The Donnas

The Donnas is an American all-female rock band from Palo Alto, California. They consist of Brett Anderson (lead vocals), Allison Robertson (guitar, backing vocals), Maya Ford (bass guitar, backing vocals) and Amy Cesari (drums, percussion, backing vocals). Cesari replaced Torry Castellano, who left the band in 2009 due to tendonitis. They draw inspiration from Ramones, The Runaways, AC/DC, Bachman–Turner Overdrive and Kiss.Rolling Stone has stated that "the Donnas offer a guileless take on adolescent alienation; they traffic in kicks, not catharsis, fun rather than rage".MTV has stated that the band offers "a good old-fashioned rock & roll party". After gathering a cult following in the punk scene since their 1993 debut, the band achieved major label commercial success in the early 2000s and afterward as their music mixed punk, metal and classic rock sounds.

History

Origins and early years: 1993–2001

All the founding band members were born in 1979; Brett Anderson on May 30 (vocals), Allison Robertson on August 26 (guitar, vocals), Maya Ford on January 8 (bass guitar, vocals), and Torry Castellano on January 8 (drums, percussion, vocals). They all became friends by eighth grade and formed as a band in May 1993 to play for their school's "Day on the Green." One of two girl bands in their town Palo Alto, California, they were relatively unknown until they were out of high school. They are all self-taught musicians and practiced in Castellano's garage nearly every day during high school. They called themselves "Ragady Anne" in their early days and shortly thereafter changed their name to "The Electrocutes"