{"id":16699,"date":"2016-12-14T01:00:03","date_gmt":"2016-12-14T06:00:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/southeastofheaven.com\/?p=16699"},"modified":"2016-12-12T15:38:09","modified_gmt":"2016-12-12T20:38:09","slug":"content-needed-blowin-wind-with-brett-anderson-of-the-donnasthe-stripminers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.southeastofheaven.com\/?p=16699","title":{"rendered":"Blowin&#8217; Wind with Brett Anderson of The Donnas\/The Stripminers: &#8220;We all had really big dreams for The Donnas and I think we did a lot of amazing stuff.  I could see us having gone a lot farther but there was just a combination of a lot of things working against us.&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em><strong>For the over 20 years, Brett (Donna A) Anderson fronted the hard rock band The Donnas.\u00a0\u00a0 From high school quad performances to tours that took them all over the world and back, Brett Anderson was on the front line for it all.\u00a0 She lived the dream and loved every minute of it.\u00a0 In 2012, The Donnas announced that they were going on an indefinite hiatus which left their fans saddened but grateful for an amazing legacy of fun, carefree, hard rock albums such as Bitchin\u2019, Gold Medal, Turn 21, and Get Skintight.\u00a0<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p><em><strong>These days, Brett Anderson is still pursuing her musical passions with her new band The Stripminers as well as attending Stanford University where she is majoring in psychology.\u00a0 I was absolutely ecstatic when Brett agreed to take some time out of her very busy schedule to do an interview with me.\u00a0 It was without a doubt one of the most fun (and funny) interviews I\u2019ve done to date.\u00a0 Brett and I talked about her time in the Donnas, her latest band The Stripminers, who would play her in a movie about her life, and how she&#8217;d love to sing for AC\/DC.\u00a0 This was such a fun interview and I can\u2019t think of a better one to close out 2016!\u00a0 Enjoy this one.\u00a0<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Brett, thank you so much for taking the time to talk to me today.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Thanks for having me, Don.<\/p>\n<p>========================================<\/p>\n<p><strong>So I heard you\u2019re in school these days.\u00a0 That\u2019s quite a transition from touring rock start to student.\u00a0 What made you decided to go back to school?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s really very different.\u00a0 The Donnas\u2019 last big tour was with Blondie and Pat Benatar and that was in 2009.\u00a0 The economy and the music industry hadn\u2019t been doing well for a while and things were just slowing down for us.\u00a0 We were all just kind of looking around for other stuff to do and I just started taking classes at the community college.\u00a0 We always said we were going to go back to school once our tour was over.\u00a0 We just didn\u2019t know it would take 14 years.<\/p>\n<p>========================================<\/p>\n<p><strong>What are you studying?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I\u2019m studying psychology.\u00a0 It took about four years to do my first two years [laughs].\u00a0 We all went to a semester of college before we went on our first tour because we figured that the odds of it working out were pretty low.\u00a0 We figured, \u201cLet\u2019s go to school and if it doesn\u2019t work out at least we have something to fall back on.\u201d\u00a0 I went to Berkeley in \u201997 for a semester and then we went on tour for 14 years and then I took about 4 years of classes at LACC, a community college in Los Angeles.\u00a0 I\u2019m now in the middle of my first quarter at Stanford.<\/p>\n<p>========================================<\/p>\n<p><strong>I first heard the Donnas back in 2001 when I first heard Turn 21.\u00a0 Does it blow your mind to think that album was released 15 years ago?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Totally.\u00a0 The whole thing about people worrying about getting old and people really identifying with a certain age is so ridiculous to me.\u00a0 Our age is constantly changing at every instant.\u00a0 I don\u2019t know about you but every time I have imagined an age and what I was going to feel like at that age, when I reached that age I never felt like what I thought I was going to feel like [laughs].<\/p>\n<p><strong>========================================\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>When I turned 21, I was living with my folks, working a shitty fast food job, and sitting at a bar going, \u201cIs this how it\u2019s going to be?\u00a0 I\u2019m dreading 40.\u201d\u00a0 Now that I\u2019m in my 40\u2019s, I fucking love it and it\u2019s been some of my best years!<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>[laughs] Isn\u2019t it crazy?\u00a0 I\u2019m so happy for you and I don\u2019t doubt it.\u00a0 You have more autonomy over your life, and you have a much better idea of what\u2019s going on.<\/p>\n<p><iframe width=\"750\" height=\"563\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/xyhzBEOIuKA?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><strong>Honestly, I hated being a kid and I couldn\u2019t wait to be a grown up.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Yeah!\u00a0 I feel sort of both ways.\u00a0 Sometimes I feel like when I was younger, I was super excited to grow up and be an adult but now, as an adult, you can be a kid if you want to be and just tap into that.\u00a0 I\u2019ve been doing observations for school at a nursery school so for a couple of hours I hang out with kids and its fun and awesome but then I\u2019m out.<\/p>\n<p>========================================<\/p>\n<p><strong>Has doing that changed your perspective on if you ever thought you\u2019d be a parent?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>You know, it\u2019s complicated because growing up in America as a female you just always picture yourself with kids whether you want them or not.\u00a0 When people ask me \u201cDid you ever want kids?\u201d I just say, \u201cI don\u2019t know.\u00a0 I grew up in America.\u00a0 I have an idea in my head but I don\u2019t know if that\u2019s my idea.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>========================================<\/p>\n<p><strong>So with that being said, this is probably not where you pictured yourself being.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Oh it\u2019s a complete parallel, not an intersection.\u00a0 I never would have predicted this in a million years but I\u2019m stoked that this is what I\u2019m doing.\u00a0 Of course I would\u2019ve loved for the Donnas to have kept growing and growing.\u00a0 I\u2019ve spent a lot of time thinking about the industry and music in general and all the reasons that may or may not have happened.\u00a0 I had big dreams.\u00a0 We all had really big dreams for The Donnas and I think we did a lot of amazing stuff.\u00a0 I could see us having gone a lot farther but there was just a combination of a lot of things working against us.<\/p>\n<p>========================================<\/p>\n<p><strong>Like what?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>When we released our 2<sup>nd<\/sup> album on Atlantic, it shipped on a Tuesday and Tuesday around 10am they started coming back because they were defective.\u00a0 The last 30 seconds of the last song wasn\u2019t there.\u00a0 This totally messed up our sales which also messed up our radio and it really made the record nose dive compared to what it could\u2019ve done.<\/p>\n<p>========================================<\/p>\n<p><strong>Looking back on your time in The Donnas, is there anything that you wish you would\u2019ve done differently?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I\u2019m happy with my role.\u00a0 I think well did everything that we could.\u00a0 One thing that I\u2019m really happy with that I can sleep soundly over is knowing that the four of us really made it a priority.\u00a0 We all agreed to make this our number one and only thing.\u00a0 We put everything aside for this.<\/p>\n<p>========================================<\/p>\n<p><strong>One of the things I remember loving so much about The Donnas was that here was this band of women, totally sexualizing men which I thought was awesome.\u00a0 It was like you were the female Poison!<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>[laughs] Oh yeah, we turned the tables a lot and that was really fun to do.\u00a0 Instead of writing songs about empowerment, we just sort of took on the role and made music like the bands we liked.\u00a0 Some were female, some were not.<\/p>\n<p>========================================<\/p>\n<p><strong>When you guys put out Bitchin\u2019 you released it on your own label and I remember thinking that The Donnas totally did it on their own terms.\u00a0 Do you feel the same way?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Absolutely.\u00a0 One thing that was really fun about making that record was that we just didn\u2019t have any boundaries.\u00a0 I pretty much said that I would sing anything and just let it all fall to the wayside.\u00a0 We took lyrical risks and musical risks that we wouldn\u2019t have been able to take before.<\/p>\n<p>========================================<\/p>\n<p><strong>I love hearing this because even though there were aspects of Gold Medal (the album before Bitchin\u2019) that I loved, parts of it just felt restrained to me at times where as with Bitchin\u2019, it just felt like you all said fuck it and just went for it.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>[laughs] Totally.<\/p>\n<p><iframe width=\"750\" height=\"422\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/Ol3sJQpuanw?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><strong>The Donnas were said to be recording a new album but then all of the sudden there was radio silence.\u00a0 What\u2019s up with that?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Yeah, actually, we were pretty far into the next record and that was another batch of themes and a departure from what we had done before which was really cool.\u00a0 I don\u2019t know.\u00a0 I think that after 20 years, the combination of factors put together, the atmosphere, and the environment that we were working in just wasn\u2019t great.\u00a0 Early in our career, everything had a momentum and it just got to this point where that momentum, while it was self fueled, things just seemed to be spaced further apart.<\/p>\n<p>========================================<\/p>\n<p><strong>Since the Donnas, especially in the hard rock\/metal community, there\u2019s been quite an uprising of female fronted acts breaking through.\u00a0 Do you ever at times think that maybe you guys were a bit early in the game?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s interesting.\u00a0 What\u2019s funny is that I haven\u2019t seen that from my perspective.\u00a0 I do feel like that when we started in 1993, there were a ton of girl bands.\u00a0 Babes in Toyland, L7, female bands on MTV but now I feel like they are few and far between.\u00a0 I think there are a lot of women in music but I think with the harder stuff it\u2019s sort of hard to find.<\/p>\n<p>========================================<\/p>\n<p><strong>How would you rate the Donnas album from your favorite to least favorite?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Oh wow.\u00a0 Obviously I can\u2019t choose my least favorite because they\u2019re all like my kids.\u00a0 That would be like saying I didn\u2019t like that kid, he was kind of a dud [laughs].<\/p>\n<p>========================================<\/p>\n<p><strong>Ok, so which kids gets a little less cereal in their bowl?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>[laughs] Well, while I agree with you that Gold Metal was a bit restrained, I really just loved the making of that record and the way it all came together and the way it felt to play those songs on stage.\u00a0 At the time I was listening to a lot of PJ Harvey so the making of that record.<\/p>\n<p>========================================<\/p>\n<p><strong>Actually, one of my all time favorite Donnas songs, \u201cRevolver\u201d came off that record.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Oh that is so cool.\u00a0 Thank you.\u00a0 I was so excited for that song because it felt like a totally different side that I was able to come from.\u00a0 I\u2019d say my 2<sup>nd<\/sup> favorite was Bitchin because we were able to really go to the limit with that one.\u00a0 One thing I did on that record was in order to get down what you wanted to hear on a recording you have to kind of exaggerate a little bit.\u00a0 I never really did that before.\u00a0 In the studio I would usually sing exactly what I wanted to sing exactly how I wanted to hear it but in playback it would always be a little bit less.\u00a0 Then I realized, you have to go a little bit overboard. People have known this for years but I was just figuring it.\u00a0 We would always do a safe take and then I do progressively crazier and crazier takes until I got to the point where it was just too much and not working.\u00a0 It was always about finding that limit.<\/p>\n<p>========================================<\/p>\n<p><strong>I\u2019d love to hear those tracks.\u00a0 You should put those out!<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>[laughs] Yeah, those are the ones where it got hard to maintain the melody or keep all the lyrics happening [laughs].\u00a0 It was just ridiculous.\u00a0 It was cool because I just felt a bit more confident and had so much support from the band.\u00a0 I was able to just go overboard with them and not worry about what they were going to think about it.\u00a0 We all just had a common goal and that was to find the limit.<\/p>\n<p>========================================<\/p>\n<p><strong>So what about the other albums?\u00a0 How do those rank?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s so funny because all I can think about are those last two [laughs].\u00a0 Let\u2019s see.\u00a0 So there\u2019s Skintight, Rock N\u2019 Roll Machine, and the black and white one.\u00a0 We were such goons too on the back cover of that one by the lockers [laughs].\u00a0 They all kind of converge at that point for me.\u00a0 That one was more Ramones like.\u00a0 Rock N\u2019 Roll Machine was when we really kind of blended our two bands together, The Electrocutes and The Donnas.\u00a0 We were doing both bands at the same time so that album merged the two bands.\u00a0 It had a lot of Motley Crue influence in it so that one\u2019s exciting for that reason.\u00a0 Skintight and Turn 21.\u00a0 That was an interesting transition because that was the Lookout Records years.\u00a0 Those albums became a cohesive sound.<\/p>\n<p>========================================<\/p>\n<p><strong>When you guys put out Spend the Night, it just blew me away.\u00a0 It was so tight and it really sounded like a band that had cut their teeth on the road.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Thank you.\u00a0 Yeah, that\u2019s what happened.\u00a0 We had toured a ton by then and kind of worked out a lot of the kinks by then.\u00a0 I love that record.\u00a0 From the album cover to the videos it was all just super fun to make.\u00a0 We kind of had a narrative going on with that album and that was really fun.<\/p>\n<p>========================================<\/p>\n<p><strong>Do you think there will be some closure for The Donnas and their fans with maybe a farewell tour or something?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I\u2019m sure people have considered and talked about it.\u00a0 I don\u2019t know. \u00a0Closure is a strange thing. Do reunion tours give people closure [laughs]?<\/p>\n<p>========================================<\/p>\n<p><strong>See this is where the psychology comes in.\u00a0 Does it give people closure or is it the opening of a new door?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>[laughs] Totally.\u00a0 I don\u2019t know.\u00a0 If it made sense where we all wanted to do it and were able to do it then I don\u2019t see why not.\u00a0 I just don\u2019t know what it would be.<\/p>\n<p>========================================<\/p>\n<p><strong>So now here we are and you have a new band called The Stripminers.\u00a0 This is a significantly different thing that what you did with the Donnas.\u00a0 Was this another side of you that you just felt like you needed to artistically do?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>It was all pretty organic the way it evolved.\u00a0 I just ran into a friend from San Francisco at a coffee shop in LA and he told me that he needed a female voice on a recording with this band that he was working with.\u00a0 It turned out to be a band called The Sugar Knives with Paul Stinson.\u00a0 It was really fun.\u00a0 I sang on two songs and they were making a video so I was in the video with them.\u00a0 During making a video there\u2019s a lot of downtime to sit around and talk so we were just talking more about music and things we hadn\u2019t tried in other bands.\u00a0 We ended up just sending each other songs back and forth and then went into the studio for three days and cut the first Stripminers record.<\/p>\n<p>========================================<\/p>\n<p><strong>Did you guys cut the first two records at the same time because you had two records come out in the same year?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>No, those were different sessions.<\/p>\n<p>========================================<\/p>\n<p><strong>I\u2019ll be honest, when I listened to the first two albums, they didn\u2019t quite click with me but this latest one really struck a nerve with me.\u00a0 Was this a natural progression into this dark, rootsy kind of psych country stuff?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Well, we changed the way we wrote songs for this record.\u00a0 Paul and I would always send ideas back and forth to each other but for this one, we actually did a lot of writing in the studio.\u00a0 I have a big book of lyrics that I can flip through so we would started putting parts together and then we would put them to a melody and then I would just sing on it.\u00a0 With us all in the same room, there was a more creative momentum.\u00a0 Things can sort of grow exponentially when you\u2019re all together.<\/p>\n<p>========================================<\/p>\n<p><strong>What were some of the musical influences that tugged you into this creative direction?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>As a band, there is a lot of desert\/country\/dark in the actual environment in this band.\u00a0 We\u2019ve played at Joshua Tree a lot.\u00a0 That\u2019s just kind of a big part of the vibe in the first place.\u00a0 Even on the first record, there was a kind of folky feeling but there was a dark turn to it.<\/p>\n<p>========================================<\/p>\n<p><strong>What can you tell me about the song \u201cMeet My Maker with My Best Dress On.\u201d\u00a0 This song really blew me away.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Oh wow.\u00a0 Thank you!\u00a0 Yeah, actually, I like to sift for gold with lyrics.\u00a0 I\u2019ll write a bunch of stuff in a bunch of journals and then I\u2019ll go through them all and consolidate them into a list of things I really like.\u00a0 I love doing that and one of the lines I came up with was \u201cI want to meet my maker with my best dress on.\u201d\u00a0 The idea is that you\u2019re just facing the opposition and you\u2019ve got to bring it all.\u00a0 I just love that image and the feeling of just squaring up and saying, \u201cThis is what I\u2019ve got.\u201d\u00a0 Also, the line, \u201cCold as an Ohlone August\u2026\u201d is a line that I came up with from that old saying, \u201cThe coldest winter I ever spent was summer in San Francisco.\u201d\u00a0 The Ohlone tribe is the native people who lived in the Bay Area so instead of saying San Francisco summer, I just said Ohlone August.<\/p>\n<p><iframe width=\"750\" height=\"422\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/dzSSJtJ6cGM?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><strong>How is the creative process in the Stripminers different from The Donnas?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s just different.\u00a0 In the Donnas were just such old friends so we would get together and have snacks and just write songs.\u00a0 There\u2019s a lot more email involved in the Stripminers [laughs].<\/p>\n<p>========================================<\/p>\n<p><strong>That\u2019s funny because when the Donnas were coming up, email was still a pretty new thing!<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>[laughs] Isn\u2019t that weird?\u00a0 Talk about it being a long time ago.\u00a0 When The Donnas first started, we had a PO Box for fan mail and I used to answer a lot of it by hand [laughs].\u00a0 It\u2019s interesting thinking about the process with the Stripminers though because we\u2019ve had sort of two eras that just blended together.\u00a0 Originally it was this long distance thing and then we\u2019d get into the studio and just put the songs down.\u00a0 Now, we\u2019ve really had the chance to develop the songs together in the studio which was super fun.<\/p>\n<p>========================================<\/p>\n<p><strong>Any plans to tour in 2017 at all?\u00a0 What are my chances of seeing a Stripminers show here?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>[laughs]\u00a0 We did SXSW, San Francisco, and LA but aside from that I\u2019m not sure.\u00a0 Everyone is so busy with other projects.\u00a0 It\u2019s difficult when you get a lot of talented people together.\u00a0 It\u2019s awesome because the product is amazing but it\u2019s difficult to get everyone to be able to set aside the time to tour.\u00a0 Atlanta would be one of the places that I would want to go.\u00a0 It\u2019s historically been one of my favorite cities to play in.<\/p>\n<p>========================================<\/p>\n<p><strong>What was the defining moment when young Brett realized she wanted to be a singer?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>You know what?\u00a0 I never had that moment [laughs].\u00a0 In fact, I remember writing in my journal when I was a kid the two things I never wanted to be was a hairdresser or a singer [laughs].\u00a0 Not because I had no interest in it but because it sounded so hard and if you mess up it\u2019s so obvious.\u00a0 It just seemed ridiculously hard and ridiculously exposed.\u00a0 I do have a big mouth and a big voice with a lot to say so it turned out to be a really good job for that.\u00a0 I don\u2019t know what I would\u2019ve done if I didn\u2019t have that outlet.\u00a0 I would\u2019ve been very difficult.\u00a0 I honestly never felt like I was a good singer but one thing I really did begin to enjoy further down the line was doing harmonies with my own recordings.\u00a0 On my new project that I just did with my friend Brian Dobbs we have some really interesting chord progressions and harmonies and that\u2019s been really fun to play with.\u00a0 That\u2019s the way I feel like I can use my voice like an instrument and not think about whether it\u2019s a good voice or a bad voice but that it\u2019s an instrument.<\/p>\n<p>========================================<\/p>\n<p><strong>Can you tell me a little more about this new project or is it super top secret?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Oh yeah.\u00a0 The idea behind the songs is that they\u2019re really pretty but the lyrics are a kind of twist of the knife that you\u2019re not really expecting.\u00a0 It\u2019s a little twisted and it\u2019s inspired by Angelo Badalamenti from the Twin Peaks soundtrack.\u00a0 Tragic, dark, a little bit of jazz, a little bit like a soundtrack vibe because I really love how music adds to picture.\u00a0 That will be coming out soon.\u00a0 I think I might release it one song at a time and then you can get them all together once they\u2019re all out.\u00a0 I\u2019d love to see it get into some film or TV because I feel like that\u2019s kind of the most exciting area right now for music.\u00a0 I was watching Orange is the New Black and that Regina Spektor song made me jealous for a second because I wanted us to do that.\u00a0 I thought it was cool that she did that and it kind of sets the tone for that show.<\/p>\n<p>========================================<\/p>\n<p><strong>That is so true.\u00a0 I can\u2019t tell you how many times my wife and I will be watching a show and I say, \u201cI have to find out who sings this song.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I know right?\u00a0 It\u2019s so mutually beneficial for the artist and for the show.\u00a0 I mean, where are people getting their music from today?\u00a0 There\u2019s no central thing like MTV anymore.\u00a0 TV right now is like the new radio and music supervisors are going to great lengths to find things that fit really well and that are even obscure.\u00a0 That, to me, is a really exciting area.\u00a0 I also feel that Stripminers would be really good for soundtrack stuff too.\u00a0 That\u2019s something I\u2019m really hoping for these records in place of the traditional touring we would\u2019ve done 10 or 20 years ago, I feel like that could be a really good outlet for those songs.\u00a0 I think they have a really good cinematic quality to them.<\/p>\n<p>========================================<\/p>\n<p><strong>Speaking of TV, what\u2019s been on your binge watching list lately?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>[laughs] Black Mirror!\u00a0 My God that show is so crazy.\u00a0 I don\u2019t like sleeping at night so I don\u2019t have to worry about that anymore [laughs].\u00a0 It\u2019s so disturbing but it\u2019s really good.\u00a0 Obviously Game of Thrones.\u00a0 House of Cards.<\/p>\n<p>========================================<\/p>\n<p><strong>If you could sing for any band for just one night, who would it be and why?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>You know, I would love to sing with Nick Cave and Warren Ellis on violin.\u00a0 I mean, I don\u2019t know if I would be physically capable because he\u2019s such a force but I think it would be amazing.\u00a0 The music they make together is just so amazing.\u00a0 Another one would have to be AC\/DC.<\/p>\n<p>========================================<\/p>\n<p><strong>Oh shit.\u00a0 You would\u2019ve done a better job than Axl.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>[laughs]\u00a0 That\u2019s so funny.\u00a0 One of my friends that I\u2019m recording with is obsessed with Axl Rose so he\u2019s been going to all those shows [laughs].\u00a0 I was going to go but I would\u2019ve felt like a rubbernecker.\u00a0 I loved him and it\u2019s cool what he\u2019s doing but I worry about him.\u00a0 It didn\u2019t feel like I would be going in a supportive way.\u00a0 It would\u2019ve been a more voyeuristic way and I didn\u2019t want to approach it in that way.<\/p>\n<p>========================================<\/p>\n<p><strong>If Hollywood made a movie about you, who would play you?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>[laughs] My first thought was Meatloaf.\u00a0 [laughs] Like I can picture him just playing it off completely and not acknowledging that he\u2019s not a teenage girl [laughs].<\/p>\n<p>========================================<\/p>\n<p><strong>I have been asking that question in interviews for years and that is by far the best answer anyone has ever given me.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>[laughs] Yeah, it would have to be Meatloaf.<\/p>\n<p>========================================<\/p>\n<p><strong>If you could describe yourself with one Donnas\u2019 song title, what would it be?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s funny.\u00a0 \u201cIt Takes One to Know One.\u201d\u00a0 I saw someone one Facebook say that that had been their election anthem and it made me so happy [laughs].<\/p>\n<p>========================================<\/p>\n<p><strong>Finish this sentence: If I wasn\u2019t a musician at all, I would be __________________.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I\u2019d be chained to an old, gross redwood tree probably [laughs].\u00a0 I just think that might have been the 2<sup>nd<\/sup> best use of my time and energy.\u00a0 Obviously that\u2019s not true because I am pursuing another career so the true answer would be I\u2019d be a student studying Psychology at Stanford but if the Donnas hadn\u2019t happened and I had continued on and Berkeley I\u2019d probably be a militant activist.<\/p>\n<p>========================================<\/p>\n<p><strong>Brett, this was such a fun interview.\u00a0 Thank you so much for taking the time out to do this with me.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Oh, that\u2019s awesome.\u00a0 Thank you so much.\u00a0 I really enjoyed it too.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>For more on The Stripminers, head over to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/Stripminers\/\" target=\"_blank\">https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/Stripminers\/<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>For the over 20 years, Brett (Donna A) Anderson fronted the hard rock band The Donnas.\u00a0\u00a0 From high school quad performances to tours that took them all over the world and back, Brett Anderson was on the front line for it all.\u00a0 She lived the dream and loved every minute of it.\u00a0 In 2012, The Donnas announced that they were going on an indefinite hiatus which left their fans saddened but grateful for an amazing legacy of fun, carefree, hard [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[194],"tags":[1700,412,1694],"class_list":["post-16699","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-interviews","tag-brett-anderson","tag-the-donnas","tag-the-stripminers"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.southeastofheaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16699","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.southeastofheaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.southeastofheaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.southeastofheaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.southeastofheaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16699"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.southeastofheaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16699\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.southeastofheaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16699"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.southeastofheaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16699"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.southeastofheaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16699"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}