Original subtitles

- [Donita] There's no one coming yet.

Downloaded from YTS.MX

- [Suzi] Just shut up and fuck me, dammit!

Official YIFY movies site: YTS.MX

Just shut up!

- I like it when you go, "Just shut up and fuck me,"

you know, "Just shut up and fuck!"

- [Suzi] Oh here's a guy.

- [Jennifer] Say it.

- [Suzi] Just shut up and fuck me, dammit!

Just shut up and fuck!

[group giggling over van creaking]

- [Jennifer] They laughed.

- [Donita] They did?

["Fast and Frightening" by L7]

[chugging punk rock music]

♪ Her glance hits me like lightning

♪ I heard that girl is fast and frightening

♪ Dirty hair and a laugh that's mean

♪ Her neighbors call her an evil machine

♪ She's fast, she's lean

♪ She's frightening

♪ She's fast, she's lean

♪ She's frightening

[chugging punk rock music]

♪ Down at the creek smokin' pot

♪ She eats the roach so she don't get caught

♪ Throws her mini off in the hall

♪ Got so much clit she don't need no balls

♪ She's fast, she's lean

♪ She's frightening

♪ She's fast, she's lean

♪ She's frightening

[static groaning]

- I'm Donita Sparks, guitar vocals.

- I'm Dee Plakas, drums.

- I'm Suzi Gardner, guitarist, vocals.

- I'm Jennifer Finch, bass, vocals.

[group shrieking over blaring truck horn]

["Shove" by L7]

[rhythmic grunge music]

- [Jennifer] There's just, um,

a limited amount of ferocious,

free-thinking kind of, I don't wanna say oddballs,

but we were just all built a little bit different.

♪ Bill collector called today

♪ Shove

♪ IRS is on my pay

We're a little drained.

- [Interviewer] A little drained?

- OK, should we fill the cup up somehow?

- We played tonight, and uh. [Suzi moaning]

- They were very politicized, I mean,

they spoke out against war, they had songs about feminism.

- They were openly, brazenly feminist,

and it was done with real balls-to-the-wall fire.

If it was easy to describe them,

then they wouldn't be great, right,

but, uh, it's just that they're a powerful band,

and sometimes, when women are powerful,

people think that that means, they're like,

"Why are they so mad?" and it's like,

"No, they're not mad, they're expressing, like, strength."

[chugging punk rock music]

- The first time I saw them, you know, it was electric.

- It was just a constant sonic assault.

- They were punk rockers at heart,

they would come up on stage and rip it up.

- They had the riffs, they had the songs, they just rocked.

[skittering and throbbing noise collage]

[pleasant rock music]

- [Suzi] In mid to late '80s in Los Angeles,

there were factions, there were hard rock, hair bands,

people of the Sunset Strip,

there were punks at the Anti Club and Al's Bar.

You could be anything at play Raji's,

I mean, you could be Screamin' Jay Hawkins or punk rockers.

Then, it became very cross over,

everybody was goin' everywhere.

- [Donita] That was an era in that period of the '80s,

art and rock mixed a lot.

I was sort of more into the Silver Lake scene,

which was just tiny, tiny at that point,

but, you know, where rock was mixed with performance art,

poetry readings, drag shows, you know.

We were playing anything we could get on.

But, you know, our very first coverage

was from the metal scene.

[chugging hard rock guitar]

And there were all-female metal bands, for sure, but,

you know, it was a much different thing than we were doing.

We liked hard rock in the Motorhead vein,

we didn't like it in the Poison vein.

We didn't tease our hair, we didn't wear a lot of makeup.

We weren't wearin' bustiers.

If we were gonna be looked at, we were thrashin'.

["Everglade" by L7]

[chugging hard rock music]

We were a very physical band, you know,

doin' knee drops and head banging

and flingin' our hair and divin' in the audience.

♪ Glade told her ma, home scene's lame

♪ I gotta go

♪ Head into town, blow some steam at the rock show

- [Dee] Rockin', like, you know, legs spread wide apart,

guitars low, rockin' it, you know.

We weren't The Bangles, you know.

No one was tryin' to look really pretty

or worried about anything but just rockin'.

- [Jennifer] Really, we came with authenticity,

and I think that our generation

was about identifying the authentic.

♪ So you wanna have some fun

♪ Well, break out the big guns

- [Suzi] I imagined that we'd probably do

a couple regional tours, like up to Seattle, San Diego,

San Francisco, and then we'd probably fizzle.

L7 and the L7 trajectory is a trip.

It's kind of classic,

it's rags-to-riches-to-rags [chuckles].

[chugging hard rock music]

[dreamy harp accent]

My mom took me to see Liberace when I was little,

and he did 13 costume changes, it was pretty amazing.

She didn't like rock and roll music at the beginning.

You know, when I was a kid, she took away the radios

because I was listening to the devil's music.

I'd hide it under my pillow

and that'd make her even more mad,

that I was sleep-learning the devil's music,

but she came around.

- [Donita] I wanted to get the hell out

of the South Side of Chicago,

which was, culturally, pretty bleak.

At that time, you know, you had fantasies

of movin' to New York or London, or Berlin.

I was like, wow, I really like surf music

and I loved, like, Hollywood Babylon kind of stuff,

so then I completely got obsessed with L.A.,

and, like, singular focused to move to Los Angeles,

and I didn't know anybody.

- [Suzi] Donita and I were traveling

in the same circle of people,

kind of LA Weekly, music, arty crowd.

I had done some poetry performances

and I got published a little bit,

but that's not what I wanted, I mean,

somebody who was a poet should have gotten really excited,

but after a while, I kept seeing my name

being associated with poetry

and I was actually kinda ticked off about that.

I really wanted to rock!

- [Donita] Suzi and I were from this

underground art punk scene on the East Side of L.A.,

Silver Lake, Echo Park,

that's where, like, all the arty punks lived.

Our mutual friends were just like,

"Yeah, well you should meet Suzi, she plays guitar,"

and they were like, "Yeah, you should meet Donita.

"She plays guitar."

Suzi, to me, was wild in the way of,

she seemed like a gal with not much to lose.

Her lifestyle was a little bit,

it was edgier than mine in a dangerous way.

Suzi hung out with bikers and shit.

She looked very punk mixed with metal,

and I was more like goofy wild.

I'd wear Coca Cola pants and shit like that.

I wasn't really a fishnet kinda gal, Suzi was.

- [Suzi] Donita seemed a little more aggressive than I was.

[laughs] It got kind of intense once in a while.

I wondered, like, how am I gonna work with this person,

but, um, I stuck it out

and she thought my songs were good, I guess.

- [Donita] I went over to her apartment in Silver Lake

and she played me a cassette of the music

she was working on, and I was like, "Oh my God!"

It was hard and it was heavy and it was, um, sludgy.

Suzi had the first musical template for L7.

[sludgy hard rock music]

I think Suzi was concerned

that I was gonna be too political.

Suzi just wanted purely wanted to rock, you know?

I kind of felt like I had somethin' to say.

I was raised to be political,

I was raised to question authority.

Suzi wanted to express her emotions,

I wanted to change the world somehow.

We went through a succession of players.

It was, like, a year and a half,

"Oh, we need a new bass player, oh, we need a new drummer."

Generally, dudes who wanted to play hard rock

had no desire to play with women.

It was just taboo at the time.

- [Suzi] We just kept, we had to put ads

in the paper to find new people.

Looking for a drummer who would like Ramones,

Frightwig, Iggy Pop.

We didn't care what gender, as long as they rocked.

- [Donita] It was really, really hard.

Shitty gigs and just weird people around.

Being broke all the time, trying to keep our part-time jobs,

keep our cars running,

and there were times when she wanted to stop

and there were times when I wanted to stop,

and each of us talked each other back into it,

you know, like to keep going.

It was a couple years of me and Suzi sluggin' it out,

the dark days.

[sludgy hard rock music]

♪ Oh

- [Donita] And that's when Jennifer came in.

[scattered applause from crowd]

There was this persistent chick

who had come to see our shows,

and she approached me and she was like, "I wanna play bass."

She almost challenged me to let her in the band.

- [Jennifer] I didn't really know very much about bass.

I had been playing with Courtney Love,

but it was very limited and, um, I had to borrow a bass

and learn what an amplifier was really quick.

- [Donita] We were almost on our last legs

when Jennifer came into the band,

and Jennifer was very driven.

- [Suzi] She was very passionate

and she knew a lotta people, and she went out a lot,

and, um, she rocked like head-bangin' crazy.

- [Jennifer] I knew I would have to make up

for my inability to play with attitude.

[thrashing hard rock music]

- [Suzi] It started feeling more real after Jennifer joined

because, just started feeling more like a rock unit,

and she was very socially connected.

- [Donita] Jennifer was a kid on the L.A. punk rock scene

and there was some momentum.

- [Suzi] She had a network of people

that she could call and booked gigs.

[traffic humming]

- [Donita] The fact that we were starting to be embraced

by this metal scene was very surprising to me.

There was a lot of, uh, testosterone,

it seemed very misogynistic.

We were the antithesis of that scene.

Jennifer came in in, like, '87, we recorded a record,

and then the next year, 1988,

we went on tour with Bad Religion.

When we came home, it was just kind of

back to the same old struggle.

Our drummer quit, then people told us about Dee.

[sludgy hard rock music]

- [Dee] I was in my living room, stoned,

listening to Patti Smith's Radio Ethiopia,

and I hear a knock on the door and I see Donita.

I was like, "Damn, chick is fierce-looking!"

I was like, "Oh my God," you know,

like memories of, like, being in Chicago

in the bathroom at one of those punk rock places,

because I never looked very punk,

and I almost got my hair cut off

in one of those bathrooms without my consent.

- [Donita] And she called me up and said,

"I wanna come down and audition,"

and pulled up in a Country Squire station wagon.

And as soon as she played, it was, like perfect, you know,

and Suzi and I just looked at each other like, "Fuck yes!"

Numerous friends from other bands were like,

"This is your missing link, this was the one,"

you know, now, it's go time.

["'Til the Wheels Fall Off" by L7]

♪ You and me 'til the wheels fall off

♪ Aw, that's right

♪ You and me, we just fit

♪ I'm addicted, I just can't quit

♪ You and me 'til the wheels fall off

- [Donita] There were a lot of labels all over the country

that had strong scenes bubbling up,

like there was Minneapolis and Seattle

and Portland, and Houston and Austin,

and Chapel Hill and New York City, you know,

and Sub Pop was one of the strong indie labels.

Jennifer and Courtney were listening to a lot of records

out of Seattle, on Sub Pop in particular,

and we figured, we better get up there.

[chugging grunge rock music]

When we got to Seattle, it was on fire.

There was just an energy there, for sure.

They were much more progressive than L.A.,

it was like night and day.

You had the cool guys who were all PC

and they were all feminists who were, like,

not threatened by us and thought we were cool and good.

We were being accepted as a real fuckin' rock band.

- [Dee] Jennifer was always in touch and in tune

with this label and that, everything that was going on.

So, the guys from Sub Pop were coming to see us live.

- [Donita] They liked our set a lot

and wanted to know if we would do a Sub Pop

Single of the Month Club, which was like a huge deal,

so we recorded Shove for a January, 1990 release.

It sort of kicked off the '90s for us

and we had an underground hit on our hands.

["Shove" by L7]

[rhythmic grunge rock music]

♪ Bill collector called today

♪ Shove

♪ IRS is on my pay

♪ Shove

♪ My boss says I should comb my hair

♪ Shove

♪ My father thinks that I'm nowhere

♪ Get out of my way or I might shove

- [Donita] We used to joke that Sub Pop

was the gateway to Europe,

and it was for us because we toured Europe.

All of a sudden, this single, you know,

four-and-a-half years into our band life,

was breathing life into it.

♪ Get outta my way

[noisy guitar flourish]

This scene was all over the world at that point.

- [Donita] We knew tons of cool bands

in the underground by then.

Everybody was getting a lot of attention.

For L7, the momentum, you just felt it.

[crowd cheering]

- [Jennifer] Every show in 1990 was an epic event.

There were promoters that didn't pay us,

that we had to make them empty their pinball machines.

There was a promoter that touched Donita inappropriately,

so we all peed in his hat.

We broke down in Barstow,

and my father came and picked us up.

Craziness, vans breaking, explosions, knife fights.

["Broomstick" by L7]

♪ I've got my broomstick, baby

♪ I've got my paperback novel

♪ I'm gonna lay right here

♪ I ain't gonna grovel

- [Donita] We were forced to sleep on people's floors,

so in doing that, you get to meet their friends,

and the whole scene, you know.

Usually, the people who are asking you

if you need a place to stay, you know,

Mudhoney were there the week before on their floor.

[rhythmic grunge rock music]

Sub Pop said we'd like to make a record with you,

so we did Smell the Magic.

We recorded that up in Seattle with Jack Endino.

- [Dee] It was such a punk rock, DIY recording session.

- He just liked raw power comin' out.

["Fast and Frightening" by L7]

♪ Her glance hits me like lightning

♪ I heard that girl is fast and frightening

Fast and Frightening is an homage to a wild female,

'cause I've always hated, "Oh, she's got balls," you know.

And I'm like, why do people fucking say that?

That's so lame, you know,

like why does it take balls to be fierce?

♪ Got so much clit, she don't need no balls

♪ She's fast, she's lean

I like to contradict, you know, the status quo in rock.

Nobody played a V, it was, like, considered a very metal,

douche guitar, and so I just thought it was hilarious.

Even with my gear, I was a stubborn non-conformist.

♪ Poppin' wheelies on her motorbike

At that time, bands from the underground

were getting on MTV.

If I were at a friend's house and 120 Minutes came on,

it was like, "Oh, Sonic Youth is on," you know,

like, "Holy shit, Sonic Youth are on MTV?"

- [Jennifer] You know, L7 started to talk about

what would the possibility look like to be on a major label.

- [Donita] It was a distribution issue for us,

it was like, "Oh, man, we have to be in the stores more."

Even though Sub Pop was great, once you were on a major,

then you were everywhere,

and I was very much into infiltrating the masses.

- [Jennifer] Slash had a deal with Warner Bros.,

and we were all friends with everyone at Slash.

Really, it was such a great move for us

as far as being part of a historical Los Angeles label.

- [Donita] We got a shit deal from Slash, you know,

but on the other hand, we became worldwide.

As far as major labels

knowing what to do with us, they didn't.

We didn't have a good record deal.

I don't think I've seen a dime from the sale of our records,

but we signed to Slash, I quit my job at the Weekly,

and then we were in the studio with Butch Vig.

This fuckin' big fuckin' moment,

and they treat us, we're treated--

[traffic roar drowns out dialog]

- [Jennifer] Suzi, just start singin'.

♪ Well, I met gin-soaked bar room queen in Memphis

♪ And I had to take her upstairs for a ride

[cowbell thunking]

♪ Well, she had to heave me round on the

[both laughing]

- [Jennifer] Excuse me, ma'am, why are you staring at me?

- Elvis stayed here.

- [Jennifer] Who?

- Elvis.

- [Jennifer] Can you point me--

- [Donita] Would you speak to Elvis?

- I believe it's the one that you're in.

- [Donita] The one that we're in?

- [Dee] Elvis stayed in the same suite that we're in?

- [Donita] In the abnormality suite?

- Thank you.

- [Donita] Dee, what did you just order, honey?

- I ordered, uh, two Miller Genuine Drafts and two Sharp's.

- [Suzi] Party down!

- We're partying down here--

- [Suzi] Party naked!

- Look, this is rock and roll.

- Well, OK, a toast, we're stuck here for a month.

[group cheers]

- Our first record that's gonna make Billboard.

[group laughs]

♪ Please don't hate me 'cause I'm beautiful

♪ Please don't hate me 'cause I'm lovely

[Dee humming a tune]

♪ You'll be better off when you all

Or would you rather be a stool,

a stool is a pile of excrement, in case you didn't know.

[Suzi cackling]

- Here's Suzi and I's bedroom.

You know, there's no safety liner over the toilet.

- [Donita] We're now talking to John,

who just, uh, informed us

that he's marrying the chick from The Smashing Pumpkins.

- And now, there's something I'm gonna ask you,

but believe me, don't think this, I'm being silly,

but it's important because, like I said,

I'm an experienced, married woman, you know.

I mean, how's the sex?

It's pretty awesome, that's good.

She gives good head and all that?

Hey, that's an important, look!

Kirk woulda dumped me in a second

if I couldn't suck the chrome off a trailer hitch.

[all guffawing]

- [Manager] This is L7. [group chattering]

- [Dee] Look at all the records they've done here!

- [Donita] Is this the single?

- [Dee] I know, I was gonna say.

- [Suzi] Ow!

- [Dee] I like that photo, kinda interesting.

- Seltzer, seltzer, Pepsi, Mountain Dew,

and triple X is, of course, ice cold Frosties.

- [Donita] OK, this is all for us?

- It's illegal to advertise if there's anything

other than triple X in there, so.

- [Dee] But there's really beer in here?

- Yes, ice cold Frosties.

["Diet Pill" by L7]

[chugging hard rock music]

♪ Nightmare, nightmare

♪ In the daylight

- [Donita] [chuckles] That was cool.

♪ Written on the wall

- [Butch] Pretty good, it sounds cool!

- [Suzi] Part of it, all of it?

- Why does everything take five hours?

- Because we're professionals.

- [Butch] That's a good answer.

- Because we're pro!

- Because we're professionals.

- No, because we care, because we care.

- While we were in the studio with Butch,

Nirvana released Nevermind and it blew up.

It would be like if, all of a sudden,

one day you woke up and your kid sister or kid brother

was internationally famous, overnight.

That's what it felt like.

Everywhere I go, everywhere I turn, I see this fucking face!

Frankly, I'm sick of it and then there's White Zombie.

- [Suzi] White Zombie and Teenage Fan Club are in there, T!

- And Superchunk.

- [Suzi] Superchunk, see, all our friends are in this--

- And we'll never be in there.

- [Suzi] We'll never make it!

- Are you singing on the chorus on this?

- [Donita] Yes, I am!

- We gotta, we gotta do this chorus.

I don't want her to do the back vocal,

er, her vocal, until you do your vocal,

because she's singin' under you, right?

- [Donita] Yeah, I'm mounting her, as it were.

[Butch laughs]

- Three weeks on the road

and we're playin' ball in the hall.

- [Dee] You ready?

Begin.

[Jennifer counting over sporadic whoopee cushion gurgles]

[group laughing]

- [Donita] Suzi, would you get the walnuts

that are in the kitchen

so we can leave 'em for the squirrels?

- Oh, yeah.

Hey, look, the squirrels are lookin' for ya,

they think you're nuts.

[group moaning]

- [Cameraman] OK, now come towards me.

- Da Bears, Da Bears!

Yeah, yo Mike Ditka!

- [Cameraman] Come towards me!

- [MC] Suburban, middle class white America,

get ready for the most dangerous women

in the country. [crowd shouting]

L7! [crowd cheering]

[sludgy grunge rock music]

["Lost Cause" by L7]

[thrashing hard rock music]

♪ Look at that fact, look at those eyes

♪ Look at those legs

♪ She's a lost cause, she's a lost, lost cause

[group chattering]

[group cheering]

[peppy Latin jazz music]

- [Suzi] Rollin' a join on the Nirvana Spin!

Screw in '92!

[traffic humming]

[crowd laughing]

- Are you supposed to be extras on the Weird Al video?

- Why yes, we are, let's go!

- [Donita] [laughs] Oh, Jesus!

- No, we're doing our own video.

- [Donita] Hey are you guys goin' over there?

- Yeah.

- [Donita] Tell 'em L7's at Stage Four.

["Pretend That We're Dead" by L7]

♪ When we pretend that we're dead

- [Dee] We did the video for Fast and Frightening

with Gore Verbinsky, that was our first video.

That was really fun, that was like, punk rock, too.

That was just like the opposite of doing Pretend We're Dead.

You know, Pretend We're Dead was like a big,

you know, music video.

- [Director] Playback!

♪ They can't hear one word we've said

♪ When we pretend

- [Dee] That caused Donita a lotta grief.

She was not pleased about a lot of the stuff,

was fighting for her creative view, you know.

What she wanted and, you know, what they wanted,

and, "Oh, you can't have the roadkill in there,

"and you can't have," you know, and it was just like,

we just started gettin' that taste of being on a major.

Donita did not like losing control of the art.

It was exciting, since Suzi got hit in the head

with the crane, of course, that wasn't exciting.

- [Suzi] All of a sudden, I hear somebody shout

really loudly, like, "Hey!"

Then the camera came down and the matte box

hit my hear and it ripped my ear off,

not all the way, but ripped my ear, like,

so the whole back of it was a cut, like [mimics squishing].

It broke a bone in my orbital,

I still have numbness to this day from that.

The, uh, album is titled Bricks Are Heavy.

- But we're changing that since Suzi's crane accident

to Cranes are Heavy.

- Yeah.

- We blame Suzi for everything.

- Yeah, I know.

- She broke the camera with her head.

- You know, it fell on me from 20,

the camera fell on me from 20 feet in the air,

and I narrowly escaped with my life.

["Wargasm" by L7]

- [Jennifer] Here she comes, culo first.

- I can't find my other boot!

Is that place open over there?

- Yeah.

- [Donita] Can you go inside?

- Yes.

- OK, thank you.

- [Jennifer] Are you gonna walk over there?

- I'm gonna piss somewhere.

Oh, Jesus [laughs]!

Black reel material.

- [Jennifer] Whoa, look at that!

- Wow, I'm impressed, Donita!

Look at the over spray on that!

Hey, can we get a tape measure out here?

♪ Sex farm baby

♪ Got to get out of this hellhole

- What, did you get a new camera?

- [Jennifer] Yeah, we got a new camera, now, check this out.

- Oh, that tickles, I can't tell you how much I like this!

- [Dee] Oh, we know, you freak!

Wait, turn around!

- [Donita] Let me help you, son, you [laughs].

[group laughing]

Let me help you, son.

[group laughing]

- [Dee] Don't hurt her! [Donita screaming]

Don't hurt her!

[all laughing]

[chugging hard rock music]

- [Donita] We brought out the exhibitionist in our roadies.

- [Jennifer] It just seems that if you're involved with L7,

you probably are just something of like a nudist

and life-lover, so you don't mind running naked on stage.

[chugging hard rock]

- [Donita] We didn't ask them to do anything

beneath their dignity, they volunteered.

[chugging hard rock music]

- We're gonna be stayin' up in hotel rooms,

smokin' big cigars.

Having big old bags of beads, countin' our money.

We gotta hire a different guy just to count money.

- Please welcome L7!

[audience cheers]

- [Suzi] I don't know if meticulous

is the right word with the band image,

but we were aware of the scrutiny

that we were getting for being all gals.

Uh, how to put this into words,

I guess I just have to say it.

You couldn't be too sexy.

If you were too fluffy or cutesy or something,

then you weren't gonna be noticed as being a musician.

And, um, I think we were aware of that.

- So, lemme ask you, I mean, um.

I was thinking, well, how do I ask them a question

that has anything to do with being four women

without one of 'em wanting to, like,

hit me or something like that, are you--

- How do you know we're women?

- How do you know we're women, are you sure?

- I've--

- No one knows but our hairdressers.

- Maybe it is a big assumption.

Is this something that everybody still asks you guys about,

is being a quote-unquote girl group

and do you just not deal with it?

- Well, you know, it's a part of us, I mean,

we are who we are, you know,

but there's many parts of us as well.

- We not only have poontangs we also have armpits.

- [Host] That's right, many parts to the anatomy, exactly.

- [Suzi] We really wished that gender would just go away,

that we would be seen as rock musicians.

You know, Donita did a really good job with, like,

screwed up, crazy lipstick and eyes,

and Donita and Jennifer would put stripes on their bodies.

"What is it like to be a girl in a band?"

It just was annoying, you know?

The point was to rock and please recognize us for our rock.

- When L7 formed and they started playing,

they were an anomaly

because they were as heavy as the fuckin' boys.

- What I liked about L7 is they were not afraid to be ugly,

but they knew that that's not enough.

That's not enough to just be a cute face,

and, uh, their music was raunchy and a bit ugly, too.

- They weren't tryin' to appeal to anybody,

they weren't trying to appease anybody.

- You know, they were really the first band that I saw

where they looked very, you know, raw.

They were not, I mean, even if they wear makeup,

it's not to look hot

or they're not trying to sell sex at all,

which is why L7 is a really big inspiration, I think,

for everybody that was kind of exposed at that time.

- There are a lot of women in the audience tonight,

so while you're doing your thing in the pit,

please be considerate of them, that's all we're askin', OK?

- Unfortunately for women,

they have been sidelined to a certain degree.

They're not necessarily always seen as legitimate,

or as important, or as deep or intellectual,

or whatever word you want to use as their male counterparts.

- What the fuck, we're girls!

What is up with that?

- There was so much blah-blah-blah about women in rock

at that time that I just think back and I cringe.

It was noteworthy and it was worthy of conversation,

but it got so tedious being asked all the time

what it's like to be a woman in rock,

and I can only imagine what it felt like for them.

- I think they had a good time, like,

making fun of a lot of interviewers,

and [chuckles] they poked fun at everything,

but it's unfair for them to be labeled in that way

and I think a lot of female musicians

got really pissed off about that label.

[chugging hard rock music]

- So, you put on an L7 record and it rocks,

and so then, it transcends all that,

you know, gender and all that.

- Just forge through and just play a badass show.

They always did, you know,

and that was constantly inspirational,

but that's the only response you can give 'em,

really, is turn it up!

♪ Hello Daddy, hello Mom

♪ I'm your ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch cherry bomb

- [Donita] The abortion rights issue was really,

just, gettin' hammered, you know.

I have been, you know, in the 80s, I was protecting clinics,

you know, on a Saturday morning and shit,

draggin' my ass outta bed.

So when we got some clout, we wanted to do a pro-choice

benefit concert and partnered up

with The Feminist Majority Foundation

and started Rock For Choice.

The first show was at the Hollywood Palace

and it was Nirvana, L7, Hole, and Sister Double Happiness.

We did a lot more shows in L.A.

and then they spread all over the country.

If you think of any big act from that time period,

I mean, from Iggy Pop to Joan Jett

to Fugazi to the Offspring, Beastie Boys,

Chili Peppers, Bikini Kill, The Lunachicks,

Babes in Toyland, everybody did a Rock For Choice show.

[pounding hard rock music]

Did ya'll sign the pro-choice petitions out front--

[crowd cheering drowns out dialog]

All it takes is a signature.

- Here's L7 at the White House!

- [Onlooker] Hey, hey, ho, ho

George Bush has got to go!

- [Donita] The Positive Force DC show was historic.

It was the night before the March on Washington

for pro-choice and it was with Bikini Kill,

Fugazi, and L7.

We've been under a lotta pressure lately

and, you know, it would really, like,

allow us to blow off some steam

if you danced for us onstage tonight.

- Onstage, yeah.

- [Dee] And we have a costume for you to wear.

- [Suzi] Ian, we're simple women with simple desires.

- You are simple women, there's no doubt about that.

[Dee laughs]

- Oh, that's gotta hurt!

- Oh, God, that made me hurt my feelings, oh, gosh.

- [Suzi] We're simple women with simple minds.

- [Ian] Fair enough.

I can't argue with that kinda logic.

- I called Ian and his band the Alan Aldas of punk.

He called us the Carol Burnetts of punk.

[pounding hard rock music]

I think we had the most feminist moment onstage

with Slymenstra Hymen coming out and doing her fire dance,

but the audience kinda poo-pooed it,

like, they couldn't get the humor of it.

You know, the GWAR and Fugazi scenes were very different.

I mean, how can you not fucking love Slymenstra Hymen?

[chugging hard rock music]

Maybe we overshot it, we were activists in that way,

but, like, as far as, like, becoming spokespeople for stuff,

we kinda thought, well, shit, we're a band.

You know, 'cause in interviews, we wanted to talk

about the music, we wanted to talk about our touring,

but it was getting very focused on pro-choice.

And so, even though Rock For Choice kept going

and still had huge concerts,

we had to pull back and focus on the band.

- L7, in the history of rock,

is like really, really, really important,

but I think L7 was way more impactful in my life

because it was all girls and also, it was really aggressive.

- We just listened to them all the time, constantly,

in the garage and in my bedroom

and on my Walkman CD player walking to school,

walking back from school, in school.

- That time period was really incredible

for women in music.

It was a time when girls were feeling empowered

to go out and be aggressive,

and I don't mean just turn around and punch somebody,

but go out and do whatever it was they wanted to do,

encouraged to be themselves.

- Hello, I Donita Sparks from L7,

don't hate me because I'm beautiful,

and whenever we're in The Big Apple,

we watch, [groans], On Patrol Video.

- [Interviewer] Really?

- Really, well, that and Geraldo.

- Let's see.

- [Dee] That's when my dad, my sister told me this,

and she said, "he watched you on David Letterman,

"from his big chair."

- Uh, tonight, making their network television debut,

please welcome L7!

[crowd cheering]

[chugging hard rock music]

- [Dee] And he, "Ah,

"I guess she did know what she was doin'."

Up till that moment, you know,

he didn't believe it could be a career for me,

until I was on the TV, and of course,

'cause that, he could tell all his friends,

"My daughter was on David Letterman, did you see it?"

Like, "Oh, yeah, we saw her, Harry,

"knockin' over everything."

[noisy hard rock music]

- L7, Paul, whatta ya think?

- Yeah, swingin' band.

- I just hope the girls aren't starting

to run around with the wrong crowd.

[audience laughs]

- [Jennifer] We flew to England and we got picked up

at the airport by London Records in a limousine,

and I remember, Donita and I were like,

"Who's paying for this?"

OK, who's paying for this?

- You are!

Get in the car!

- [Jennifer] We were in this limo,

going to our hotel or whatever, right into interviews,

and our publicity person said, "How does it feel

"to be in the Top of the Pops?" and I was like, "What?"

I don't think I really understood

what they were talking about,

that L7 had really broken a huge barrier

in England pop culture, in British music.

I was still working as a maid, like I still had a day job.

[engine rumbling]

- [Donita] Are you playing here tonight?

- Yeah.

- [Donita] We're playing there tonight.

- Are you L7?

- [Donita] Uh-huh.

[man shrieks]

- L7!

- [Suzi] We were becoming more a part of the music machine,

you know, um, with publicity

and all those things going for us.

I mean, if you don't do those things,

then you're not gonna chart.

♪ Hey, there, Georgie girl

♪ La la la la la la la la la

["Slide" by L7]

♪ I put your stuff out on the porch

♪ Lettin' you slide

♪ You piss in your pants and put out the torch

♪ Lettin' you slide

♪ You splattered the bathroom with your hair dye

♪ Lettin' you slide

♪ I'm a-kickin' you out and you know why

♪ Yeah, I been lettin' you slide

♪ You been along for the ride

Is it on, why isn't the light on?

- [Interviewer] Donita, welcome in our studio.

- Thank you.

- [Interviewer] OK, let's start with Los Angeles.

- Um, trashy and beautiful.

- [Interviewer] Touring.

- Um, pleasure and pain.

I feel like I'm on a game show.

- [Interviewer] Well, it's kind of a game, this is, yeah.

Holland.

- Um, wooden shoes and windmills and talking backwards.

[crowd chuckling]

- [Interviewer] Glamor.

- L7.

[crowd chuckling]

["Venus in Furs" by The Velvet Underground

♪ Kiss the corn of shiny, shiny callous

♪ Shiny callous, on my toe

♪ Get the pad of furry, furry velvet

♪ Furry velvet, by Doctor Scholl

[punchy hard rock music]

- You just got back from tour over in Europe.

- Correct.

- Right, you know, I was talkin' to the other girls

and they said that went real good.

- It went very well, very fruitful tour.

- [Suzi] I noticed something happening

from our inception to charting in England and stuff.

It is getting bigger.

- So, it's gotta be kinda wild 'cause things

are really startin' to happen for L7 right now.

I mean, just from being this really core of people,

that all the people that listen to college radio

were into L7, but now, it's like, a lotta people

that are out there buying Pantera or Ozzy Osbourne.

- Who sit on chairs like this.

- Who sit on, yeah, and on shows like The Headbangers Ball!

- I really didn't think women could play rock,

but then I saw you and imagine my surprise!

What do you think about that?

- I despise Marcy now.

- Yes.

- [Announcer] This is 5PM Live.

[pleasant orchestral music]

- You will not be sorry you tuned into this show.

This is a show with variety.

Today, we're going to meet people who want to be mummified

when they die, that's a new trend.

And where do old rock and rollers go?

Well, to a rock and roll retirement home,

such a place is in the works,

and we're going to meet the band L7.

You didn't want us to say that you're an all-female group,

well, obviously, you are,

so, I guess we don't need to say that, do we?

- No, we don't, Paula. [group laughing]

- But I just did, sorry.

Well, now I heard that you had done as well as The Go-Gos,

as they first started out, is that true?

- [Donita] We're nowhere near, look,

we've gone copper with our record,

they went, like, multi-multi-platinum.

We're only in the semi-precious metal category right now.

- [Paula] Well, how long have you been doing this?

- [Donita] Seven years.

- [Suzi] I think I'm gonna pass up the rock retirement home

and go straight to the mummy guy.

That's how long I've been at this.

- I love how you've been paying attention to 5PM Live.

What do our four-legged friends

and our feathered friends have in common?

Sometimes, they're friends with each other, stay with us.

[crowd shouting]

- So, what's up? [crowd shouting]

Oh, thank you, they're throwing mud at us, that's lovely!

Welcome to Redding, nuh-huh!

- [Reporter] L7 have become famous

for their riot grrrl anthems,

including this one, my own particular favorite,

which contains the timeless lyric,

"Got so much clit, she don't need no balls."

♪ Got so much clit, she don't need no balls

- [Reporter] Exactly.

- [Donita] That show was a big deal for us,

to get on that show, you know, it was big.

Nirvana was the headliner, at their peak.

[rhythmic hard rock music]

We had no sound check, they just threw ya out there.

[mic feedback humming]

- Well, we're having some technical problems up here,

being the professionals that we are.

[chugging hard rock music]

- [Suzi] As a performer, what makes a difference

between a really good show and a piss-poor show

or one that you had a bad night,

if the sound is crappy onstage, just forget it.

You're fakin' it, you're pretending

that you're havin' a good time because you're not.

You're actually, you're thinking,

"How in the hell can I get outta here?"

- Wait a minute, wait a minute,

wait a minute, wait a minute!

It was tough out there and the monitors sucked

and we were pelted with mud the entire time.

Redding is like a sheep farm,

so it's like mud mixed with shit.

Doh, you got Suzi's guitar, that's so uncool!

And God bless Becky Wreck of The Lunachicks.

Becky was eggin' on the crowd

to throw the mud at her, and not us, you know.

Got me, ha ha ha ha ha! [crowd shouting]

Got me again!

One of the reasons why I threw the tampon

was, like, to save me from this situation,

you know, I just wanted to do something

that would amuse me to, like,

'cause I wasn't having a good time.

I couldn't get my pants down because they were duct-taped,

'cause I'd had no belt.

It was ridiculous, it was just not smooth at all.

I had to announce what I was doing

'cause there were no jumbotrons or anything.

All right, I got a little present for y'all.

[Jennifer laughs]

Eat my used tampon, fuckers! [crowd chuckling]

- [Jennifer] Oh, Jesus, watch out for tuberculosis.

- [Donita] After that show,

we walked offstage feeling deflated.

Jennifer and I both kinda looked at each other.

That was the first hiccup that I felt,

and I think she felt it, too,

because we both kinda were, like, sorta speechless.

But, we just went into a trailer and there was our publicist

and I said, "Get a press release ready."

["Scrap" by L7]

♪ I met a skinhead named Scrap

♪ He lived in my friend's garage

♪ Everyday, he's shakin' that spray paint can

♪ And comes out seein' stars

♪ Grab a paper bag like an oxygen mask

♪ Until your mind starts to gel

♪ 'Cause the ball in the can has a crazy beat

♪ The funky dying brain cell

- You'd lie to me, you lie to me.

- No doubt about that.

- [Manager] You lie to me about anything else [chuckles].

- [Suzi] We're getting our instructions.

- [Donita] Hey guys. - Beep-beep.

- [Donita] What's happenin'?

[group chattering]

Oh, look at that crane, oh, Jesus!

It's just waitin' to land on someone's head.

- [Jennifer] Suzi, just look up.

- [Donita] Suzi, you look smashing against this backdrop!

- [Jennifer] Just look at, look at all the things above her.

- [Donita] You look very swinging London.

Our appearance on The Word was kinda weird

because the whole show was pretty silly.

It was kind of an all-over-the-place sort of variety show

and we showed up and they had a male bum contest going on.

- [Host] Tonight on The Word, the best buns in Britain!

[explosion rumbling]

- [Announcer] The Word!

- Take it from me, tonight's show is gonna be hot,

hotter than Windsor Castle, in fact,

and to kick off tonight, [audience chuckling]

this is our full-color, four new girls, L7 to take--

- One, two, three, four!

["Pretend That We're Dead" by L7]

- [Donita] And I knew it was live TV,

and I just decided to get weird with it.

[rhythmic hard rock music]

♪ Come on, come on, come on, come on

[rhythmic hard rock music]

[crowd cheering]

- L7 made a big splash on The Word,

but producer Paul Ross says L7

won't be banned from the show.

Next time, however,

the group will be required to wear suspenders.

- [Donita] Then we got home and we got an offer

to play Brazil, that was massive.

[audience cheering]

We didn't know how we would be received,

we had no idea how big we were,

but we were, like, huge in Brazil.

- [Suzi] The whole experience was really surreal

from the moment we touched down.

- [Dee] All the kids were waiting

at the airport for the arrival!

- [Suzi] We got on a bus, there were all these other bands.

They were in different buses, we had security guys.

The had guns in their sock, they had, like,

ankle holsters with guns in them.

It was just really weird, handguns, you know.

They were packin'.

- At the hotel they'll be thousands of kids.

Every time you leave the hotel, you're gonna get gripped.

What might happen is, you'll never go out by yourself.

That's rule one, never leave the hotel by yourself,

and in most cases, there will be a security person

with you when you go out, all right?

In a lot of cases, you'll be leaving

through the back door of the hotel.

- [Donita] Aw, they're all girls, how cool!

- [Jennifer] Oh my God!

- [Donita] That's awesome!

[crowd screaming and cheering]

[group chattering]

- [Crowd] L7, L7, L7, L7!

[crowd cheering]

- [Donita] It was a great experience,

but it was also very sort of alienating.

- [Suzi] Police escorts to the stadium.

It was funny and surreal,

but you could also see where that would get

really scary after awhile.

- [Jennifer] Dude, I got a stomachache.

[group chattering]

- [Suzi] I forget who all was on that festival,

but it was Nirvana, The Chili Peppers.

[group chattering and singing]

- Yes, I am a rock and roll slut!

Yes, I am a rock and roll slut!

Yes, I am a rock !

- [Onlooker] No, see, what you are is obnoxious.

[crowd cheering]

- [Suzi] Playing in front of all those people,

that was serious pinch me.

It was the biggest show I think we'd ever played before.

- [Donita] I just remember trying to remember

how to breathe, just keep breathing.

I mean, it was ridiculous, it's a sea of humanity.

[crowd cheering drowns out hard rock music]

All right!

["Deathwish" by L7]

[crowd chanting over throbbing hard rock music]

♪ She wakes up wet in a shower stall

♪ Sewn together, bangs her head on a wall

♪ She goes hitchhiking at three a.m.

♪ Bruised and bloody, does it all again

♪ She's got a deathwish

♪ In a self-destructive blitz

[throbbing hard rock music]

♪ He's got a car that goes real fast

♪ He's got a life, but it won't last

♪ Doesn't even look disturbed

♪ When his Chevy takes out that curb

[noisy hard rock flourish]

- [Jennifer] Good night!

[crowd cheering over snarling guitar]

- [Dee] I was like, "

Oh, I would like more of this please, yes!"

It's only up from here!

["Shitlist" by L7]

[snarling grunge rock music]

- [Suzi] Japan is really fun.

♪ When I get mad and I get pissed

- [Suzi] We had done a photo shoot with those sick masks,

and the whole audience came with the masks the next night.

♪ You've made my shitlist

[rhythmic grunge rock music]

♪ For all the ones who've bummed me out

♪ Shitlist

♪ For all the ones who filled my head with doubt

♪ Shitlist

♪ For all the squares who get me pissed

♪ Shitlist

♪ You've made my shitlist

♪ Shitlist

Vagina!

Those are beautiful!

- I've just been to the doctor in Beverly Hills.

- [Dee] When I was a little 17,

sneakin' into the punk rock bars,

John Waters was such a big part

of the punk rock scene in Chicago, you know,

so to be in a John Waters movie was, like, what?

[chugging hard rock music]

- [Donita] He said he like our attitude and our politics.

He said, "I don't care what it sounds like,

"I don't care what the lyrics are,

"I just want it to be called Gas Chamber,"

and so, we wrote it in character as Camel Lips.

♪ Almond blossom-scented cyanide

♪ Gas chamber

- [Suzi] Right at the crotch was a prosthetic lady parts,

the outer vag area was on the outside of the pants.

- [Donita] I mean, how could you not love those pants?

They're just obscene in all the right ways.

♪ Only way you think you'll keep me down

[noise stick groaning]

[Donita screams]

[distant traffic humming]

[snarling hard rock music]

- [Dee] Joe.

- [Joe] Joe Martin.

- [Donita] Joe Martin.

- This right here is Suzi's solo.

- [Dee] We recorded Hungry for Stink.

There was a conscious decision

to make it sound a little dirtier,

a little less polished than Bricks are Heavy.

[chugging hard rock music]

- [Donita] I got really dark and paranoid on that recording.

I wanted to move out of L.A.,

I was really afraid of being carjacked.

[chugging hard rock music]

- [Dee] And Motley Crue were recording there, too,

at the same time.

They invited us to come in and listen to a track of theirs,

and we walk in and there are magazines

taped all over the room of naked women.

- Look at all the peenuckles.

- [Dee] Donita sent out a runner,

'cause beh, you know, we had a runner!

He was sent out to get boy magazines,

and we hung those up all over the room

and then we invited them to come in to listen to the track.

- I don't understand, all I know is

I'm not gettin' paid enough to deal with all this penis.

That's the bottom fuckin' line.

- [Donita] I like pranks and I like shocking

and I love Johnny Rotten and Rock 'n' Roll Swindle

and, you know, that kinda stuff.

After the Suzi thing,

we put out a press release every video we made

of some catastrophe which never happened.

Like on Andres, I had our press agent

say that I was attacked by a poodle

and admitted into Cedars-Sinai Hospital.

So, when we hit Lollapalooza, it was kind of up in the air

if we were gonna get asked or not.

We weren't asked any of the years before,

so we sent them a fax that said,

"Who does L7 have to blow to serve Coors at Lollapalooza?

"Love L, always the bridesmaids, never the brides, 7."

[static crackling]

[pleasant electronic accent]

- Lollapalooza is back for the fourth year.

This year, music industry weasels are picking

outrageous all-girl band L7, who you saw,

to break big as a result of the tour.

Now, their new album, Hungry For Stink, great name,

hits stores on Tuesday, we'll see what happens, Bianca.

- Good luck to 'em, thanks, Dave.

["Questioning My Sanity" by L7]

- [Donita] Expectations for L7 were very high

in the wake of Nirvana,

but we weren't cracking a gold record.

We were not getting hard rock airplay,

so that will hurt you,

'cause when you're signed to a major,

there must be results.

♪ I'm questioning my sanity

For me, even with these amazing shows,

I started to feel our trajectory starting to slow.

I had a lot of fun on Lollapalooza,

but it wasn't like professional triumphs.

It was, like, hangin' out with other bands

and being bad and just fuckin' off.

[muffled rock music]

- [Suzi] We played in the daytime

and we were playing in a lot of these things called sheds,

which are a small amphitheater with a, like, roof over it.

That was an awful experience,

'cause the audience was just sitting

and they were really far away

and they were just sitting there, and it was the daytime.

It just was wrong. [crowd cheering]

- Look at, there you go.

Panties, I gotta dry my panties some way!

♪ You pissed in your pants and put out the torch

♪ Lettin' you slide

♪ You splattered the bathroom with your hair dye

♪ Lettin' you slide

♪ I'm a-kickin' you out and you know why

I think we hated playing in the daytime

almost as much as Nick Cave did.

[rhythmic rock music]

- [Donita] How Suzi and Jennifer did that sober,

hats off to them because Dee and I just wanted

to, like, get fucking wasted, you know, after every show.

[rhythmic rock music]

- [Suzi] It just was difficult being sober.

At that level, it's a constant party.

- Oh, no, no!

[rhythmic and thrashing hard rock music]

- [Donita] The '90s were a great hurrah,

there were drugs everywhere, I mean,

heroin was falling out of people's pockets.

- [Dee] It's an old story in the book

about artists and playing around with drugs.

- [Donita] But we were all fuckups at one time or another

and we were all concerned for each other

at different stages of our career.

[fireworks screeching]

- [Suzi] I checked myself, because I was doing

some really stupid stuff.

I was supposed to be at soundcheck at like five,

and it's like seven, but I'm in bed

'cause I took acid and drank a bunch of beer

and I'm eatin' Chef Boyardee Beefaroni out of the can.

Donita's knockin' on my door,

and I answer the door naked and I turn around

and there's all these coins stuck to my backside.

I partied like a maniac for 13 years,

and then had to put a lid on that shit.

- [Jennifer] And then Kurt's death

and losing people close to us was kind of a wake-up call.

Hello.

- [Dee] 'Cause if that could happen to Kurt Cobain, fuck,

you can't believe it!

It changed everything, things got darker.

It affected everybody!

[audience cheering over snarling guitar]

["Welcome to Paradise" by Green Day]

- [Donita] And then Green Day fucking came out

and they were totally on fire.

Green Day were just the new thing, you know.

Nirvana was dead and here comes Green Day.

The kids loved it 'cause it was, like, upbeat

and it wasn't, you know, grunge angst.

♪ It seems that I am out here on my own

♪ And I'm feelin' so alone

- I think it's kind of cool that we've all got past

the grunge revolution and we can now go into a new thing.

We're optimistic, uh.

- What do you call that?

- [Donita] The sponge. - What's the new thing?

- The vaginal sponge revolution,

the vaginal sponge revolution.

- I've never been this hard before.

- [Donita] You know those kids that showed up for Green Day

were on a total bummer once Nick Cave came on.

You know what I mean?

It went from, like, adrenaline to heroin,

like, with us in between on qualudes and booze.

- [Jennifer] We are L beer gut 7,

the soft white underbelly of grunge rock and roll.

["Deathwish" by L7]

♪ Passed out drunk on the living room floor

♪ Gets up and pukes so she can drink some more

- So anyways, let's get the cliche stuff out of here,

like what kind of year has it been for you and all that?

How's it been?

- It's been annus horribilis.

- Yeah?

- No, it's been a good year.

- Yeah, yeah, yeah. - It's been fun.

- So like, how'd the album do overall as it compared

to Bricks Are Heavy or your previous releases?

- I think it sold about the same, is that right, Dee?

- Yeah.

They, um, they had high expectations for this record.

- Once again, we've let them down.

They had high expectations, once again, we let them down.

- So, basically, all the same people

that bought the last record bought this one.

- Right, we did not broaden our fan base one iota.

[Dee chuckles]

- We didn't break on through to that other side,

if you know what I'm sayin'.

[group shouting]

- [Donita] In hindsight, not at the time,

but, you know, it was probably subconsciously at the time,

but in hindsight, I see that year

as kind of a unraveling sort of year.

[rhythmic rock music]

People were expecting us to go gold and so,

you know, when that doesn't happen,

you can start to feel that, that we let people down.

And then Umbar died, you know.

- [Jennifer] We had a very dear friend and roadie

who, um, died on our tour bus,

and we weren't on the bus with him when he passed away,

which is frustrating.

[sustained guitar chord]

And I know that, you know,

we all were very hit with grief.

My feeling was we almost became inconsolable

over that grief.

- [Dee] It really is kind of a blur for me,

and I also shut down a little bit.

- [Suzi] There's no way to sum it up,

it just was really devastating,

losing another person close to us that way.

It just was like, "OK, enough already."

[chugging hard rock with screamed vocals]

[crowd cheering over noisy feedback tones]

[distant traffic humming]

[rhythmic hand claps]

♪ She's on the town, off the wagon

♪ She's on the town, off the wagon

♪ She's on the town, off the wagon

♪ She's off the wagon, wagon, wagon

♪ Wagon

[rhythmic hand claps]

["Off the Wagon" by L7]

- [Donita] Cool, I guess, is it cool?

- Yeah, I think that sounds good!

- [Suzi] I think I was always surprised

that Jennifer left in the middle of a recording session.

- [Dee] I just remember sitting outside

at a table, chillin',

and it's all kind of a blur, but a little,

like, torn piece of notebook paper was given to us,

and it was a letter from Jennifer written in pencil.

And that's how she told us she was leaving the band.

- [Jennifer] I remember starting to have a lot of concerns

over my health and I might have to leave.

My own control issues were getting fired up,

I was having money concerns,

I was grieving over the loss of my father and Umbar.

Any one of those things would've not been a problem,

but all of them kind of converging together,

it was just gonna be hard to continue.

- Meanwhile, Jennifer Finch has announced

that she's leaving L7 to go back to college,

leaving that veteran, all-female group

to start searching for a replacement

to tour behind Finch's swan song,

a new album due this winter.

- [Donita] I was angry, but I think I was mostly really sad,

'cause Jennifer was so fucking good and she was so loved.

Getting someone to replace that, that's tough.

- [Suzi] I remember feeling, uh,

very nervous in the pit of my stomach,

like, "What are we gonna do?"

But we just got proactive and started auditioning,

uh, put the feelers out and auditioned a few people.

- The battery's totally gonna go dead.

OK, here we go!

[group chattering]

- Gail, um, came to us

from a recommendation from The Lunachicks.

She said, "Oh, you oughta check out Gail Greenwood.

"She'd be perfect," and, um, indeed she was, yes.

We scored with Gail.

[rhythmic hard rock music]

Musically, she's awesome, she fits into the band

with the personality and everything's just clickin', so.

- That's cool, that's always nice,

and they have a new CD out,

it's called The Beauty Process: Triple Platinum.

- [MC] OK, um, so I'd like to make a toast right now

to L7's new album!

[chugging hard rock music]

- [Donita] When Jennifer left the band,

it was a huge wake-up call and it made Suzi and I

get very serious about, uh, what we were doing

and we got very focused again.

It was do or die, we felt.

Now, with Gail in the band, The Beauty Process was a record

that we all kinda got our shit together on,

which we were really proud of.

- [MC] Set yourself free by buying the new L7 album.

[muffled hard rock music]

["Antichrist Superstar" by Marilyn Manson]

- [Suzi] We got used to these kind of cycles,

touring and then writing and recording and touring.

I think people assume that you're rakin' in the cash

if you're on the cover of Spin magazine,

but unless you sell an insane amount of records,

you're really just a working stiff at best.

I'm attaching these balls to the hats so, uh.

- [Donita] Ka-chink-chink.

- Ka-chink, yeah, rake it in.

- She's sewin' on the balls.

- [Suzi] Tours are promotional,

but you make money on merch or whatnot,

and a lotta times, by the time you go on a tour,

you're in debt, and so you come back

with five grand or whatever and that's already,

you already owe that,

so all of a sudden, you're in the hole really fast.

[squealing guitar feedback]

[chugging hard rock music]

- [Donita] In our peak year,

I think we were makin' 500 bucks a month, each.

It's like "Here, you've got a tour bus!"

It's, "Oh, wow, we've got a tour bus, how cool!"

Like, not realizing, "Oh, that's comin' out of your ass."

- [Suzi] What the fuck!

- [Dee] Fuck that crowd.

[Suzi groaning]

[static crackling]

♪ Look out, world, 'cause we're comin' to getcha

♪ Look out Sydney

What if this is a Titanic situation?

- Don't say that!

♪ Yo ho, yo ho

♪ A pirate's life for me

[rhythmic hard rock music]

♪ Look out, world, 'cause we're comin' to getcha

♪ Look out Osaka

Get your top up.

- [Dee] Wait, wait, wait!

- [Donita] Top up, top up now!

[all chattering and chuckling]

- She had her top up and he walked right in!

[group chattering]

[punchy hard rock accents]

- [gasping] Oh, oh, God [gasps]!

Oh, God, oh my God!

- I'm comin' down!

String bikini style.

We're speakin' about profit margin here.

[group laughing]

- Suzi panties, right here.

[group laughing]

[speaking foreign language]

There you go! [group cheering]

- I wore them.

- Whoa [laughs]!

- [Suzi] Get your panties here!

- You want green or white?

- [Suzi] White or green?

White or green?

That was maybe like a sign,

when Warners didn't do a video,

that something was wrong.

We had very little sleep and we flew from Portugal

to play a show in Finsbury Park,

and it was a show with Kiss.

[rhythmic heavy metal music]

And it was early morning and we were at this venue

at the park and we were backstage,

and it was just really strange

the way people were kind of distant

or, you know, people,

our press agent was kind of distant or weird.

I don't know, it was just really bizarre,

and come to find out later that afternoon

that the record label had dropped us.

It was so surreal, like, getting dropped

and playing with Kiss and being so sleep-deprived

that I felt like I was on hallucinogens.

It was really weird.

[machinery rattling]

The decline in the band, meaning you don't have

support of a big record label and their press machine

and different things, then you go back

to the level that you started with,

which is, do it yourself, DIY.

- This guy was on his way to work

and he saw that we were leaving

and he just happened to have our single on him.

- Just so happens, the rare collector's, very rare.

- [Dee] Were you takin' it to work to tack up

by your little cubicle?

- Right on, yep.

You're gonna go right up above my desk.

- [Dee] All we have is us,

us and a booking agent,

and by this time, um, Gail's out of the band.

That didn't work out.

She probably thought that she is gonna be

touring the world and making decent money,

and, uh, that just wasn't the case.

- So it's been a long time

and we have another familiar face.

Some of the Reality Check viewers may know,

Janis is in L7!

- Hi, Danny.

- Yeah, good.

Yeah, [stammers] damn, this is so awesome.

I mean, Janis has always been the driving force

in every band she's ever been in,

so, I mean, she is just perfect for L7.

- Cool.

- [Dee] We're back and we have no money,

we have no label, we have a booking agent and we have us.

And that's it.

- [Donita] We kinda had the feeling,

"God, if we could just stay together, keep making records.

"If we can just tough this out."

♪ Parked on the freeway, sippin'

♪ Stick to the plan

- [Suzi] We're not gonna give up at this point,

so we started Wax Tadpole Records.

[chugging hard rock music]

- What about your Slap Happy thing?

- [Donita] That's our new CD, we started our own label

called Wax Tadpole Records.

- [Roseanne] Why did you start your own label?

- Because we were sick of the suits

getting all the hookers and cocaine, so we wanted--

[Roseanne laughing]

So we wanted the hookers and cocaine,

so we are now record company moguls.

[chugging hard rock music]

- [Suzi] Through all of the trials and tribulations of life,

playing was always a positive thing,

but it did seem like it was getting harder and harder

and I was getting older and I didn't know quite how,

I wasn't gonna be able to maintain an income.

Everything was falling apart.

[drums crash to stage floor]

- [Dee] The next thing I knew,

Donita told me that Suzi called her

and quit over the phone.

Not a letter, but a phone call, so that's it.

- [Suzi] I think the stark reality of being 40,

I had no way to support myself.

Maybe we shoulda quit sooner,

and maybe I should've made a family and, you know,

all this shh-shh, you know, it was really harsh.

There was a lot of self-loathing

because I thought I'd fucked up my life.

You know, you tell that to anybody and they're like,

"What do you mean, you traveled all over,

"you played music, look at these videos [laughs]!"

But I felt like, "What am I gonna do,

"I don't have health insurance, I am a piece of shit!"

Like, what have I done to my life?

- [Dee] I was in shock, I couldn't believe it.

I was really stunned.

I don't remember, but probably,

Donita must've said to me then, well, that's it then,

because without Suzi, I mean,

we're not gonna get another Suzi.

I don't remember who I told, I don't remember if I cried.

I probably did, probably was stunned for awhile.

- [Donita] You know, early on,

one of the first songs Suzi wrote

was You and Me 'Til the Wheels Fall Off, and they did.

♪ Watch you fall, suck it in

- [Dee] Being in a band, it's like your family.

- [Donita] With the loss of the friendship,

and the loss of my creative partner,

just the shitty way that it ended, I was devastated.

[Jennifer] I think that we were all hoping to be able

to avoid each other because it was still so raw.

And I think we all got depressed when that happened.

- [Donita] It's hard to quit a band

and it's hard to be left holding the bag,

just Dee and I and it was brutal

and a very humbling experience.

There's nothin' that'll break your heart

like seein' your road cases loaded onto a pickup truck,

being sold to some guy for pennies on the dollar.

Slap-happy was made out of sheer determination.

We made that record for nothing,

and the distributor went belly-up.

They came to us and they said,

"Hey, do you wanna buy your CDs back?"

We couldn't even afford to ship them

back to L.A. from New York,

so Slap-happy went into a landfill

and I was feeling like our whole career

went into that landfill with it.

When the band broke up and during the year's following,

the digital footprint of L7 was very minute.

It was almost like we didn't exist.

Then, with social media popping up and these pages,

fans started to gather, people keeping us alive,

archiving us for the future.

[pulsing and grating guitar tones]

- [Dee] When I walk onstage, I start to own it,

like a dog pissing on something or a cat doin' its thing.

I mean, I walk on that stage and the nervousness becomes,

"All right, I'm here to rock you, are you ready?

"It's gonna get scary."

- [Donita] I always felt like we crossed a lotta barriers,

we broke through a lot of barriers.

Everybody's got a shit list, or should have a shit list.

- [Suzi] Did we have a huge hit, chart-topper, you know,

break the bank kind of thing, no,

but as a body of work, I'm super proud of us.

- [Jennifer] We were just a rock band

that had a lot of firsts, you know,

and sometimes, when you're ahead of your time,

you're just behind on your rent.

[audience applauding]

- [Suzi] At the end of the day,

we were rich on the things that count.

[crowd cheering]

- [Donita] The fans kept us alive.

We kinda owed it to 'em not to pretend we're dead.

["Fuel My Fire" by L7]

♪ I've got a word of thanks

♪ Thanks that I'd like to say

♪ For the rage that I feel

♪ The rage that I feel today

♪ Gotta stack, gotta stack

♪ Stack of chips on my shoulder

♪ In everything I do

♪ 'Cause I made, I made, I made the mistake

♪ The mistake of trusting you

♪ People like you just fuel my fire

♪ People like you just fuel

♪ Yeah, my layers are thick

♪ And I got a bad attitude

♪ Yeah, that knife in my back

♪ Has fingerprints that belong to you

♪ Gotta grudge, gotta grudge

♪ Gotta grudge that I'm holding

♪ As long as I live

♪ 'Cause you lie, you lie, you lie to my face

♪ And that's something that I can't forgive

♪ People like you just fuel my fire

♪ People like you just fuel my fire

♪ Oh, people like you just fuel my fire

♪ People like you just fuel

♪ You liar

♪ Liar liar liar liar

♪ You liar

♪ Liar liar liar liar

♪ You liar, ah-ah

♪ Liar liar liar liar

♪ You liar ah-ah

♪ People like you just fuel my fire

♪ People like you just fuel my fire

♪ Oh, people like you just fuel my fire

♪ People like you just fuel

[crowd cheering over rhythmic hard rock music]

["Freeway" by L7]

♪ Push it

♪ Push it

♪ Push it

♪ Push it

♪ Push it

♪ Push it

♪ Push it

♪ Check, check, check it out

♪ Check, check, check it out

♪ Parked on the freeway

♪ Sippin' from a can

♪ Parked on the freeway

♪ Fuck it, man

♪ Parked on the freeway

♪ Sippin' from a can

♪ Parked on the freeway

♪ He's our man, yeah, he's our man

♪ Peace

♪ Yeah, he's our man

♪ Yeah, he's our man

♪ Peace

♪ Yeah, he's our man

♪ Check, check, check it out

♪ Parked on the freeway

♪ Sippin' from a can

♪ Parked on the freeway

♪ Fuck it, man

♪ Parked on the freeway

♪ Sippin' from a can

♪ Parked on the freeway

♪ He's our man

♪ Don't burn the dog

♪ Don't burn the dog

♪ Don't burn the dog

♪ Don't burn the dog

♪ Check it out

♪ Parked on the freeway

♪ Sippin' from a can

♪ Parked on the freeway

♪ He's our man

♪ Go get the gun

♪ Do it

♪ Go get the gun

♪ Go get the gun

♪ Do it, do it

♪ Go get the gun

♪ Peace

[skittering voices over rhythmic electro rock music]

♪ Check, check, check it out

♪ Check, check, check it out

♪ Check, check, check it out

♪ Go get the gun

♪ Parked on the freeway

♪ Sippin' from a can

♪ Go get the gun

♪ Parked on the freeway

♪ Fuck it, man

♪ Go get the gun

♪ Parked on the freeway

♪ Sippin' from a can

♪ Check, check, check it out

♪ Parked on the freeway

♪ Fuck it, man

♪ Yeah, fuck it, man

[snarling guitar chords]