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Ace guitarist with Palo Alto’s deadliest anti-debs, the Donnas, who present the power-chord-enhanced tunes from their hot new Bitchin’ (Purple Feather) disc at the Mod Club (722 College) Wednesday (October 3), 8 pm. $17.50. 416-870-8000.
Why have you stopped using the Donnas’ aliases?
We started using the Donnas names to present ourselves as kind of a gang. We’ve established that so there’s no real need to use the aliases any more. Besides, people could never seem to get the initials straight.
What’s the real reason the Donnas split with Atlantic?
I’d describe our situation with Atlantic as being like a friendly breakup with a boyfriend because you no longer feel the fire in the relationship. Atlantic changed some key personnel and their focus seemed to be more on hiphop and R&B, and we felt like we no longer fit into the formula. We had the option to leave, so we took it.
What’s the concept behind your Purple Feather label?
We were watching these ducks in a pond, and every so often, one of them would lift up a wing to reveal a single purple feather that seemed to be some kind of secret sign to the other ducks. Purple Feather sounded better than Booze Cruise, which was our only other idea for a name. One of our goals will be to sign some amazing artists who don’t fit with other labels, but we thought we should try things out with our own record first. We wouldn’t want to be responsible for wrecking someone else’s career.
Who should play the roles of the Donnas in a made-for-TV movie about the group?
We’ve already discussed this question at length, so here you go: we’d like Elton John to play Maya Ford, Billy Joel should play Brett Anderson, Robert Plant would be perfect as Torry Castellano, and Rod Stewart would be just right to play me.
The big 3-0 is fast approaching for all the Donnas. Any plans to celebrate with a massive Vegas blowout?
Nah, that’s still two years away, and we never plan anything that far ahead. Vegas isn’t really our style. We’re more of a backyard barbecue sorta band.
