The Girls in the Band

It all began when I saw four females holding their own instruments, playing them and putting the negative connotation in the term ‘girl band’ to shame. When I saw The Donnas on Fuse for the first time, I saw female collaboration, energy, passion and essentially everything I had ever wanted to become in tenth grade. They were not only the representation of the semi-badass female musician who I aspired to be, but also the model of female strength and empowerment which I had so longed for.

When I conjured up the idea to form a band, I wanted it to be comprised of only female musicians. After seeing The Donnas on TV and obsessing over their music videos, I knew this idea was not insane, not crazy, but rather possible. Of course I had played with guys in the past, but there was something different in the kind of energy created when I had played with all females. They weren’t looking to make fun of the fact I was holding a bass half my size or comment about how I looked instead of how well I had executed a riff. They took me seriously, as I treated them the same.

The Donnas heavily influenced my vision of our band. They created a fun, energetic and upbeat sound by using more than just power chords. I studied their guitar solos and bass lines for hours on end, focusing on the key chords being used, and the different ways in which the solos accented the overall sound of the song. In their music video, “Take it off,” the girls are performing at a school Battle of the Bands show, after a bunch of guys. This video specifically influenced me in the sense that when our band, Blush played a show, we were always the only all-female performance. I loved seeing The Donnas on that stage because I could relate to them, to what they were doing and to what they represented.

The Donnas are still one of my favorite music groups today. Although my taste is generally a little bit more on the punk side, no other punk band could have influenced me the way The Donnas did. When the only thing I wanted was to start an all-girl band, and prove that I could do what all the other boys did, The Donnas showed me I could.