The Donnas

Today America’s coolest girl group, The Donnas, heads out on a month-long tour with two other American female powerhouses: Debbie Harry and Pat Benatar, making it a must-see summer bill and a career high for the Donnas.

“There will be good times ahead!” Donnas frontgal Brett Anderson tells RadarOnline.com, adding that Debbie and Pat were definitely an influence on the Donnas. “We covered Blondie’s “One Way Or Another” when we were in high school, and I tried to sing Pat Benatar’s “Hit Me With Your Best Shot” at my first voice lesson—ouch!”

Of course, Brett and her bandmates—guitarist Allison, bassist Maya and drummer Torry—have come a long way from those early days, when they all actually went by the name “Donna,” and are now celebrating their 16-year anniversary as a band by releasing their best down n’ dirty rock songs on The Donnas Greatest Hits, Vol. 16. The ladies’ Sweet 16 compilation features—you guessed it—16 tracks, some live, some reworked, and some previously unreleased. “We had all these tracks that are hard to find,” says Brett of the band’s decision to release a greatest hits album now, when they still have lots of Donnas hits ahead of them. “We wanted to re-record some older songs that had really low sound quality to make them sound better.” 

And looking back on the past 16 years, Brett is quick to point out her career highlight to date: “Saturday Night Live, and this one time we had a party in a hotel room. Just kidding, there were a lot of those!” Along with her biggest disappointment to date: “I still wanna play at Madison Square Garden, but I'm not disappointed about that yet.”

And now the Donnas are excited to kick out the jams live across the U.S. for the next month, and they’ll be armed with not only their greatest hits, but some tour essentials as well. “We love DVDs—90210, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Kreuger,” says Brett, who is a touring veteran, and knows all too well about the pitfalls. “And I’m bringing my dominoes for power outages and roadside breakdowns.”

(Photo:WENN)