The Donnas: A Biography

The Don­nas are my all-time favourite band. Their music influ­enced my own play­ing and still large­ly still does. They were unique and ground­break­ing and mas­sive­ly under rat­ed in my opin­ion. For those that don’t know, they formed in Palo Alto, Cal­i­for­nia, in 1993. The band was made up of Brett Ander­son, on lead vocals, Alli­son Robert­son on gui­tar, Maya Ford on bass, and Tor­ry Castel­lano on drums. They have been com­pared to bands like The Ramones and The Run­aways, and built a strong fol­low­ing with their rebel­lious atti­tude, catchy hooks, and par­ty-ready anthems.¹

Where it all start­ed

All band mem­bers are self taught musi­cians and found each oth­er in High school. Ini­tial­ly call­ing them­selves ‘Ragady Anne’, then ‘The Elec­tro­cutes’, the band decid­ed, as they approached the end of their High School days, to form a sec­ond band that would play slight­ly soft­er tunes. They all decid­ed to adopt the ‘Don­na’ moniker and took the ini­tial of their sur­name as an iden­ti­fi­er. Don­na A, Don­na R, Don­na F and Don­na C were born, and the band became known as ‘The Don­nas’.

The band worked with pro­duc­er Darin Raf­fael­li for their first two albums, the first of which, sim­ply called The Don­nas, was released on Raf­fael­li’s Super*teem! record label. The album would be lat­er re-released by Look­out Records, who they signed with soon after tour­ing Japan and in Decem­ber 2001 they signed to Atlantic Records. ²

Break­through

The band’s big break­through came with the Spend the Night album, released in 2002 by Atlantic Records. The sin­gle “Take It Off,” was the hit song from that album and it became a sta­ple on MTV and rock radio. The Don­nas were now tour­ing exten­sive­ly and open­ing for major acts of the time as well as appear­ing on TV shows like Sat­ur­day Night Live.

The fol­low-up album, Gold Medal, released in 2004, saw them shift­ing toward a more pol­ished hard rock sound. The sin­gle “Fall Behind Me” gained trac­tion, but the band even­tu­al­ly part­ed ways with Atlantic Records, cit­ing cre­ative dif­fer­ences. ³

Lat­er Years

The Don­nas inde­pen­dent­ly released Bitchin’ in 2007 under their own label, Pur­ple Feath­er Records. The album leaned heav­i­ly into the 1980s-inspired glam and heavy met­al sound. Despite pos­i­tive reviews, the band grad­u­al­ly slowed down due to drum­mer Tor­ry Castellano’s per­sis­tent shoul­der injury, which ulti­mate­ly forced her to retire from drum­ming in 2010.

The Don­nas played occa­sion­al reunion shows, but by the mid-2010s, the band mem­bers had moved on to oth­er projects. Gui­tarist Alli­son Robert­son and bassist Maya Ford con­tin­ued to be involved in music, while Brett Ander­son pur­sued oth­er cre­ative endeav­ours.

In July 2009, the band released a ret­ro­spec­tive col­lec­tion titled Great­est Hits Vol. 16 to cel­e­brate the band’s 16th year togeth­er. The album con­tained new songs, re-record­ed old­er songs as well as some unre­leased mate­r­i­al. The band toured that sum­mer with Pat Benatar and Blondie on the two’s joint Call Me Invin­ci­ble Tour. Drum­mer Tor­ry Castel­lano was unable to play on any of these tour dates as she was suf­fer­ing from ten­donitis of the shoul­der, which was accred­it­ed to the fact that as a self-taught drum­mer she had held the drum­sticks incor­rect­ly (even though it felt right to her) and sus­tained long term dam­age over time. Long-time friend Amy Cesari of the Demon­ics has been cho­sen to fill in for Castel­lano.

On July 9, 2010, Castel­lano announced via the band’s web­site that due to her con­tin­ued shoul­der prob­lems she would have to retire from drum­ming and per­form­ing with the Don­nas. She returned to school at San­ta Mon­i­ca Col­lege and then Stan­ford Uni­ver­si­ty, where she grad­u­at­ed in 2013 and went on to Har­vard Law School. 

In August 2012, the band was report­ed to be record­ing their eighth stu­dio album and also pre­miered a new song called “Tramp” at a pri­vate show at Pen­guins.

In Novem­ber 2016 Cher­ry Red Records re-released the band’s fifth album, Spend the Night, to include six bonus tracks which con­sist of B‑sides and songs from pre­vi­ous albums.

In an inter­view from 2017, the band’s lead vocal­ist, Brett Ander­son, dis­cussed “the end of the band” and turn­ing down offers to “reunite,” implic­it­ly con­firm­ing the band is no more. In the same inter­view, she also men­tions that there are no plans to release pre­vi­ous­ly unre­leased stu­dio-record­ed songs.

In April 2023, for Record Store Day, the band released a com­pi­la­tion of ear­li­er mate­r­i­al enti­tled The Don­nas — Ear­ly Sin­gles 1995–1999.

The albums con­tin­ue to be rere­leased, even to this day as Cher­ry Red records are plan­ning to re-release the Atlantic Records albums in May 2025. ⁴

Lega­cy & Where Are They Now?

The Don­nas remain an influ­en­tial band in the rock and punk scenes, paving the way for more all-female acts in a male-dom­i­nat­ed indus­try. Their mix of riotous ener­gy, empow­er­ing lyrics, and com­mit­ment to authen­tic rock ‘n’ roll con­tin­ues to inspire fans and musi­cians alike.

Brett returned to her stud­ies, where she com­plet­ed a degree in psy­chol­o­gy at Stan­ford Uni­ver­si­ty. In 2021, she had earned a Mas­ter of Social Work at UCLA,and in 2022, com­plet­ed a mas­ter’s degree in geron­tol­ogy at the Uni­ver­si­ty of South­ern Cal­i­for­nia.

You can read more here — A rock star’s new gig: expert in aging. Brett Ander­son aims to use her mas­ter’s in geron­tol­ogy to be of ser­vice to old­er adults — USC Leonard Davis School of Geron­tol­ogy

Tor­ry also returned to her stud­ies, grad­u­at­ing from Har­vard Law School. More can be read here — Drum­mer Hits the Books | STANFORD mag­a­zine

Alli­son also returned to her stud­ies at UCLA.

Maya is focus­ing on her art­work.

Amy is focus­ing on her books.

Band Mem­bers

Brett Ander­son – lead vocals, piano (1993–2012)

Alli­son Robert­son – gui­tars, back­ing vocals (1993–2012)

Maya Ford – bass, back­ing vocals (1993–2012)

Tor­ry Castel­lano – drums, back­ing vocals (1993–2009)

Amy Cesari – drums, back­ing vocals (2009–2012)

Discog­ra­phy

The Don­nas (1997)

Amer­i­can Teenage Rock ‘n’ Roll Machine (1998)

Get Skintight (1999)

The Don­nas Turn 21 (2001)

Spend the Night (2002)

Gold Medal (2004)

Bitchin’ (2007)

Great­est Hits Vol. 16 (2009)

The Don­nas Ear­ly Sin­gles 1995–1999 (2023)

Ref­er­ences

1 — http://www.rollingstone.com/artists/thedonnas/biography

2 — The Don­nas Songs, Albums, Reviews, Bio & More … | All­Mu­sic

3 — Rock band the Don­nas take con­trol after stum­ble | Reuters

4 — Brett Ander­son Talks Life Since The Don­nas, Scor­ing Com­mer­cials, And Shoot­ing TV Pilots That Nev­er Aired

Pic­tures by Dave Burke Pho­tog­ra­phy