The Donnas are one of those bands that don’t seem to ever go away. Not that I’m complaining or think they need to necessarily, but just when you seem to think they’ve disappeared from our collective minds – bam – there they are again. After leaving their major label Atlantic, The Donnas’ latest reappearance comes in the form of Bitchin’ a new album the group self released last year on Purple Feather Records. And what’s even better is they’ve found musical soul mates with the ever-grandiose Hives. I managed to catch up with super hot drummer Torry Castellano (also known as Donna C. for those of you who quit keeping up with The Donnas past 2003) for a quick phone interview while she sat on the tour bus outside of their hotel in New York Wednesday afternoon.
Here’s to drinking, dance-offs and glam rocking with RATT.

Torry:

Hey Nicole, what’s up?

BYT: Not too much. So where are you all at right now?
T: We just got into New York City and are waiting on the hotel to be ready. We have today off and are playing Brooklyn and then Manhattan before heading to DC.

BYT: What are your plans for the day off?
T: Well, for now we’re just kind of sitting on the road in our bus, kind of waiting for the hotel. But after we drop stuff off, we’ll probably hit some toy stores Maya (Ford, the bassist) is really into and hit up Trash and Vaudeville – we like to get our show pants there.

BYT: How did you all get hooked up with The Hives to begin with?
We’ve known them for a few years, played different festivals with them and then did a really great festival with them in Australia - Big Day Out. All the bands stay in the same hotel and just hang out and we made pretty good friends with them on that tour. Then they came to one of our shows and said lets do a tour of America. \r\n\r\nBYT: Well, that’s easy enough. But after spending so much time with them, who do you think would win in a drinking contest between you guys and The Hives?\r\nT: A drinking contest? Oh, that’s hard. We’ve been doing quite a bit of drinking. With both bands together I think we could take a lot of people on if we were on the same team. But, I’d say they do drink quite a bit, but if we were no holds barred going for it, we could take them I think.

BYT: Awesome. What about a dance-off?
T: Well, we had a dance party last night (Tuesday) and we definitely won that. We played in Montreal and after the show we said ‘Let’s party.’ It doesn’t matter if we have a day off or not.

BYT: OK. What if there was a rumble? Who would win in a fight between the groups?
T: Sometimes I feel like it depends on which Hive. I think maybe some of them could definitely beat us up, but hopefully we could hold our own pretty well, I think. Buuuuuuuuut, when (Hives drummer) Chris Dangerous looks angry we all want to get out of his way. He’s really nice but the faces he makes are kinda scary.

BYT: What are the band’s plans after wrapping up Saturday?
T: We’re going to play a couple of our own shows, going to South by Southwest and then going home for like a couple weeks before going to Europe with The Hives. It’s pretty exciting, going to Europe with them.

BYT: How have the Donnaholics been this tour?
T: They have been awesome. I think The Hives fans have really been getting into us and been very welcoming when we play. We’re a good match but it’s always nice to look out into the crowd and see some fans that we’ve known for years coming to different shows. It’s great to see the Donnaholics out there who travel and party with each other. We love it when they do that it’s just awesome.

BYT: You mentioned SXSW and meeting The Hives playing festivals, so what is it about festivals you like so much?
T: I think festivals are so fun because everyone is there to have a good time and see lot of bands and see some new bands that they wouldn’t necessarily just come to one of our shows.

BYT: What’s your favorite thing about SXSW?
T: Just the spirit of things, which is cool. We get to run into a lot of other friends and we get to see bands sometimes. SXSW is a lot of fun and we love Austin and it’s a great place. A lot of our friends are going to be there - a couple of guys from The Smugglers, a great Canadian band. We can’t see them play but they’ll be there. We will be playing with X, which is pretty cool.

BYT: Speaking of music legends, I heard you recently got to work with RATT?
T: Oh my God, it was crazy. We’ve been doing “Round and Round” for the last couple tours and we’ve been huge RATT fans and seen them play a couple times. Stephen Pearcy’s manager contacted us. We were all nervous, but he said he’d heard it and thought it’s great and said they’d like to do something.

BYT: Woah, so just like that?
T: Yeah! We actually rerecorded “Round and Round” with him as like a duet which was cool. We did a show in LA right before this tour, and he came on stage and sang with us. It was so crazy; it was like an out of body experience. We never practiced it or anything - it was so crazy.

BYT: We know The Donnas can rock, but what about politics? I saw the MySpace page touts a ‘Rock the Vote’ button. What’s up with that?
T: I just think we’ve always been really into the idea that voting is this amazing thing we all get to do in this country. A lot of our friends even say ‘Why should I vote, it doesn’t count. It doesn’t matter. I just feel like it’s an amazing thing that we do and it’s so important. We’re not telling anyone who to vote for but they should vote.

BYT: So do The Donnas actually wax politically?
T: We talk politics definitely. We’re not a very political band in our music or going to endorse a candidate or anything but we do our homework and we’re registered to vote in California and we vote. We’re all pretty much in agreement with a candidate too.

BYT: So who is it then? Who are The Donnas voting for?
T: No! I’m not telling. We voted and that’s it.

BYT: Okay, okay. Fine fine. So when was the last time you all stopped in DC?
T: Our last American tour in like September and October, we played in Baltimore and didn’t make it to DC, So it’s been a little while, but we’re excited to come back.

BYT: Can we expect anything special for the last stop on the tour?
T: It’s going to be really fun for the last night of the tour. DC is a great city to end in and I’m trying to coming up with an end of tour prank to play on The Hives. We’ve come up with a couple plans, but I still don’t know how to flesh them out yet and of course, I’m not telling – that would ruin it.

BYT: But we’ll hear about it at the show?
T: You might be able to see it at the show… that’s a hint… that’s a hint.

If you managed to snag a ticket, catch The Donnas opening for The Hives (and hopefully successfully pranking them) Saturday night at the sold out 9:30 Club show.

 Send to a Friend