L7

Yellow Scene: The reviews and the reaction to the reunion have been amazing – has it been cool or at all weird to get back on that horse?

Donita Sparks: I’d say the whole thing has felt pretty surreal, but at the same time it’s felt completely natural. It’s very strange. A lot of these shows that we had in Europe, we were all sick with colds. It’s added to the surrealism of things. We were, at various stages, really sick. Each one of us – first I got sick, then Suzi [Gardner], then everybody else. That added to the blurriness of the whole thing, but it’s been really great. I feel like we’re playing well. I was a little worried that my body was going to get really beat up, but it hasn’t yet so that’s been good.

YS: What’s been the highlight so far?

DS: I think Donington [UK] was a highlight, London was a highlight – all the club shows were highlights for me personally. Prague was really cool because the audience was right up against the stage – there wasn’t even a barricade, so people were throwing their beers on the stage. It was very old school in the sense that there was no security and it was mayhem but it was very punk in a super-cool way. And the Hell Fest was cool too, in France.

YS: Are you looking forward to Riot Fest?

DS: Yeah. I think the lineup’s really good, and I’m super-excited to play. We’re playing Riot Fest in Denver and also Chicago. We might be huffing and puffing more because you guys have a higher altitude. Maybe at the Denver show we’ll have oxygen at the ready on the side of the stage.

YS: What can we expect from the set?

DS: I don’t know yet because I don’t know how long our set time it – I don’t have that information yet. I would say you’ll see meat and potatoes L7 in the sense that we’re not playing any obscure tracks or anything like that. We’re playing our biggest songs. We shan’t be doing any jams, unless one of us breaks a string and then all bets are off. We’ll see what happens.

YS: When Riot Fest is over, what’s next?

DS: We’re going to do some east coast shows, some west coast shows, then we’re playing a festival in Austin, and then that’s it for 2015 and we’ll see where we’re at for 2016. Do some more touring worldwide when the documentary comes out. Hopefully we’ll be hitting it a little harder next year. Right now, we’re just testing the waters. This all came together very quickly. Normally bands book shows nine months in advance to coincide with their record. We had no record release, and we didn’t have a lot of things in place so it just got thrown together in an awesome way, a little bit last minute.