The LA Times perfectly summarized L7’s image saying, “L7 causes nightclub ceilings to rain sweat, small women to dive off stages and entire crowds to shake their heads rhythmically, violently to the beat. Its sound is characterized by howls and throbbing waves of distorted fuzz guitar, its image by torn jeans, wild hair and whatever shirts its members happen to have been wearing that day.”
Suzi Gardner and Donita Sparks Meet
The group’s origins began with guitarists and vocalists Suzi Gardner & Donita Sparks who met in the mid 80’s. Up until this point, the pair were playing in separate pop acts around LA with Gardner telling Spin Magazine, “Donita and I met each other in 1985. We’d been floating around the same town, kind of following each other in jobs, and bands, and even with dudes. We had a lot of people telling us that we ought to meet.”
After finally meeting, Sparks played Gardner some of the material she was working on and they seemed to gel pretty quickly. Sparks was a native of Chicago who was a rebel from the get-go, learning to question everything. That attitude was instilled by her parents who would bring her to political rallies as a child. The music scene in Chicago never really spoke to Sparks so she moved out west to LA and got a writing job at LA weekly while also playing in bands.
Jennifer Finch and Dee Plakas Join the Band
The classic lineup of L7 didn’t come together overnight as Gardner and Sparks had what they called “the psycho rhythm section” before bassist Jennifer Finch joined in 1987. The band at this point, had a male drummer but the following year Dee Plakas came on board. The classic lineup of L7 was born & the group’s name was derived from a mid-century slang for square.
L7 soon developed a name for themselves through their live shows, which saw them blow away headliners. They became staples of popular Hollywood hotspots like Raji’s, Club Lingerie and the Gaslight.
“They’re fun, they’re exciting, and they’re spirited…” – Joey Ramone
The band would soon draw comparisons to punk pioneers, The Ramones with Joey Ramone taking it as a compliment telling Spin magazine, “They’re fun, they’re exciting, and they’re spirited. That’s how I feel we played a major role in inspiring them, and we’re proud of it.”
L7 had two goals in mind; tour the United States and tour Europe. In order to facilitate their first goal, they had to release a record, which they did in 1988 with indie label, Epitaph. Sadly the label folded several months after their debut LP came out.
Without a label, L7 hooked up with Seattle band Cat Butt who happened to have one member who worked for Sub Pop. It was that connection that led L7 to signing with Sub Pop becoming the only LA band on their roster.
Sparks revealed in the book, Grunge is Dead, “L7 had toured the country in 1988, but we never played Seattle. We were fortunate enough to hook up with Catt Butt and headed up to Seattle. My first impression of the town was flyers everywhere. It just seemed very alive, very youthful. The music community seemed really connected from my eyes.”
Sub Pop seemed to be the perfect partner for the band to reach their second goal of touring Europe. Jennifer Finch told the Orlando Sentinel that Sub Pop was “’the Gateway to Europe”.
L7 Become Regulars in the Seattle Club Scene
While signed to Sub Pop, L7 released a 7″ single on their collectors subscription series and it was followed up with an EP in 1990. L7 soon became regulars at clubs around Seattle.
While the band had a lot to celebrate, being an all-girl group also came with a lot of sexism and hardships as industry people and some music fans lumped them incorrectly as part of the Riot Grrrl movement or just another female rock band.
“What L7 doesn’t want to be is a women’s band, either in genre or in audience…” – Donita Sparks
In an interview with Spin Magazine, the article stated, “What L7 doesn’t want to be is a women’s band, either in genre or in audience. There was the girl-band thing, there was the fox core farce, there was the Seattle band farce, there was the grunge-rock thing,” Sparks said.
“We’ve been around longer than all that stuff. Basically we’re a rock band from Los Angeles. When we formed, we just wanted people to play with. We didn’t care what set of organs they had. We just wanted to f***rock,” said Gardner.
The band members also weren’t immune from misbehaving music business types as one promoter sexually harassed one of the members, resulting in the band going to the bathroom in his hat.
In the book, Grunge is Dead, L7 took a shot at the feminist Riot Grrrl movement with Sparks saying, “We’re not a Riot Grrrl band. I remember once seeing one of the bands passing out flyers, but not passing out any of the flyers to men in the room. Other than that I don’t really know completely what their agenda was. It was never really my bag.” In one interview L7 claimed that almost 90% of their audience at live shows were men.
The band soon became friends with Nirvana and opened for them in 1990. This was during the time when Kurt Cobain and company were being wined and dined by record labels while they were road-testing songs including “Smells Like Teen Spirit”.
Nirvana Drummer Dave Grohl would tell Rolling Stone, “One of the first people to say they thought Nevermind was going to be huge was Donita Sparks of L7 and I didn’t believe her. I was going, ‘There’s absolutely no way.'”
While the band entertained offers from major record labels, there were several problems. One was that labels had no clue how to market L7, and the other was that by signing to a major label, they may lose their credibility, creativity and identity.
L7 Signs with Slash Records
Following their stint with Sub Pop, L7 signed with Slash Records. Finch told the Orlando Sentinel, “At the top of our agenda was distribution, and we’ve run into problems with both of our previous indie releases. Slash acts as an indie although they have major distribution.”
For their next record, the band relocated to Madison, Wisconsin and recorded with producer Butch Vig for their first release with Slash Records. The resulting album was 1992’s Bricks Are Heavy which would be a career high for the band and produce their biggest single, “Pretend We’re Dead”.
“…And the first thing that came to my mind was, ‘I just pretend that you’re dead’…” – Donita Sparks
Sparks told Spin magazine the origins of the song, “I was in my apartment in Echo Park listening to the cassette I’d made, trying to write some lyrics. I was heartbroken at the time. I was actually devastated. And the first thing that came to my mind was, ‘I just pretend that you’re dead’. And I didn’t mean it in a malicious way, not like I wanted him dead or anything, but I truly felt the only way I could get through this was to pretend this guy was dead…”
In a separate interview, Sparks told Loudersound looking back at the band’s big break with Bricks Are Heavy, “We were just, like, sluggin’ it out in the underground in LA for many years. By the time it hit, it was just like, about f’ing time…”
“…We gave that six years of our lives and tried to make it work, and we felt that going to Slash was really a compromise…” – Jennifer Finch
Not everyone was celebrating L7’s jump to a bigger label. Finch recalled to the Orlando Sentinel, “We’ve been around for so long that we have a strong fan base that’s really on our side but there has been some problems with Maximum Rock ‘N’ Roll (an alternative scene magazine). They really have the idea that there should be fanzines, record companies, distributors and bands such as ours all working together to create this beautiful independent scene.
We gave that six years of our lives and tried to make it work, and we felt that going to Slash was really a compromise. It was really difficult for us. I think we’ve become a better band, and a little more diverse, but I certainly don’t think that we’re churning out upper-echelon, mainstream hits.”.
Slash Records offered L7 some big time touring opportunities, opening for the likes of the Beastie Boys, whose crowds were sometimes less than receptive.
Donita Sparks Drops Her Pants During Live Performance
The promotional tour for Bricks are Heavy landed the band in hot water across the pond in the UK. During an appearance on the UK variety television show, The Word, Sparks dropped her pants during the band’s performance.
The day L7 appeared on the program, the show presented a bare butt competition and secretly recorded guest Oliver Reed who was drunk in the green room. Sparks was angry at the show’s treatment of Reed and dropped her pants on TV.
“…I don’t know, parts of the show seemed slightly mean-spirited and I wanted to, um, f’ shit up.” – Donita Sparks
She told Loudersound, “That was a really long day. The other artists on the show were cool, but I thought it was a bit mean-spirited the way they had a hidden camera in Oliver Reed’s dressing room. I don’t know, parts of the show seemed slightly mean-spirited and I wanted to, um, f’ shit up.”
In the summer of 1992, L7 performed at the Reading Festival. L7 performed on a Sunday, which was mostly made up of “grunge bands” or alternative acts including the Melvins, Screaming Trees, Mudhoney and Nirvana.
It was during the same time period that L7 started championing a number of political causes including reproductive rights and protecting the environment. The latter of which earned the band a lot of death threats.
Sparks told Spin Magazine that their activism soon fell by the wayside later on in their career as a lot of their press interviews focused solely on their political opinions instead of their music.
Two years after Bricks are Heavy was released, the music scene had changed. Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain was dead and a new era of bands were taking over including Green Day, The Offspring and Britpop.
Drugs and Alcohol Take Hold Within the Group
The years on the road promoting Bricks are Heavy took a toll on the group with drugs and alcohol becoming the main focus of a lot of the band members.
In 1994, the band released a much darker album, Hungry For Stink. Sparks looked back telling Loudersound, “Hungry For Stink is darker. I think I was in a bit of a mood at that point. I was just in a dark place. That is reflected on songs like “Baggage” and “My Sanity” and it’s not a super-joyous album. We’ve always been a band that had shit going down even when things are on the upswing.”
By 1996, Bassist Jennifer Finch left the group due to financial disagreements, concerns with her health, in addition to dealing with the loss of her father.
By 1997, L7 was dropped by Slash Records. The band once again went the indie route, forming their own label called Wax Tadpole. They released their album Slap Happy in 1999 and partnered up with a label called Bong Load Records that was supposed to help license, market and distribute the record.
Billboard magazine in 1999 interviewed several record retailers who admitted that the buzz around the band had died down from almost half a decade earlier.
Suzi Gardner Leaves and L7 Breaks Up
It was around the time of Slap Happy being released that L7’s distributor closed its doors. They offered to sell copies of the album back to the band but they couldn’t afford it so the leftover copies ended up in a landfill. It was around 2000 when Gardner quit the band and by 2001, L7 were finished.
In the years that followed, the former members pursued other musical projects, but by 2010, things were set in motion for a full reunion of the classic lineup. The roots of the reunion began in 2011 when bassist Jennifer Finch was diagnosed with thyroid cancer.
For Gardner, music had taken a backseat in her life as she was taking care of her mother.
L7 Reunites for a Tour and Documentary
Soon enough the band was back together with drummer Dee Plakas by 2014. They toured extensively in the years that followed and released a documentary titled, Pretend We’re Dead.
Their latest album, Scatter the Rats was released in 2019.
Like this story? Check out The Tragic & Mysterious Death of Johnny Thunders
Check out our YouTube channel