, but we didn't feel capable of being any more poppy than we already were. They would want pop, but we didn't know who it was we should be sounding like," Robertson says.
" 'Gold Medal' was a little more artistic, something a little different, and it just wasn't accepted in the way that we wanted it to be, from a commercial perspective. It fell in between pop and rock formats and, in a changing radio marketplace, it just didn't come at the right time," Minkes says. "It's always been a challenge for female bands to get on rock radio, and it's harder for a label to work a record that doesn't do well at radio right away."
"We thought we were going to have a massive hit, we expected it to be bigger" than "Spend the Night," Weaver says.
Despite a well-received run touring with Maroon 5 in early 2005, sales increased only slightly on the road. It became clearer that the Donnas were in a rut with Atlantic. The foursome had fulfilled its two-record contract, with an option for a third. The band started on the next album, though the label cut back the advance; ultimately, the Donnas never recouped on their Atlantic deal. In negotiations, Atlantic was willing to fund an album with a crossover hit, extending the amount of time required for the Donnas to write one. After writing three or four tunes without finding common ground, the band declined and the label passed.
"There were no bad words. Not one bridge is burned," Minkes says. "We weren't a horror story, we just had to part ways."
"We had to go with our gut. We still could be with the label, but it wasn't right for anyone," Ford says. "We could've worked and worked for a pop single, but then it probably wouldn't have gotten played on the radio anyway."
'We're over, I'm done/Yeah, it's time to have some real fun.' —Lyrics From 'It's On The Rocks'
To say Redeye wanted the Donnas is an understatement. The decade-old, Haw River, N.C., distribution company's release roster has included Public Enemy, Nick Lowe, Gern Blandsten Records, the Mars Volta and Pulp. In the days leading up to getting the June 19 deal memo in place—Minkes gives special credit to the Donnas' attorney, Grubman Indursky partner Kenny Meiselas—Redeye beat out a couple of other serious contenders for the Donnas' next album with old-school enthusiasm and dedication.
Redeye "were on us before they even heard the record. When Molly first put the feelers out like, 'Hey, maybe we need a partner,' they were all over us. They knew our history and were excited about us as a band,"Castellano says.
Having signed on for the joint venture, the Donnas face wanting widespread attention as an independent entity.
"Luckily for us, after more than a dozen years, there's already a lot of name recognition, audio recognition, visual . . . We have something, a notoriety, to work off of already, and now we can launch what we want on any different avenue," Neuman says.
It is the Donnas brand that the group must now bank on to propel it into mainstream success. Dicker acknowledges as much. "The initial idea kicked around to promote the record is to really work with their pre-existing fan base and give them more," he says.
Even though the band entered talks with other majors after its departure from Atlantic, the group ultimately wanted more control and profits from its records. Whereas the band earned only royalties (16%, according to Minkes) at Atlantic, the Donnas' new Redeye deal guarantees a 50/50 split from sales, plus co-ownership of the masters and a record-to-record contract. Redeye's deal is for North America, leaving the Donnas to choose international distributors.
The new album's sound isn't a major departure from what the band has played before. Produced by Jay Ruston, who has helmed the boards for acts including Jars of Clay, Meat Loaf and the Polyphonic Spree, the set is chock-full of big singalong choruses, fat '80s guitar licks and an upbeat pace. With not a ballad to be found, it mixes glam-rock with punk and pop, inspired by the band's rekindled love for Def Leppard and Billy Idol, according to Ford.
Two of the songs originally written before the split from Atlantic made the final cut for the album: "Wasted" and "Here for the Party." The former bouncy, dance-rock anthem still boasts a blistering solo and even a key change, but would also fit nicely into a mix of the current crop of British garage-rock acts like the Fratellis, the Kooks or Louis XIV. "Here for the Party" plays exactly as one would imagine a song of that title to sound, with a Joan Jett-like call to arms, nah-nah-nahs, oh-yeahs and big, billowing guitar riffs.
The group has already begun streaming "Don't Wait Up for Me" via MySpace; the song appropriately opens with the sound of a stadium-sized crowd cheering as the crew encourages the object of its affections to "loosen up/drain a cup" as the electric guitars chug to the rhythm of clapping hands.
Writing-wise, "I wouldn't say we did much of anything different after leaving Atlantic, though it helped that we had more time than we've ever had before to write it. It was very liberating not to have a deadline," Ford says. The final track list was whittled down from 30 songs, written in more than a year, to 13. "We've always loved bands like Cinderella and [Mötley] Crüe, but we also always enjoyed pop music," Ford says. "We haven't deliberately moved in any direction."
On "Girl Talk," the group returns to one of its earliest forms in sound and sentiment, as Anderson growls, "You've been talking trash again/Oh no/Don't pretend you're not my friend . . . Shut up/Show me what you're made of." "What Do I Have to Do" opens sounding like the intro to the White Stripes' "Blue Orchid" before Robertson's heavily distorted wail kicks in while Castellano tears a page from Kiss' "Rock and Roll All Nite" book of cowbell.
Ford particularly likes "What Do I Have to Do," one of the album's fastest tracks, containing the lyric, "I'm being way too nice/you're being cold as ice." "It's about this guy who was torturing me," Ford says. "It was a good way to get the whole thing off my chest. We all need a little turbulence in our life."
Robertson has the opportunity in nearly every track to show off her chops, with solos abundant and her mix upfront. The group appropriately closes the album with "When the Show Is Over," the closest the record gets to a song about heartbreak, with a sad descending melody and a simple closure of solo guitar. "But I'm still all alone/when the show is over," Anderson laments.
The band plans to aggressively court college radio, to turn the video campaign for its first single viral and to continue reaching out to fans through its message boards, MySpace blog and other online social networks. Minkes hints at an animated series based on the girls—they are working with Tomorrow's Brightest Minds, which worked on two of the Donnas' previous videos—and plan to reach out for placement with sites like iTunes and Yahoo.
The band is preparing for an aggressive touring schedule this fall with help from longtime agent William Morris. "That was our original love anyway," Castellano says. "We may have been in a lot of magazines and we pride ourselves on putting out good records, but we win over the most hearts at our live set."
"It's like all along the way we've been collecting these powers and upgrading," Anderson says. "Starting our own label is the ultimate upgrade. Size-wise, there was a glass ceiling at Lookout, so we tried to get higher. When we went to Atlantic, we thought that we could reach the top, shoot the moon."
Now the band is back in indie land, new deal in hand and with new sets of expectations.
"We've always been a wild card, being girls and being rock'n'roll," Anderson says. "But now, if people don't buy our record, we'll at least know we did what we wanted."
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