Ten years out of their own rock and roll high school, with their debut album released before they picked up their diplomas, the Donnas are still armed with fierce guitar riffs as tight as their leather pants and songs that are as smart as they are audacious. What a difference those ten years make. After severing their ties with Atlantic Records last year, the band decided they needed to rethink their life and career. Without missing a beat—just ask drummer Torry Castellano—the quartet decided to form their own label, flamboyantly dubbed Purple Feather. This year they celebrated their new undertaking in the most public way possible—not with pillow fights and lipstick smears, but with the release of their latest album, the astutely titled
Bitchin'.
Gibson talked to guitarist Allison Robertson about what it feels like to be approaching 30, the importance of Ace Frehley, and what people always get wrong about the Donnas. It’s not their names.
Joan Jett once said, There’s nothing more threatening than a girl with a guitar. Do you agree?I would agree, yeah. I think just being a female and having a guitar—even if you can’t play it yet, but you’re sitting there and you’re going to try—is so intimidating to a lot of people. Not just men—it’s not about women against men. I think it intimidates other women who don’t have the chutzpah to try it. And all my life I’ve felt like people assume that I’m a cocky, in-your-face type of person just because I play guitar, which isn’t the case. It definitely says to people that you’re a warrior, that you’re manly. It’s like owning a chainsaw and being a girl. It’s something that people aren’t expecting and it screams that you’re willing to try something.
On most of the Donnas songs you change up the gender roles and play the aggressor. Has that affected the way people perceive you outside the band?
I’ve always had a pretty good sense of humor, and I think our band originally thought that if we emulated all these bands we like, it made sense to sing like them too. But being females, it rings in a different way to people than it would if we were guys. People start to ask questions about male groupies and if we are like total sluts. We’re like, whoa, we never said we were sluts. What happens is people start misinterpreting who we are and assuming that we’re really crazy and all we do every night is go out and search for dudes on the street to have sex with. We always have to fight that, and I don’t think it’s fair since we don’t want to tone down those lyrics or that message. At the same time, you don’t want people assuming that you’re something you’re not.
When people know what you do, or maybe even if you’re wearing a leather jacket as opposed to a pretty dress, that’s already intimidating. Even if you’re not playing in a band but you’re a rock girl, you have to learn how to be the aggressor—even if you weren’t meant to be or if that’s not your nature. Like I’m not. I’m actually pretty shy. I’m a Virgo. We tend to just watch people as they go by. If nobody interests me for years, I’d be fine. I’m not a person who goes after people at all. But definitely with guys, I feel like all four of us have had that problem where they just don’t ask us out because they just assume we’re going to be the one to make the first step. And they don’t buy flowers because they assume you’re going to laugh and think that’s stupid and girly. You can find men that understand, but at the same time there are maybe 10 times more men that don’t get it.
What’s the girliest thing that you do?
I love perfume, and I love like good smells. I think the girliest thing I do is that I love bath bombs that have little pieces of flowers in them that I buy at Lush. I think that all of the girls in our band, we all love a nice bath and getting into comfortable clothes, like sweatpants. Which doesn’t sound girly because guys probably think we all like hang out in negligees or in little underwear and jump on the bed and have pillow fights. But to me, if you know women, you know the first thing they want to do when they come home is to put on comfortable clothes. I love makeup and I love painting my nails, but I can’t really do my nails because I play, and so it’s sort of a sad thing. Basically I just have to have little boy short nails because they just get broken and the nail polish chips when I play. That’s one thing I would do that would be girly, but that was robbed from me!
How is a girl with a guitar different than a guy with a guitar?
For one thing, there’s definitely a connection where people have always said that the guitar is an extension of a man’s penis—the way they move it and cradle it and all that stuff. As a female, it’s a different feeling when you’re playing the guitar. I don’t feel that sexual connection necessarily. But again, I’m a Virgo. We’re very prude, but maybe that’s just because that’s the kind of person I am. It might not be because I’m a female at all. But I do think the way you play guitar is different because of the way we connect with things—women remember things in a way that is different than a guy. Like I remember visuals and sounds and smells really well, and my connection with guitar has a lot less to do with being technical. It has a lot more to do with just knowing my instrument and just feeling around on it.
What advice would you give to someone who is just picking up a guitar?
I used to have some pretty bad guitars and I thought I was pretty bad at playing, too, because it never sounded what I wanted it to sound like. And then when I finally got my first Gibson, I was like, “oh, now it’s easy.” When you finally get the guitar you want it all clicks and falls into place, and it’s like velvet.
Even though I don’t practice the guitar a lot, I’m always practicing in my head. People think that’s weird. My boyfriend is a guitar player and he’s always kind of fiddling around with his guitar; a lot of guys are like that—I mean I’ve seen girls do that too, but I don’t do that. I don’t know why, maybe it’s just that I don’t really care. When we’re done practicing, it’s not like the first thing I need to do is go home and play more guitar. It’s weird because a lot of people do do that. But at the same time, I listen to a lot of rock and roll. All the time. I’m always listening to music, constantly, wherever I am. 
Was there a certain player that you loved that played a Gibson?
Yeah. I really loved Cinderella at the time, and their guitarist Tom Kiefer is my idol, and he always plays Gibsons and Les Pauls. And then Ace Frehley from Kiss is probably my favorite guitar player ever. I love him. When my sister and I were little, we would watch Kiss videos all the time, and not only did I think Ace was sexy and cool and awesome, but I also was obsessed with how he played, and I loved watching the live videos of Kiss. I actually changed all my positioning and my fingers and where I put my guitar strap after watching their videos. I was like, “Oh, his guitar is like here, and oh, his fingers are doing this with the pick.” I watched it incessantly and remodeled my whole outlook toward the guitar. That’s when I started playing solos and changing my whole approach. I wasn’t really into solos because I thought it was sort of like a self-indulgent thing. I thought I was more punk than that or whatever. And then I was like, whatever, I love solos. That’s the best part.
When do you start being conscious of wanting to solo more?
Well, I think they gradually began to pop in more and more with each album. After the first Donnas album we started putting little solos in, but they were short. And then here and there I’d put them in as much as possible, but they definitely weren’t in every song. Around the time we did Spend the Night, which was the first Atlantic album, things sped up in terms of how many solos I did. With that one, since it was on a major label, we didn’t know what song would be a single so I made a rule that every song had a solo. Because that way no matter what, my solo was going to be on the single. Well, it’s not just about me, though. We really want to be a band that’s known not for being poppy but we are a band that has solos. And to me, that says something about you. It means you’re really a rock and roll band and it’s not just a pose or a state of mind.