L7’s Donita Sparks on the Band’s Unique Place in Rock: ‘We’re an Outlier’

Donita Sparks from L7—a band often shoved into the ‘90s grunge box but sounding more like MOTÖRHEAD after too much coffee—sat down with Australia’s Heavy. And the question came up: how would she describe their sound? Her answer? Exactly what you’d expect from someone who doesn’t play by the rules.

“I think we’ve always been an island,” Sparks said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET). “I think we’ve been grouped in those different things. And I think it’s really cool that we’re invited to participate in all of those tribes [like punk and metal and alternative], but we’ve always been kind of an outlier, oddball kind of band. I mean, some people said we were Riot grrrls; we weren’t. We never called ourselves grunge, but now I don’t care if they call us either a metal band or punk or anything. Whatever—just hashtag us, for crying out loud. Please.”

Hashtag them. That’s the takeaway here. But Sparks wasn’t finished. She leaned into what makes L7 so weird (and wonderful).

“We’re an anomaly,” she continued. “For a chick band, it’s rare. To be our age… And back then we were embraced by that crowd. Now we’re embraced… Who else is…? I mean, I guess Joan Jett maybe. So, I don’t know. It’s cool. And metal bands and hard rock bands have always been pretty much kind to us and supportive of us.”

Here’s the thing about L7. They’ve been doing this since 1985. And even though they took a long break (indefinite hiatus sounds so much more dramatic, doesn’t it?) in 2001, they came back swinging in 2015. The reunion tour. The documentary (“L7: Pretend We’re Dead”, 2016). And finally, the first album in 20 years (“Scatter The Rats”, 2019, via Joan Jett’s Blackheart Records).

Fun fact? None of that was supposed to happen. At least, not the music part. “New music was not in the plan at all,” Sparks admitted to the Asbury Park Press. “We just got together to do reunion shows, and that just really kind of took off and we wanted to keep playing shows, we really enjoyed connecting with our fans again.

“Playing rock is fun and we hadn’t done it in a long time, and we realized, ‘Wow, this is really fun again,’ so we thought, ‘If we want to keep doing this, we should put out new music.’ And we felt we still had stuff to say and still wanted to express ourselves with new stuff.”

The last few years? A blur of shows, festivals, and chaos (the good kind). They headlined their “Fast And Frightening Takeover” at the Belasco Theater in Los Angeles last November—chaotic energy in its purest form. And let’s not forget their “In Your Space” U.S. tour in 2022, where they stomped through festivals like Louder Than Life and Aftershock.

What’s the moral here? You can’t pin L7 down. They’re punk. They’re metal. They’re anomalies. And if you don’t get them? Well, just hashtag it already.

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