CHICAGO — L7 frontwoman Donita Sparks is on a high — her seminal Los Angeles grunge band is in the midst of a reunion tour, having performed sold-out shows in New York City, Brooklyn, Los Angeles, Paris and London and has an upcoming documentary. First, though, she has an “ax to grind” with the fashion industry.
“Their interpretation of the grunge look is bulls–t,” said Sparks, backstage in the media tent a couple of hours before the all-female quartet took the stage on Sunday at Riot Fest, the three-day music festival in the city’s Douglas Park, which drew acts like Motörhead, Iggy Pop and Snoop Dogg.
“The grunge look is not baby-doll dresses,” Sparks continued. “A couple artists wore baby-doll dresses. The grunge we remember is a little bit of ironic biker mixed with some punk mixed with some flannel shirts and ripped-up clothes. That’s what f—ing grunge is. I don’t know who these designers are coming up with these grunge lines, but, whatever, we roll our eyes at that s–t.”
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Make no mistake: Sparks is not referring to Marc Jacob’s grunge collection. “Marc Jacobs did a very early grunge line which I’m not talking about. I’m talking about this revisionist grunge 20 years later. It’s Yves Saint Laurent or whoever came out with that f—ing line. It’s just, like, whatever, but we’re calling you out. Come see the real deal is all I have to say.”
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Sparks, sporting an army surplus store hat and press-on metallic tattoos she picked up at CVS, said the reception to the band’s reunion has been great.
The reunion tour, which comes in advance of the band’s documentary, “Pretend We’re Dead,” set to premiere at South by Southwest in March, brings together the original band members Suzi Gardner, on guitar, drummer Dee Plakas and bassist Jennifer Finch in addition to singer/guitarist Sparks. The band, which hit its peak in the early Nineties, stuck to their favorites during their one-hour set Sunday, belting through their roster of two- and three-minute guitar-heavy songs like “Monster,” “Freak Magnet” and “S–tlist.” If one song gets the audience jumping, it’s “Shove,” a single from 1990, Sparks said.
“They freak out. Once I hit the signature riff at the top of the song, they kind of go ape-s–t,” Sparks said. “It’s an amazing feeling because when the band broke up, we were on a decline. It was like the wheels fell off. So to be coming back sort of at the level we were at our peak is super cool,” Sparks said, who had a solo band called, Donita Sparks and the Stellar Moments after L7 disbanded, which she said “no one cared” about. “It’s been really great. The media did not keep us alive. The media blew us off — our fans kept us alive,” she said.