The Donnas are an American rock band formed in Palo Alto, California in 1993. They consisted of Brett Anderson (lead vocals), Allison Robertson (guitar, backing vocals), Maya Ford (bass guitar, backing vocals) and Amy Cesari (drums, percussion, backing vocals). Cesari replaced Torry Castellano, who left the band in 2009 due to tendonitis. They draw inspiration from Ramones, The Runaways, AC/DC and Kiss.
All the founding band members were born in 1979 and became friends by eighth grade and formed as a band in May 1993[3] to play for their school's "Day on the Green." They are all self-taught musicians and practiced in Castellano's garage nearly every day during their years at Palo Alto High School. They called themselves "Ragady Anne" in their early days and shortly thereafter changed their name to "The Electrocutes". Towards the end of their high school days, while they were still known as The Electrocutes, they decided to create another band (with the same members) that would play softer tunes without distorting the metal queen image of The Electrocutes. To help their fans distinguish between the two bands, they all took matching "Donna" monikers, where all of their names were Donna and their last names were the first initial of their last name (Brett Anderson became Donna A, etc.), which they used only when performing as "The Donnas."
They worked with producer Darin Raffaelli for their first two albums, the first of which, simply called The Donnas, was released on Raffaelli's Superteem! record label in 1997. (It was later released again on Lookout! Records.) They took a week off their senior year of high school to tour Japan as The Donnas, and were promoted and organized by Pinky Aoki a.k.a. The Phantomgift. Afterwards, they signed with Lookout! Records. In 1998 they released American Teenage Rock'N'Roll Machine.
In 1999 they released Get Skintight and in 2001 Turn 21. As the band grew, they were urged to sign with a major label company. In 2001, they signed with Atlantic Records.
In 2002, The Donnas released Spend the Night as their Atlantic debut. The album represented their first attempt at mainstream success. With their single "Take it Off" they were booked for appearances on Total Request Live, Saturday Night Live, The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, and the Late Show with David Letterman. In the summer of 2003, they played the main stage at Lollapalooza. In 2004, they released their sixth album Gold Medal. In February 2005, they toured Australia with the Big Day Out music festival, playing from Sydney to Perth. While in Australia they performed "Take It Off" live on national prime-time show "Rove Live" with Rove McManus.
The band independently released their seventh studio album titled Bitchin' on September 18, 2007 Purple Feather Records label. Bitchin' was produced by Jay Ruston and The Donnas and contained the single "Don't Wait Up For Me".
In July 2009, the band released a retrospective collection entitled Greatest Hits Vol. 16 to celebrate the band's 16th year together. The album contains 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 band The Demonics has been chosen to fill in for Castellano.
