When drummer Torry Castellano’s voice chimed through the phone with the perky tone of a girl who’s having way too much fun, I immediately became smitten. The Palo Alto native, who now lives in L.A. [gulp] with the rest of her bandmates, is exactly where she wants to be.

Having formed in the eighth grade (that’s right, a time when you were too busy passing notes and going to the mall) the self-taught rock quartet has enchanted us with a fun-loving sound and an uber-cute, good girl–gone bad image. It’s a formula for success that starts with an unconditional friendship between vocalist Brett Anderson, guitarist Allison Robertson, bassist Maya Ford and Castellano.

“It is really important to find people that are your friends first and are on the same page as you,” says Castellano, referring to the Donnas’ remarkable longevity. “And of course you have to like to be around them.”

It’s been 13 years since the Donnas turned Castellano’s parent’s garage into a practice den. In that time they’ve managed to release six albums via Lookout! and Atlantic Records, contribute tracks to various video games, play TRL and SNL and spawn a bona fide hit with “Take it Off.”

We caught up with Donnas’ drummer Torry Castellano prior to their triumphant Bay Area return.

OWL: What has taken you so long to come back to the Bay Area?

Torry Castellano: [pauses] We have taken the most time that we have ever taken to write songs. So we’ve just been writing songs for like a really long time. [chuckles] We stopped playing shows around last summer, we played a few here and there, but we’ve pretty much been writing songs for the past year. We have like 30 songs.

Wow… Are you doing a like double disc, Stadium Arcadium, type thing?

TC: [laughs] No, I don’t think we’re doing anything that crazy. I think we just really wanted to make sure that every song that makes the record is the best that it possibly can be. We wanted to keep writing until we really felt that we had written everything that we could. We just wanted a lot to choose from.

Do you miss the Bay Area when you’re away for so long?

TC: Yeah. We all live in L.A. now. And we’ve been living here for about a year. It took me awhile to get used to it. I really like L.A. now and I always liked coming to visit here. There are a lot of fun places to go… clubs to go to. [laughs] We like hanging out at the old rocker places. But it is different from the Bay Area. It’s so spread out. I was living in San Francisco and it’s so compact. Plus, all of our families still live up there. It takes a little time to adjust.

Have you noticed any difference in the two music scenes?

TC: Umm, well, just generally, I feel like with San Francisco it’s a lot more about the underground. Politics play a big role with a lot of the bands up there. Down here, there are those indie bands, but there is a wide spectrum of bands that are trying to make it too.

You were suffering from tendonitis before the last album, are you all good now?

TC: I am… I still have to do a lot of stretches. And I had to kind of re-learn how I played the drums. It’s been really great. I really love my new technique.

What is the new technique? Are you holding the sticks differently?

TC: Yeah. I set up my drums differently and I hold my sticks differently. I worked with this guy [Chuck Brown] after my surgery. He taught me about tension release and not holding the stick with a “death grip” [laughs]. You’re trying to hit as hard as you possibly can. None of us really had lessons when we started, so it was just years of playing the way you teach yourself. I also think we’ve always been trying to prove ourselves and you never want to hear that you hit light or like a girl. So I’ve always tried to hit as hard as I can.

Do you think that you [the Donnas] are still proving yourselves as a rock group?

TC: I think so. We’ve always felt that we’ve had to prove ourselves. I think most bands feel like they want to put out the best music they can and with each record they want to get that much better. We always want to make sure that we do our best live. Even though our music is not super serious, I feel like we take the performance really seriously. If we mess up, it really gets us down. We love to practice.

What kind of sound can we expect from the new material that you’re working on?

TC: We’re trying to create rock anthems; songs that make you get up and pump your fist, kind of like Billy Idol. Songs that make you want to dance and sing along.

Do you get tired of being labeled a girl band?

TC: Yeah, I think ever since we started we wanted to just be called a rock ‘n’ roll band. Unfortunately, there aren’t many all girl rock bands out there or at least in the mainstream. I can understand that people see us as kind of different. And I know that we get positive attention from that. But some of it is negative and it kind of sets us apart. I just feel like we have to keep playing. We want to try and be the best rock band that we can be.

- Article by Jason Jurgens.

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