If L7 were ever going to mellow out, they’ve had 20 years to try. They didn’t.
“I think we’ve had to be such tough cookies in rock and roll for so long that we can’t really go soft,” Donita Sparks tells me, flashing that trademark smirk. “Maybe a little bit here and there. But there’ve just been too many battles to show any vulnerability.”
And yet there is vulnerability. It’s right there in “Holding Pattern,” one of the standout tracks from Scatter the Rats, L7’s first full-length since 1999’s Slap-Happy. “That one came from when I was in a deep depression,” Sparks says. “I was listening to public radio, hearing these people getting interviewed and feeling so disconnected. But I knew it was a good song.”
That’s always been L7’s trick: sneaking emotion into a Molotov cocktail of distortion, wit, and absolutely zero chill. Even at their most pissed-off, they’re playful. Even when they’re grinning, they’re throwing punches. And when Sparks sings “Burn Baby,” she’s not joking—though she is maybe, a little.
“That song came from a party I went to where I saw a bunch of people I hadn’t seen in years. And I was like, ‘Oh god, that person again,’” she laughs. “But on the drive home, I thought, ‘We’d all burn at the stake at this point. We’re all on the same side.’ So it’s about getting over your crap and circling the wagons.”
The album is released on Blackheart Records, home to the OG tough cookie herself, Joan Jett. “Joan’s our mogul now,” Sparks says. “We backed her up once—we were the Blackhearts for a night. It was great. I didn’t even have to play guitar. Just fronting with Joan Jett. No pressure, right?”
That balance—fury and fun, protest and party—is what’s kept L7 relevant, even after years away. The band’s resurrection didn’t start in a studio but in a time capsule. “We had so much camcorder footage from the ’90s,” Sparks says, referencing the Pretend We’re Dead documentary that unexpectedly kickstarted the reunion. “I was the only one listening to all the interviews, and Suzi got really vulnerable. So I let my guard down too.”
Eventually Sparks was the one to make the awkward “let’s get the band back together” call. “I didn’t know if I was gonna get hung up on,” she says. “But I did some Oprah and Deepak meditation. It worked.”
And yes, the reunion came with a mission. “We didn’t plan to write about the president,” Sparks says of their 2017 comeback single “Dispatch From Mar-a-Lago.” “But after the election, people were literally grabbing onto our arms like, ‘Save us.’ So we felt it would be negligent not to.”
The track is satire—barely. “It’s about the people who have to read every one of his tweets, like Secret Service or the military,” Sparks says. “Is it a threat? Is it a fat joke? You just don’t know.”
That absurdity is a through-line for L7, who’ve always preferred sardonicism over soapboxes. “We’ve got that art-punk appreciation of the absurd,” Sparks says. “We’re not U2. We’re not gonna get all self-important.”
Still, don’t mistake the sarcasm for apathy. “Rock for Choice” came from L7, after all. “We put a lot of time into that,” Sparks says. “It’s a younger person’s game now to take the reins, but man, I wish more pop stars would actually play a benefit or something. You got neon signs that say ‘Feminist Bitch’ on stage, but what else?”
Sparks is under no illusion that the music industry has gotten easier. “We’d been dropped by Warner Bros, fired our manager, had no money,” she says of the Slap-Happy years. “We had to make that record by ourselves. And you’re in your late 30s, approaching 40, and you’re like, ‘Shit, I need some bread.’”
But even when they were scraping by, L7 still got a lifeline—from the unlikeliest source. “Prodigy covered ‘Fuel My Fire’ on Fat of the Land,” Sparks says. “We didn’t even know until our French promoter played it for us. We were just standing around a boombox like, ‘Holy shit, this is amazing.’ It didn’t make us rich, but it got us out of the red with our publishing deal.”
She even gave Keith Flint a bouquet. “I gave one to Bowie and one to Keith,” she says. “That’s how I roll.”
Now, L7 is somehow both a legacy act and a band of the moment. “We’re considered more of an American rock band now, instead of just an all-female band,” Sparks says. “The media’s finally matured. It’s not all about gender anymore.”
But if you need them to remind you what side you’re on, they still will. “There’s a lot of female sellouts on Handmaid’s Tale,” Sparks says. “You gotta choose your side.”
L7 has. And if you’re not careful, you’ll end up on the wrong side of their fire.
Listen to the interview above and then check out "Dispatch from Mar-a-Lago" below!
