photo by: Tina Zimmer
by Morgan Y. Evans
LINKS:
To paraphrase the band Rose Tattoo,”Nice girls don’t play rock n’ roll.” Donna She Wolf has been in the NYC scene for years, first with the notorious underground metal band the Cycle Sluts From Hell (think “I Wish You Were a Beer”, which still kicks ass) and nowadays leading the city’s best rock n’ grime trio She Wolves! As a take no prisoners performer, she’s had major ups and downs over the years [some examples include touring with Motorhead (musically) and Metallica (drinking) in the day, to getting dropped by SONY and having Troma films make Chopper Chicks in Zombie Town against the band’s wishes]. As a result, she’s had to develop a fine tuned bullshit detector, honed from a lifetime of tearing it up, learning the score and being the real deal. Yet, despite it all, Donna She Wolf is one of the nicest people you could ever meet and a major talent.
I’ve been friends with Donna for a number of years now and have learned so much from her. She’s a well of tips and stories and a source of true grit inspiration, all of which she makes light of and generally shrugs off. Still, it’s not everyone whose band gets to be Sylvain Sylvain’s backing band or crafts tunes as fun and gritty as the ones on the recently released Poptown Records She Wolves: Mach One (The Early Days).
With scene mainstay and longtime collaborator Tony (Wolf)Mann on drums (ex-G.G.Allin, Electric Monster, Dee Dee Ramone) and project bassist Jamie Gorman, Donna has been busy working on a sure to be killer forthcoming She Wolves EP Enjoy Damnation and a full-length Elev. I talked to Donna about all these things as well as the recent totally righteous bad ass mamma fest that was the Cycle Sluts from Hell Halloween ’07 Motherfucker Party reunion show.
DONNA SHE WOLF: I’m ok, I guess. I have a slight cold.
MYE: Ugh, me too. Sick as hell. I’m drinking NyQuil and freakin’ Stellas.
DSW: I’m sober for this interview, but I’m gonna have a drink once I get off the phone.
MYE: I’m mostly sober too ‘cuz it says on the NyQuil bottle that if you have more than three drinks a day “Watch Out!”, so I only had two beers (laughing).
DSW: (laughing) So you’ve got one coming.
MYE: You’ve had a lot going on lately. She Wolves recently played a benefit for your friend Tina Zimmer, right?
photo: Tina Zimmer
DSW: It was an acoustic set with the original line-up, the Mach One line-up. It was for Tina ‘cuz she broke her ankle and busted her knee, and I think she has no health insurance. It was a bunch of people getting together and playing at an auction. I was petrified ‘cuz I’m not really an acoustic player. We did early material and we covered “Viva Las Vegas” (laughing). I don’t know what we were thinking.
MYE: Cool. It must’ve been interesting to try it bare bones.
DSW: Yeah. It was the most naked I’ll ever be onstage again, since the Sluts, in a manner of speaking. It was fun and good. It was stripped away, but anything for Tina.
MYE: With She Wolves you’ve got a full length, Elev, forthcoming and an EP also. The EP was named in an interesting way!
DSW: The EP’s called Enjoy Damnation, which is an anagram for [band members] Donna, Jamie, and Tony. It will be ready in about two weeks so we’ll probably have a party and a show for that, and then we’re gonna go back in the studio and finish up six more songs with Jamie Gorman. But he’s moving to Boston! We’re gonna put out the record with him on it and then try and find someone who can play bass for [the] tour. [Donna is a die-hard Yankees fan. --ed.]
MYE: It’s good to document it. You’ll find someone.
DSW: I hope so. I’m sick of looking for bass players.
MYE: It happens. Look at the Melvins.
DSW: I have to have that attitude.
MYE: Don’t lose heart on that. But yeah, it’s great that Poptown Records put out the Mach One (The Early Days) stuff. I’ve been really feeling that many NYC bands these days are kind of copying each other, whereas you guys have your own real grimy, legitimate thing. It’s not trying to be other than what you are, but has unique variety and characteristics. Nonetheless, my friend John the Baker’s band, Instant Asshole, [he works for Alternative Tentacles and is the rapper Weerd Science’s uncle], they are like that too. It’s more people with an old school mentality. It seems some other bands these days don’t know what they should be doing so [they] play it safe.
DSW: We’ve got nothing else to hold onto but ourselves. We’re too fucking old to try and jump on any band wagon, but we have so many influences. When the line-up is right it just flows. Jamie couldn’t have picked a worse time to move and (laughing) to a worse city. He’s moving to fuckin’ Boston! I can’t think of anyone I’d rather play with more.
MYE: Just lay the guilt on really thick here. If you want we can include his email and home phone number and have CRUSHER readers harass him!?
DSW: I’d love that. “You sure? C’mon! C’mon!”
MYE: With the NYC thing, you’re a person who has been based there a long time. I met you when you were doing the Cartridge Family thing, which morphed into She Wolves, and you kind of introduced me to playing a lot of clubs like CBGB’s and got me hip to other places. A lot of bands seem to be copying others where New York used to produce bands like Quicksand! Now it seems some people are chicken.
DSW: It’s been so gentrified. There are fewer artists and musicians. With the internet people are fuckin’ home on their MySpace hours a day instead of hanging out, doing dope or trying to play. (laughing) It’s the new dope.
MYE: (laughing)
DSW: It’s hard to keep doing this. Where do people go when there’s no place to go?
MYE: It’s funny. CRUSHER editatrix Christine and I were hanging out after the Cycle Sluts From Hell reunion show you just played with my friends Stalkers. Christine and I were making fun of the bartenders because it was three o’clock and they thought it was so late, and we’re like , “Three o’clock!?? That’s not late for New York fuckin’ City!”
DSW: All my jobs were always after hours clubs. Those don’t even fucking exist anymore. It’s done. Everyone moved away or died or got married with kids.
MYE: Do you think an independent network will develop like the ‘80s scene but using new technology better? Will people know what to do?
DSW: Who gets a deal right now besides Britney Spears/American Idol type people? With this music network the way it is now, it’s great online that more people can know about you easier, but how do you make money now? Back in the day when I was in Cycle Sluts, you had the labels come to you. You had something they wanted and they could help blow you up. You’d get an advance and live off it and hope for royalties. Of course (laughing) none of the shit worked out for me, but that’s how it was supposed to go. It’s a fucking rich man’s sport now. You have to subsidize yourself and be clever. I’m not one of those bands that’s gonna make money pushing CDs.
MYE: The great thing is you get to have the audacity to do whatever you want.
DSW: Yeah, and I always have anyway (laughing). You’ve got to do it with confidence and then no one doubts you.
MYE: There’s not much on the SONY back catalogue like the Cycle Sluts from Hell (laughing).
DSW: I’m sure they’re happy to forget us. I think music is reinventing itself as we speak. It’s so hard to make a living doing this shit, and you want to make a living.
MYE: You know what though, in a roundabout way, I felt lucky to be a back up Druid with my friend Matt Goldpaugh from the psychobilly band the Arkhams onstage with the Cycle Sluts for the reunion show on Halloween. It was very meaningful for us and a power metal moment wearing robes and swinging fake axes behind you on stage. You’re these metal heyday bad ass chicks!
DSW: You guys made it great with the axes. You ARE power metal!
MYE: Making
the fake Stonehenge stage prop with you was also a dream come true! I
was like , “Am I really painting a Stonehenge right now for a Cycle
Sluts reunion show?”
(in a Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure voice) I was like , “NO
WAY!”
DSW: (laughing) I have a picture of Johnny Thunders that a friend of mine gave me at a Cycle Sluts reunion gig on my wall. There’s nothing cooler than Johnny Thunders now, and in his last few years his advances to record with were pathetic. He had nothing. It’s a delayed reaction to what’s cool. If you can make your music line up with your recognition, that’s fuckin’ awesome, but unfortunately, usually you don’t get appreciated ‘til you’re in the throes of menopause or dead (laughing).
DSW: That’s great to hear because when that came out we were crucified for not having cred and being out of our fucking minds, which we were, but…It’s great that it takes twenty years to have someone say that to you (laughing).
MYE: It took balls to have the CD cover for Cycle Sluts what it was. When you are looking at that album cover you see the naked asses on it and then realize it is young men. That couldn’t have been that easy of a sell.
DSW: That’s not balls. That was our manager being a complete fucking idiot. Back in the day before CDs had jewel cases it came in a large cardboard box.
DSW: Right, So they had the photographer, David LaChappelle, but it was a fuckin’ nightmare—a ten hour shoot to make us look like something we weren’t. There was a poster and an elongated portrait of us, but the week the record came out the box was done away with. The other format came out and what we were left with was just the folded booklet and the cover just showing the butt of this naked young man and that became the cover! All because our management was so inept and not aware of what was going on with the industry. It was just a fuckin’ disaster, in a word.
MYE: It’s a shame. Remember Guns and Roses’ Appetite For Destruction had the famous cover, but inside was some controversial cartoons? [Referring to the paintings by Robert Williams. --ed.] What if that had happened to them? It maybe would’ve hurt sales.
DSW: This was a ridiculous accident. A disconnect between label and management. We were busy trying to write songs and keep the guy from continuing to try and rip us off. There were too many people in that band, also. It was hard to fine tune your focus.
MYE: I don’t know how bands like Kayo Dot or the Arcade Fire manage to pull it off with so many members.
DSW: Yeah. There was no cohesiveness, and we were spent by the time the six years was up and the album got panned.
MYE: Now that you’re on better terms again, how did it feel to do the reunion show from your perspective?
DSW: It was completely fun. The band are [all] such great musicians and we’re all grown up now. Nobody’s punching anyone anymore or dumping a bottle of vodka on another person’s head. (laughing) We settled down. It’s totally digestible to do a Motherfucker party once a year. I heard that was the last one though.
MYE: Really? Wow. You staked it through the heart. At least it went out with a bang. Back to the She Wolves now. You recently did some touring with Earthride last year, right?
DSW: That was fantastic! It was supposed to be a full-on thing but got whittled down to three shows for the usual reasons, but they’re one of my favorite bands, and Sherman’s awesome. Eric is a brilliant writer, so that was great.
MYE: She Wolves have a great sound in that you’ve covered the breadth of rock n’ roll through to hardcore stuff like “Art of War”, and then Tony’s got playing with G.G.Allin on his résumé, so he’s got the grime and kind of cave man drumming mixed with fast punk. I love bands that can combine influences and still make it theirs.
DSW: It’s because we’ve had so many bass players, and also Me and Tony, we’re not genre snobs. We like it all, we really do. Whatever moves us. One of the most disappointing things to me is when people don’t get into bands that aren’t only one flavor. That’s good for people who like to play one style, but for us it’s fucking limiting. I wanna play whatever I feel like playing.
MYE: Absolutely. How’s it been working with Tony Mann over the years and as a backbone behind the kit?
DSW: Amazing. I don’t know what I’d be doing if it wasn’t for Tony (laughing). It’s really a partnership. He’s clearly not just a drummer, and he’s writing more, which is great. We really confer on everything together.
MYE: How did you approach writing the new EP and full length?
DSW: That was difficult because Jamie came in at the eleventh hour.
MYE: Fitting for a record called Elev.
DSW: Yeah, but he’s such a great player that he just took it and ran with whatever we gave him. I did a lot of writing on my own and then went into the studio and fleshed it out. Tony did the same, etc. We were pretty much in our own separate zones for the writing. We’re ready to go back into One East Studio where we’re doing the records with Joe Hogan.
MYE: The guy from the band Roarfiend, right? He’s cool. I met him once.
DSW: Yeah, he’s engineering. He’s fantastic and spontaneous. For the guitars I wanted the vintage sound someone like me grew up with. Mostly a ’58 reissue Les Paul through a Bogner. Did I do some Marshall on there? I think I did some Marshall also. And the SG. I mean, Bogner wasn’t around in the ‘70’s but I’ve been playing the Uberschall, playing the shit out of it and it just fuckin’ screams. If Bogner wants to give me an endorsement I’m all for it. Joe had some crazy effects he brought in, but we were pretty purist. I tried to do as many live takes as we could. It was pretty quick. We just got a write up in Metal Hammer. It was a gorgeous little write up and I wish I could kiss the girl who wrote it on the mouth. But yeah, the full length is called Elev and was supposed to be out already, but the wheels of She Wolves sometimes move fuckin’ slow (laughing). Chris at Poptown has the option. He’s a sweetheart and is awesome and they’re gonna try and get it to radio, and if not I’ll shop it or put it out myself.
MYE: On the Poptown release She Wolves:Mach One, I dug the Ramones cover of “Sheena Is A Punk Rocker” you did with Sylvain Sylvain from the New York Dolls. It was pretty fun. She Wolves, of course, also backed him up for awhile as his backing band before the Dolls reunion.
DSW: How that came about was amazing. You know the whole fuckin’ story (laughing). Tony calls me up and said, “Hey, I ran into Sylvain Sylvain and he’s gonna come to rehearsal!” I was like, “Are you fuckin’ kidding me?” Tony says, “No, but he’s gotta borrow a guitar. Can he borrow one?” I was like, “WHAT!!??”. So then the fuckin’ phone rings and he was like (imitating nasal Sylvain voice),”Hi Donna, it’s Sylvain.” In my head I was screaming cuz I’m like his biggest fan. So, he comes to rehearsal and it was awesome ‘cuz I knew all the Dolls and Thunders songs, so we had a great jam. Then we all went for beers and he’s like, “You know, you guys, I’ve gotta do a recording for a South African Ramones compilation. You wanna do it with me?”
MYE: That’s hot.
DSW: We said , “Yeah!” cuz at the time we were working with engineer Paul Ena Kostabi (White Zombie) on She Wolves: Mach One (The Early Days). We called him that night and were in the studio the next day. It was spontaneous and fun. Sylvain is the best. He’s really just great.
MYE: One of my favorite stories is when you and Sylvain came up to Woodstock, NY, where I’m from, to Applehead Studios. My band, Divest, at the time was working with Dr. Know of the Bad Brains and Danny Ilchuk [produced Leeway’s Adult Crash] on an album called Ghost Town Reckoning. You were guesting on our song “The Hollow Point” and brought up Sylvain. Sadly, the record never came out for external reasons despite everyone’s efforts. Hopefully people will get to hear it someday.
DSW: Yeah, that song came out great.
MYE: It was so surreal, ‘cuz I had dirty laundry, so I’m wearing a Rush Hold Your Fire shirt that I found. You, Miss ex-Cycle Slut from Hell metal diva, are screaming your head off in the booth, renowned engineers Mike Birnbaum and Chris Bittner are tracking, and next to me, air drumming on the couch, is Sylvain Sylvain of the fuckin’ New York Dolls! I’m looking around thinking ,”What the fuck!? This is awesome!”
DSW: Sylvain was my ride up there ‘cuz he had a car and I was like, “Shit! I gotta get up as soon as possible for Divest!” and Sylvain was like, “No, no, I’ll drive you.” Fucking sweetheart.
MYE: I remember he was joking about getting us all to break into David Johansen’s Upstate, NY house ‘cuz it was before the New York Dolls reunion (cracking up laughing).
DSW: (laughing) Well, look what happened.
MYE: It’s a good thing we didn’t or maybe he would’ve been mad at Sylvain and not come back when Morrissey asked them (laughing).
DSW: Sylvain just called me the other week. He had an amazing tour with the Dolls. They went to Russia. He went to China!
MYE: You did a lot of amazing touring with Cycle Sluts. On the same trip to Woodstock you told me an anecdote I love from your touring days opening for Motorhead. Lemmy from Motorhead used to be a roadie for Jimmy Hendrix before he joined Hawkwind, and you said Lemmy came up to you and described how Jimmy touched his forehead once and did something that made Lemmy start tripping. You told me Lemmy then grabbed your forehead above the pineal gland and that YOU started tripping, and he was passing it to you a step removed from Hendrix! You said how it made you actually start tripping or feeling weird, and we were in a restaurant and you touched my forehead and passed it on to me! And Sylvain Sylvain and [ex-Divest/now Counterfeit Disaster guitarists] Dave Parker and Kurt Brown are all looking at me like, “Do you feel anything, dude?”
DSW: When Lemmy did that to me, I had the weirdest neurological reaction. I swear I started tripping. It was just probably from having my forehead touched by Lemmy, (laughing) but I swear he didn’t dose me with something or do anything suspicious! Hendrix did it to him and he did it to me, and I STILL can’t find a bass player!
MYE: Somewhere in the cosmic Voodoo soup, right? (laughing) Do you have any advice for young bands that are starting out now & trying to get their feet wet?
DSW: You know, I had a good answer for this but I forgot it. I always get asked this.
MYE: So fuck ‘em! They’re on their own! (laughing)
DSW: (laughing) You know what my advice is, if there’s dissension in the band ranks it’s not gonna work. You all have to pull together.
MYE: Amen to that. So true.
DSW: If you can’t get a team where you’re happy for each other and your individual success, why bother? You don’t need an adversary in your own band.
MYE: Or a situation where any one person kind of lords it over everyone else, but why not get a band therapist?
DSW: Did it work for Metallica? I don’t know (laughing).
MYE: We’ll find out when their next album drops. Hopefully the snare drum sound will be better by then and the solos will be back.
DSW: Someone could make more money being a band therapist than joining a band these days. But make sure your bandmates become your buddies. Are their bands that survive very long when people hate each other?
MYE: Just the Ramones, from what I’ve heard.
DSW: Yeah, that was sad and didn’t work out too good for them. Unless you can survive a miserable existence where you resent people you work with and aren’t satisfied—you can’t take any shit from anyone if you do walk away, ‘cuz you’ll get nothing but shit if people see that you take it.
MYE: Amen. That’s why you’ve gotta stand on your principles even if people think you are crazy sometimes.
DSW: And you know, do your own fuckin’ thing. Don’t try to be cool.
MYE: (laughing) Be uncool. It’s the coooolest.
DSW: It’s all been done (laughing).
MYE: Back to the gentrification of NYC topic… There’s still sparks like the great free weekend shows at Pass Out Records in Williamsburg. Anyway, this is a totally roundabout way of re-approaching this topic, but I was watching the original Amityville Horror movie. Other than thinking that Margot Kidder looked hot in jeans and pigtails I was struck by how cutthroat the evil real estate bitch was who sold the happy couple the haunted house. It made me think of the cold natured New York developers.
DSW: Without naming names, I know a couple that are former hardcore scene dudes. The ones that aren’t still doing it, they became real estate agents.
MYE: It’s all in the approach whether it’s totally bad, but yeah.
DSW: Yeah, but I’m not naming names (laughing).
MYE: What do you think is gonna happen to downtown once it’s all over?
DSW: Short of a nuclear bomb falling, first of all, it is over. They won. We lost. Where is there to go? I don’t know what’s gonna happen next. Everything’s a condo for young rich people. It’s the Americanization of New York City. New York is step by step becoming middle America. I don’t meet anyone that’s really from New York or really from Brooklyn or the Bronx anymore. If there was some kind of revolution where the kids get angry and adopt have-not stances again, that’s great, but there’s too much the other way in New York right now to have any kind of scene with a statement short of , “I need this Prada shirt.”
MYE: It’d be pretty funny if the Mars Bar somehow managed to stay open in the midst of it all.
DSW: Oh, it has to! I think it’s gonna be like the cockroaches after the bomb drops. Mars Bar will be the only thing left standing.
MYE: How’d you start playing music and what inspires you to keep playing it?
DSW: I started the Cycle Sluts From Hell for all the right reasons, which was basically getting laid more, getting more free drinks, and getting into clubs (laughing). After awhile though I thought, “Ok, now I wanna be a musician and put in some real work.” I’m as surprised as anyone I’m still doing it, I just can’t stop.
MYE: Don’t stop! Never stop!
DSW: You can’t stop, you know? The die is cast. There’s nothing else for someone like me to do (laughing).
MYE: Roll that boulder! (laughing) Our mutual friend, drummer Zac Shaw from the sludge duo Dead Unicorn, said once that he woke up one morning and looked in the mirror and thought , “Shit! I’m a musician!” (laughing) It was like a thunder clap of realization, you know!?
DSW: You used to see the old black and white jazz films with the old timers in Harlem and they could out-drink everybody and they never went to bed… [Hey, Donna...Some of us up here in Harlem can still out-drink almost anybody and never go to bed... --ed.]
MYE: Like the book Charles Mingus’ wife wrote Tonight At Noon, great book.
DSW: But it’s not always like that.
MYE: Well, they probably could out drink most people.
DSW: (laughing) That part is true. They should give my fucking pancreas a Grammy! [I hereby nominate Donna's pancreas... --ed.]
MYE:(cracking up)
DSW: I don’t want it for any of my talent, just for my internal organs that kept on keepin’ on, you know. (laughing) [ You mean, yours still work? Crap... --ed.]
MYE: That’s awesome.
DSW: It’s true, but that’s pretty much how we made our mark in the Cycle Sluts before anybody even listened to our fuckin’ music. Just out-drinking everybody and being fuckin’nuts.
MYE: But it wasn’t just a gimmick. The songs were there. I listen to the Cycle Sluts From Hell song “Taste the Flesh” and if you like metal it can give you goose bumps how the whole top of the song is so perfectly executed and the verses and choruses.
DSW: We really were raging alcoholics and promiscuous whatevers, but we had good music at the same time. Pete aka Lord Roadkill was an amazing, brilliant guitarist and songwriter and it’s a shame we didn’t do a few more records cuz he probably had a few more in him.
MYE: As far as She Wolves videos, do you have any plans? Cycle Sluts “I Wish You Were A Beer” video still kicks the butt of a lot that has come since.
DSW: I am dying to do a She Wolves video. We’ve had a few offers. When the new CD is done that’ll be the next mountain we have to climb. I wouldn’t mind something conceptual again. The guys at Reality Check TV in San Francisco took a lot of live footage of us but I don’t think any of it is online yet. Fuck a video! She Wolves the musical!
MYE: You could ride out on wolves. Manowar had motorcycles but this is even better. Well, Evergreen Terrace has the whole Wolf Biker concept but…
DSW: Yeah, it’d be so great though, Tim Burton could direct and Johnny Deep can be our new bass player. But yeah, the main point I’m trying to make in this interview is I’m doing this and I’m old as dirt.
MYE: (laughing) That’s a great main point, Donna. Let the sunshine in.
DSW: (laughing)
Ignore me all you want cuz I’m not going anywhere.
left: Donna w/Sylvain Sylvain; right: Tony w/Sylvain Sylvain
She Wolves w/Queen Vixen & Richie Scarlet, The Delancey, NYC, 5/2007
left & right: DSW as Honey 1%'er at Cycle Slut From Hell mini-reunion, The Delancey, NYC 6/22/06
left: Honey 1%'er Hittin' It: To a hammer, everything looks like a nail!!!; right: The Village Sluts, CSFH - Motherfucker Party, Halloween 2007
DSW as Honey 1%'er ready to kill in LA w/CSFH after one plane crash & 24hrs of hell... ('89 or '90)
left: The tongues have it! DSW w/Lemmy; right: Donna She Wolf in the '80s, big hair, less tats...