L7’s farewell world tour caps decades of fighting for abortion rights, challenging sexism in rock and building a community of feminist resistance.
No band has been louder about its feminism—and braver in putting their bodies where their mouths are—than L7, the Los Angeles rock band who recently launched their farewell world tour, despite a year marked by tragic loss.
In 1991, L7—along with music journalist Sue Cummings, the concert agency Goldenvoice and the Feminist Majority Foundation (publisher of Ms.)—organized a concert featuring themselves, Nirvana, Hole and Sister Double Happiness. The proceeds went to support FMF’s work to stem the rising tide of antiabortion extremist violence.
Thus was born Rock for Choice, an organization that for a decade sponsored shows across the country, from small DIY local concerts to big events featuring acts including Pearl Jam, Bikini Kill and Rage Against the Machine.
“It was because of all the attacks on the clinics,” recalls founding member Donita Sparks from a hotel room in San Diego, where L7 had just played the initial shows of their tour. “Those were the first signs that, oh, they want to take this away from us.”
Rock for Choice played a key role in confronting the 1980s backlash against feminism, opening the doors for Riot Grrrl, Lilith Fair and a decade in which women shoved to the front.
“The thing about Rock for Choice is it brought built community,” says duVergne Gaines, who became the co-director of Rock for Choice and is now the director of FMF’s National Clinic Access Project. “It brought people together to celebrate with this incredible music, and also to become part of a movement to encourage people that may not feel like anybody gives a shit about them, or that all the odds are stacked against them, to channel those feelings into a community of resistance.”
In 1985, guitarists/singers/songwriters Sparks and Suzi Gardner formed L7, named after the hand signal for square—though the band was anything but. With their torn jeans and long hair flying, L7, including bassist Jennifer Finch and drummer Dee Plakas, thrashed hard and cracked jokes.
“Get out of my way or I might shove,” Gardner snarled on an early single, empowering their fans to assert their place in the pit, the workplace, the street—wherever.
“I always identified as a feminist,” says Sparks. “I grew up going to marches with my mother. It was always either you’re part of the problem or part of the solution. If you can give back, give back. I think Rock for Choice gave even guys a way to stand with women on this issue.”
But while fierce in their support of women’s rights, L7 wanted to be taken seriously as a band, not a “girl band.” They refused to take part in the gender ghetto-ization of special magazine issues on “women in rock.” They famously flew a banner saying “Bored? Tired? Try L7” over a Lilith Fair show.
The next day, they flew over the Warped Tour: “Warped needs more beaver. Love, L7” was their message to that testosterock festival.
“We hit them both,” Sparks says.
Still, L7 always supported women’s issues and other women. Sparks fondly recalls playing at a Voters for Choice show helmed by Gloria Steinem in Washington, D.C. “Glorious Gloria did not have an eyebrow raised about us. She was just cool.”
L7 released several acclaimed albums, but by 2001, the grunge gravy train was leaving the tracks.
In 2014 they reunited, and in 2016 the Sarah Price film L7: Pretend We’re Dead documented their groundbreaking role as four badass women pulling Spinal Tap-worthy stunts. (There was that tampon Sparks flung at the 1992 Reading festival.)
“We’ve been milking this cow of a reunion for the last 11 years,” says Sparks. “We were just going to circle the globe, and that was it. But then we started to make new music, and we were having a really good time, and we were getting along fairly well, and we had all matured a bit, and kind of understood each other’s personality quirks, and there was demand.
“We want to go out now because there’s still demand. Because we know how it felt to not be desired anymore and to not be in demand, and it was very painful. So to go out on a high, that’s how we want to do it.”
L7’s farewell tour plans almost came crashing to a halt in July, when Finch was diagnosed with brain cancer.
Mere days after the announcement of her illness with a GoFundMe campaign, Finch died at age 59.
“It was fucking fast,” Sparks says.
Jennifer Finch’s death was widely mourned in feminist and music circles. But Sparks doesn’t want to—can’t, really—talk much about it. The show has gone on: Janis Tanaka, who played bass in L7 in the late ‘90s, has rejoined the group.
“Quite frankly, I don’t think we’ve processed it yet,” says Sparks. “When she passed, I’ve just been on full throttle getting this tour together. Every day, my mantra was like, ‘Just move the ball forward. Just move the ball forward. Just move.’ And because there were so many deadlines to deal with, and breaking in Janis [Tanaka] again, and you know, breaking in our bass player that we had for the summer shows, and it’s just been a fucking lot … So we may be processing this on this tour.”
The tour is definitely checking off one box for Sparks. She tells me that her mother subscribed to Ms. beginning with its first issue; she remembers magazines arriving to the mailbox at their Chicago home. But somehow, the most feminist publication never covered the most feminist band.
“That was the one fish we didn’t catch,” Sparks says.
Well, Donita Sparks, consider Ms. hooked.
Explore L7’s upcoming tour dates here.
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A note from Ms. editors: We want to hear from you for The Majority, a new campaign collecting stories about how reproductive freedom has enabled readers to build the lives they want and need.
Poll after poll shows a majority of Americans support reproductive healthcare access. Yet public debate overlooks the lives shaped by abortion access, contraception, IVF, miscarriage care, maternal healthcare or comprehensive sex education—countless women who chose to pursue an education, have children, not have children, protect their health and chart their own future. What’s your reproductive freedom story? Add your voice. Together, these stories will help show not only why reproductive freedom remains a majority value, but also what it makes possible.
