THE MAKING OF BRICKS ARE HEAVY BY L7 - FEATURING DONITA SPARKS

Intro:

Dan Nordheim: You’re listening to Life of the Record. Classic albums, told by the people who made them. My name is Dan Nordheim. 

L7 formed in Los Angeles, California in 1985 by Donita Sparks and Suzi Gardner. Jennifer Finch joined on bass while Roy Koutsky played drums initially. Their self-titled debut album was released by Epitaph Records in 1988. Dee Plakas took over on drums as the band signed with Sub Pop and released Smell the Magic in 1990. The following year, L7 signed with Slash Records and began working on their next album with Butch Vig producing. Bricks Are Heavy was eventually released in 1992. 

In this episode, for the 30th anniversary, Donita Sparks looks back on how the album came together. This is the making of Bricks Are Heavy. 

Donita Sparks: This is Donita Sparks of the band L7 and we're gonna be discussing our 1992 album, Bricks Are Heavy. 

I think it was just a natural progression of us just getting better as songwriters. You know, when we were first out, we just wanted to barnstorm it, and just be loud and brash and aggressive and our songs were good, but you know, like our Sub Pop album, we were getting pretty good. Our first album, we could have used a few more years as songwriters before we made our first album with Epitaph, but I just think that by the time we got to Bricks Are Heavy, we were progressing as songwriters. 

We liked our relationship with Sub Pop a lot, but we felt like we wanted to have wider distribution and it was sort of what all the bands were doing at the time, which was, you know, signing to a major label. In fact, most of Sub Pop's roster split from Sub Pop, but it wasn't because they were bad guys or doing a bad job or anything like that. It was just simply, it was a natural next step for us. And it was not over money or anything like that. There was no bidding war about L7 at all, but we did find some like-minded people at Slash Records and Slash, LA legendary label, put out the Germs and X and Violent Femmes and The Blasters and stuff. And you know, they were cool and they had just signed a deal with Warner Brothers for their distribution. So it was kind of like, “Wow, this is kind of best of both worlds for us.” So we decided to go for it. 

I had no problem going from the underground into the mainstream. I thought it was cool. I wanted to get our message out. I wanted to be an inspiration to kids who were stuck in the suburbs who were getting picked on and, you know, felt alienated and isolated. I liked getting on TV on MTV, on David Letterman, whatever it was just to, you know, “Hey, you're not alone out there.” We were alone too. And you know, that kind of thing. Some people just felt that major labels were corporate and they didn't like 'em and whatever, but, you know, I'm glad that the Beatles were on a major label. I'm glad I heard the Beatles. I'm glad I heard their message. I mean, what the fuck? You wouldn't hear the Doors. You wouldn't hear, you know, a lot of bands that had cool stuff to say. You know, the Rolling Stones, they were all on major labels and even the underground cool bands, Blondie, all of 'em. They were on major labels. You know, the Ramones. I have no problem with that.

So Butch, he had a great reputation with working with underground bands. And then when Nirvana worked with him, we had heard some tapes that came out. You know, we were friends with the Nirvana guys. We even went down to Sound City to visit them a couple times during their recording and it was sounding great. And we just thought, Butch was our guy, you know. We were basically following in the wake of Nirvana with that. And we were lucky to meet Butch and he liked our stuff and we got along well as people. We spent, I don't know, about three days at Sound City doing drums. Butch loved the drum sounds at Sound City, it's a huge drum room. So he wanted to do the drums there, which is what we did. And then we all went to the frozen Tundra of Madison, Wisconsin to do the overdubs. The band stayed in a house that Butch had rented for us. And that's where we stayed while we made the rest of Bricks Are Heavy at Smart Studios. So Butch lived in Madison, his studio was in Madison. Yeah, we just went there for financial reasons. We didn't have the budget to record it all at Sound City. When we were working on Bricks Are Heavy and Nirvana broke, which was like, literally we were in the studio and in came a SPIN magazine and Nirvana were on the cover, you know, and it was just, it was just super exciting. Like I didn't feel pressure. I felt, you know, really excited for them and, and it was blowing our minds, you know, and Butch, it was blowing his mind too, because it was a band he had just worked with and they were becoming the biggest things since sliced bread. And it was unbelievable. He was getting a second shot at a music career because I mean, he was a successful producer in the underground, but this was like a whole different ballpark for him. And he was excited, we were excited for our friends in Nirvana. I think that the people working for Butch had had told them that, you know, we were gonna be the next Nirvana, which is like really funny. But you know, that's one of the reasons he took the gig because he really liked us. And, you know, there was buzz in the industry that we could be as big as Nirvana or close to it or something like that. And so that's just kind of funny. I didn't know that until years later he told me that. I'm glad I didn't know that at the time, because I think that I would've felt, you know, more nervous or something. There's always a bit of nervousness in the studio, but that would've, that would've freaked me out I think.

“Wargasm”

I, at the time, was listening to Plastic Ono Band’s Sometime in New York City, I think is the name of it. And a friend of mine and I were really just really jamming on that record for a while and really digging it. So I was like, “Oh man, I'd love to sample Yoko for ‘Wargasm,’ cause her vocals are so passionate and so just off the rails in expressiveness. And we reached out to her to see if we could use that and she said, “yes.” And then my management said, “Hey, Yoko, Ono's gonna call you. She wants to talk to you.” And I was just like, “What?” I was like, “Oh my God.” You know, like, “What am I gonna say to Yoko Ono?” And she called me and I was pretty nervous and I didn't have much to say. And I said, “I'm sorry, I'm not talking that much. I'm kind of nervous.” And she was just very cool and very supportive of our band and what we were doing. And she had encouraging things to say and it was cool getting the nod from her. And you know, she liked the lyrics and she thought it was a cool song. Even beginning with Smell the Magic. We were getting a little more specific in our songwriting, at least I'm talking for my stuff anyway. I was getting a bit more specific with who or what I was writing about. It was going from kind of more abstract things that I thought I should be writing about, you know, to stuff I really wanted to write about. “Wargasm” was just something, you know, we were going to war with, I guess it was Desert Storm, I don't know which one it was. It was like, the first George Bush president was going to war. And so we were all of a sudden in war again, and it was like, “What the fuck?” So that was based on that. And I didn't know that this country was in for like so many more decades of war. You know, it seemed like war was kind of a thing of the past when Vietnam ended, you know, and then all of sudden we were in a war again. And it was like, “Oh my God, what?” So that was very specific about it. But, you know, there are some humorous lines in there that are darkly humorous in a way.

I enjoyed being in Madison for Bricks Are Heavy and focusing on each part. I thought it was cool. And I thought it was helping me as a songwriter and it was letting me express, “Hey, I'm hearing this thing here. Like in this part, I wanna hear, I'm hearing this. Do you like that Butch?” And he'd be like, “Yeah, cool, let's try it.” And we had time to do a call and response, you know, or do a, “come on, come on, come on,” or do a, “monster, monster in me,” you know, that “monster in me,” the response was not written. We had time to like, “Hey, how about this? It sounds kind of catchy to respond to Susie.” So I liked being able to take that time and not feel so pressured. 

Well, what's funny about when we were doing Smell the Magic with Jack Endino. We were up in Seattle, we were crashed at a friend's house and we had a weekend. First we were doing a Sub Pop Singles Club and we had a weekend to do that. You know, Jack is so loose, I had a speaker broken on my amp that was rattling. I had like a two speaker cabinet and one of the speakers was rattling and broken and he was like, “Sounds cool to me.” (laughs) So it was just like, I had this like rattling thing and it just didn't, he did not care. You know, part of that whole scene is just punk in the sense of like, just plug it in and go. And then, Bricks Are Heavy, you know, you talk about like the polishness of this record. It's funny, Butch is incredibly meticulous about being in tune. So much to the fact that he was using this very psychedelic op art thing that used to be standard in the industry called a strobe tuner. And that was the thing that was kind of the frustrating thing to me was because I was ready to record, you know, and he needed everything to be, every string at every point in the guitar that you were gonna hit, had to be completely in tune. So it was quite a feat for us to be ready to track. And then if we ran through it a couple times, we'd have to do that all over again, because he's just very particular about that. So that may add to his polished sound, I don't know. But like, I, if something's a little out of tune for me these days, I'm just not that, if it sounds okay, it sounds good, you know. But I think he was just thinking about all the layers that were gonna be going on top of stuff and needed everything to lock in. When I visited Nirvana, he was doing the same thing. So that's just his thing. He's super super pro.

“Scrap”

“Scrap” was written when we were recording our very first album. Epitaph Records at the time was just a house in Hollywood and it did have a garage and there was a skinhead living in the garage. Brett Gurewitz was letting this kid, this skinhead who was huffing paint in the garage. And so I just started writing a song about Scrap, who was living in my friend's garage, which is literally true. And Brett started contributing some lyrics too. And so we wrote it on the couch, you know, I wrote the music and Brett and I wrote the lyrics on the couch at Epitaph, I guess in probably 1987. And so it finally made the record in 1992. So, you know, sometimes you have older songs that get a new life when you've got a new record coming out. And so we always like that one. It always surprises people that Scrap was really a person that existed. And he did go to Vegas to find God. And he came back and started huffing paint again. So that is truly the story of Scrap.

I hope Scrap is still with us cause he was a sweet kid. He was just, you know, he was just lost. On one side of my family, I have a very, very religious side of the family, distant cousins or whatever, but I've seen that up close. So I think I was kind of referencing that a little bit too. Like the line, “Use revival meetings like an oxygen tent till your mind starts to gel. Because the preacher thumps the Bible with a crazy beat, the funky dying brain cell.” I was comparing the paint huffing to also the dying brain cells within that revival tent. You know what I mean?

“Pretend We’re Dead”

I hate telling this, cause I don't like to ruin stuff for people, you know. But in all actuality, the “pretend we're dead” part came from, I was going through a breakup and it was devastating. And I just had to tell myself, “Okay, I've just gotta pretend that this person's dead.” And I, it's not like I wanted that person dead. I was just like, it was the only way I could cope to stop, like focusing on and obsessing over thinking about what this person was doing. So it was like, “Okay, I just have to pretend they're dead. I just have to pretend they're dead for my own sanity.” And I was like, “Huh, ‘pretend they're dead.’ Hmm. I'm not gonna write a song about that, but ‘pretend we’re dead,’ I like that.”

“Pretend We're Dead,” like a lot of my songs or like many of my songs, I don't think there's any chord changes in it. It's all (hums melody). Right, the chord progression is the same throughout the song. So the vocals change between the melody line changes between the verse and the chorus, but there's never a chord change. So I had this cool sounding chord progression, and I had the rift, you know, (hums guitar riff). I had that and I had the chord progression and usually with our, the way we usually have the music first and then the lyrics are written to that. And so, (sings) “When we pretend that we're dead,” and so that came into my head and then, so I had the chorus and then I kind of wrote the, I was like, “Okay, ‘pretend we're dead,’ that's like apathy, right?” So like, “Okay, I'm gonna write a song about apathy.” Because that was another thing I was struggling with at the time, because it was so frustrating cause, like a lot of people my age, they didn't even vote, you know? So it was just, and I've always been raised to be kind of a bit of an activist and stuff and it would frustrate me that people, you know, who I thought were really cool and stuff didn't even vote. And I thought it was like, “What the fuck, man? That's like the least you can do.” So it was about apathy. 

Sometimes when I write, I write so quietly that it's not for me to project loudly. Like, you know, sometimes you write a song and it should have been in a higher key for you to really belt it out. And it didn't really seem like this needed a shouting thing. And, you know, the vocal is kind of a little bit of a deadpan thing, there's not a screaming moment in it. There's not a, it's just kind of, you know, in a way it's sort of appropriate for a song about apathy. You know, it's a little bit of a deadpan. But that was not intentional, it was really just the key it was in and the melody of the track.

We would record and then I'd get a cassette to listen to at night back at the house. And I thought, “Oh, it'd be cool. If Dee went, ‘come on, come on, come on, come on.’ Because you know, we loved Public Enemy and we loved, you know what I mean? And I think she actually, you know, the way she sang it, it was just very Public Enemy. It's just the way that it came out from her. That's definitely kind of a hip hop influence in there, which is kind of funny. We didn't mean it to be funny, but I kind of chuckle at that when I hear that. Because it does sound very Public Enemy. And then also, you know, to do the call and response with Suzi, you know, (sings) “When we pretend that we're dead, pretend we're dead.” You know, like I thought it was cool to have a deadpan response to that very melodic sing songy chorus vocal.

If it's more pop it's not Butch's fault or to Butch's credit that much. I mean, true. Butch did encourage us to, to be hooky and melodic and he definitely thought “Pretend We're Dead” was hooky. And he liked the title a lot. He thought it was evocative of a lot of things. He thought it was a cool title. He just, he liked it a lot. You know, sometimes it's kind of like, you know ahead of time, “Oh, hey, that might be a single or that might be, you know,” and it doesn't always work out that way. But with this one, it did pretty much work out that way. Like it was the first thing he latched onto. But he gave each song on this record the loving attention that it deserved and every song turned out cool. And a lot of them sound hooky and poppy and I mean that in the best sense, you know. I love bubble gum. I prefer catchier stuff than to really heavy, heavy stuff. I mean, I like that too, but I've always had that side, which I think I repressed a little bit. 

You know, another thing that's kind of interesting about pretend we're dead Butch and I were just remastering it with Howie Weinberg, the guy who originally mastered it. Cause we're putting out a 30th anniversary of this album. But we were listening to “Pretend We're Dead” in the mastering studio and I was like, “It's so funny how the riff sounds like it's a synthesizer.” But it was not a synthesizer. We just had so many pedals on it that it didn't even sound like a guitar anymore. It sounded fuzzed out, but also kind of synthed out. And it's just very funny because it is indeed a guitar.

When we were recording, “Pretend We're Dead,” we had fun with the outro. You know, we were like, “How about if Suzi plays a backward solo, that would be really cool, you know.” And like playing a backward solo is much more difficult than you think it is. Because first she had to write something that would sound good backwards and then learn how to play it backwards and then Butch played it backwards, you know what I mean? It's not that easy. You think George Harrison, it was a breeze, but it probably wasn't even a breeze for George Harrison or whoever played backwards solos. So we decided to get it like psychedelic sounding at the end with that backwards solo, you know. I, earlier in our career, I did the cardinal sin of “shitting on the hit” and you know, don't shit on your hit because that song means a lot to a lot of people. But like back in the day, we used to have our roadie come out and start ironing or start vacuuming on the stage when that outro solo, you know, because it was just like, you know, it was just the grunge way to do things at the time was to like, make fun of your hit. Because there was probably a bit of guilt, major label guilt over having a hit or some, you know, punk rock response to having a hit, which is really stupid. But on our reunion tour, we do not shit on our hit. And we play it with all the heart and soul that it deserves. 

It is a generational anthem for sure. And I can see it in the audience’s faces and it's, we treat it with a lot of respect these days. A lot of the bands that came out at Sub Pop, had this like, you know, tongue and cheekness about mainstream or that kind of stuff. And so Nirvana did that shit too, you know, and it was all just kind of our way of having fun with this mind blowing place we were at in the mainstream all of a sudden. And it was like, “Oh my God, this is like ridiculous.” You know, because stuff like MTV and getting on the radio was just so far fetched for all of us. And so we got into absurdity with some of our live shows, but now I treat things differently when we perform it's much more for the audience, as opposed to our own little insecurities about having about having a hit, you know.

“Diet Pill” 

Well, I heard a story about a country artist who told a story that he was abusing his wife and his wife hit him with a frying pan when he was sleeping. And I just thought that that was so amazing. And so I filled in these details that didn't really exist. I named this person, Victor, his name was not Victor, and I just, you know, “the twins are in the car,” and I painted a whole scenario of what that evening might have looked like with an abused person, pushed to the brink of sewing their husband in the sheets and sewing him to the sheets and beating the fuck out of him with a frying pan and leaving him, you know? So I thought I was like, “Okay, this is a heavy one,” you know, but then I always like to throw in like, “Calgon can't take me away. No Calgon, can't take me away.” And people love that line, you know, cause it's like a “fuck you.”  It’s not just anger, it’s just like flippantly funny too. 

Well, I dig the heaviness of it and Suzi digs the heaviness of it. Her leads on this really fit, they're very menacing. She did a great job with that. Well, you know, I've always been a feminist and I don't like anybody being abused and, you know, listen, I think a lot of fans and a lot of people in general have been abused or have witnessed abuse in their own homes. And like, I think they can really get behind this song, you know, of like the imagery of a person who can sew and who can cook with a frying pan. You know, it's very like, yes, it is this domestic situation, you know. She uses the tools of her domestic responsibilities as her weapons. And that is cool.

“Everglade”

Jennifer Finch brought this song in, “Everglade,” and we liked it from the get go. And she wrote this with a guy named Daniel Rey who worked with the Ramones a lot. He was a friend of ours. We liked this song a lot. I play lead on this one. The way we've been playing it during the reunion and even back in the day, we play it a little more stripped down. And if we're gonna be performing this record front to back, I've gotta learn a lot more parts on this for the intro in particular, what the lead guitar is doing all that. I kind of blew that off and got lazy with it and just stuck to the barre chords. But now I'm gonna have to fill in those gaps with my own noodling at the top of that song.

She brought it in and I loved the subject matter, you know, of getting tossed around in the pit by guys that are being really full of elbows and strength, you know, and when you just wanna watch a rock show. Even if you wanna join the pit, it gets too rough, you know, and it's not cool. And so this was her response to those kind of situations, because it did get rough at our shows and we'd have to stop a lot and tell the crowd to chill out. “You're getting too, you know, knock it off,” because it would get crazy.

“Everglade resonates. I think, especially at a live show where people are in the audience and I've experienced this, we've all experienced this. Being at rock concerts and it gets, you know, the boys are pushing you aside to get to the front, and then you can't see over their tall bodies and, you know, you're getting pushed around and this gets very anthemic at our live shows in particular. And you know, again, it's not just girls getting pushed around, it's guys getting pushed around too, who don't wanna get crazy violent, you know? And so people like it and I think, you know, (sings) “Don't cross my line says Everglade,” is very, you know, it's kind of reminiscent of “Shove” from Smell the Magic, which is just like, you know, “Lean up off, back the fuck off,” you know, so it's like, “Don't cross my line says Everglade,” and it gets very, you know, it even transcends what it's about specifically, being in the pit. It transcends to just a, going through life, “Don't cross my line,” you know, so I think that resonates.

“Slide” 

Suzi and I had a riot writing “Slide” because it's about our ex lovers and it's all true. Every line is true. And we just had a blast writing this because, all those incidents actually happened. It was just really, really fun, you know, each line is about, this person or that person and people just can't believe some of this stuff, but it's all true. “You pissed in your…” we had, this was actually an ex roommate of ours, a guy who would come home. He was a friend of ours and he would, pass out in the kitchen. piss himself while blasting Motörhead at like top volume. Like, you know, we'd get home from being in a club and there would be so and so down on the floor in a puddle of his own piss with Motörhead blaring on repeat. You know, when you could make an album repeat again and again and again, you know, so the neighbors were like listening to Motörhead blasting at like two in the morning, you know, to this guy passed out in his own urine. But that was true. And “you splattered the bathroom with your hair dye,” that was true. “You stuck your cane right through my amp,” that's true. All that stuff is true.

It's so cool, writing a song about stuff that was really upsetting, like when, so and so stuck the cane through my amp and broke my amp and it was in a rage. I was just like, it was so upsetting, it was so disturbing, like, “Oh my God, all of a sudden I'm in this domestic-like angry situation.” But writing it, it just, it just lets go of all of the scariness and it just becomes this hilarious thing, which it is. So yeah and the actual incident was like, “Oh, I'm gonna destroy something like that…” it wasn't like, I loved the amp. I don't love my gear that much. It was like a little Marshall amp, you know, a little practice amp, but it was an attack on almost like who I identified as. It was an attack on something you love. It's like when a mean, mean evil person, you know, kills someone's dog to get at him or something. You know, it just felt really hateful. You know, it was a hateful thing. Splattering the bathroom with your hair dye is not an attack, it’s just somebody being a lunkhead. But the cane through the amp was an attack at who I identified as you know, and it was just, it was nasty. But I like how songs and lyrics can transform really shitty things into really cathartic things. And if you're lucky they can turn into anthemic things. So that happens with us a lot.

“One More Thing”

Jennifer brought this in. She brought in “One More Thing” and I loved it. I loved it for its simplicity. I think the recording of it is great. And I think her vocals are great on it. And Suzi plays (sings lead guitar part) And then I play the other little diddy (sings 2nd lead guitar part). And who plays lead on that? Damnit. I think Suzi  plays the lead, but yeah, I like this and we worked on that, you know, the breakdown and kind of that muffled, I kind of brought in that muffled metal part on the rhythm guitars. So that I think helped give it a bit more dynamics on the arrangement. Yeah. And that one, I like a lot, that's one of my favorites on the album.

Dee is really good at getting it in one, two or three takes. She's just really, she's really solid. They would have Dee on a click track, like at the beginning of the song and then just kind of take the click track off so she could, she could build faster if she wanted to. So it was kind like the metronome helped kicked her off for the tempo that we were striving for. And then if she went off the click, they would just remove the click and like, just let her play because she was, she was adding, dynamics, whether either speeding it up a little bit or slowing a section down or whatever. So we weren't that Pro Tools, I don't think we had Pro Tools then, you know, there wasn't as much stress for a click track as kind of, sometimes there is these days.

“Mr. Integrity”

This one, it's funny because it was the way that we write usually, like I've said before, where the music comes first and then the lyrics come on top. But this one I wrote “Mr. Integrity” in reverse. I had these lyrics. inspired by a person who pissed me off at a part, who kind of insulted a song that I had written, if you can fucking believe that. And I was so pissed, I was like, “Okay, fucker.” And I wrote this song but this person said to me, “Oh, now you're on Slash, maybe you can write more songs about cars.” And I was just like, I didn't even know what he was fucking talking about, but I was like, in my mind, I was like, “Well, I like songs about cars and I like surf songs.” And so I wrote this scathing funny song about riding in a car with him through San Francisco to a surf beat. And that was my revenge at this perceived insult from this person. And so, that's what it's about. I was in San Francisco when this person said this to me at a party and I just took it to writing this really cool surf car song about somebody pissing me off. And I like it very much. I love “Mr. Integrity.”

It was definitely an icon of the punk scene and some of those people, they either don't like people signing to majors or, you know, maybe there's a little jealousy that they're not signed to a major. I don't know why any artist would go up to someone and insult them. It's just ridiculous. So it's like, I would never say anything like that to someone. As artists, I feel we should be supporting each other and encouraging each other because we're all little kids at heart and, you know, we need encouragement and not…Like he was punching downwards, man. It was like, “You're this big guy. Why are you picking on me?” kind of thing. But I turned it into gold and got a great song out of it. One of my faves. It totally rocks. And you know, I even threw bongos on there. It's like, “Fucking, let's put some bongos on here, man. Like, let's really go for it.” 

Seeing people that came up from our scene or whatever, seeing them in magazines and stuff, it was cool. I've always felt like I was in a community, you know? And I think maybe some other people didn't feel that, but I always felt it like, “Hey, this is cool. Like we're all, can you believe it?” I mean, I would see White Zombie in a magazine and I would be thrilled, you know. I'd see Soundgarden in a magazine and I'd be thrilled. It was like, “Wow, man, this is crazy. Like we've all graduated into these massive publications and this massive exposure.” I thought it was cool, I never had a problem with that, other than shitting on my hit. But the other things, I didn't have a problem with it,  I liked seeing my friends, all of us getting the exposure. That was cool.

“Monster”

Suzi brought this in and you know, had the riff. (sings riff) “do do, do, do, do, do, do, do do.” And the song starts out with that on bass and people lovingly think that that's Jennifer's bass line, but it's actually the riff of the song. So Suzi does indeed get the credit for that riff. But, you know, we all loved “Monster” when it came in and Suzi writes a lot about her personal romantic relationships. And sometimes she does it incredibly well. And it's a topic that I steer away from, because I don't think I'm very good at it, but Suzi’s good at it. That's her topic of lyric a lot. So “Monster’s” you know, somebody driving her crazy with passion, you know, “brings out the monster in her.” So it's cool. I like that one a lot. It's got a great riff.

It's cool too, because like Suzi and I, our dynamic is like, I'll write a song and she'll put in a lead, that's totally something I wasn't thinking of, but it's really great and it's different, you know. And I'm the same way. She'll write a song and I'll do a lead on top of it, which is something that she hadn't pictured at all, but it takes it to a different place and she loves it. So it's this kind of, we compliment each other a lot when it works, when it works, it's really great. I think that we didn't write as much as together on this record as we had in the past. Like I said, I think that we were both sort of growing confidence to write on our own and also, I think Suzi had some personal stuff going on at the time. She actually just didn't write as much as I did for this, you know, but I think that she was preoccupied with a person that she was with. But I'm not exactly sure, you know, I know that I was a bit more isolated myself, but in my isolation I was writing a bit more, I think, than she was. I think in her isolation, she was with someone that was, you know, sucking up a lot of her headspace. But these two great songs came out of that.

“Shitlist” 

When we play “Shitlist,” it's on. It's like, you know, that's a crowd pleaser for sure. It's just off the rails. When we play that song live.

Yeah, “Shitlist,” you know, another song of mine that has three or four chords and it doesn't change. It's the same thing throughout the whole song, I'm pretty sure. Yeah and it's just a different melody for the verse and a different vocal melody for the verse and a different vocal melody for the chorus. I'm playing lead on it. It's a very simple song to play. And I like that quality sometimes. And it fits when you've gotta, you know, when you're brewing up an anger anthem, you know, to keep it simple.

I didn't know it would be so anthemic when I wrote it. But I know that all the people that we were hanging out with at the time were really getting a kick out of it before it was released. You know, if they heard it, if they heard us playing live or whatever. It was getting high praise from our dirtbag friends, lovable dirtbag friends who were like, “Oh ‘Shitlist,’ that's good, that's good.” You know, so we had a feeling, it would be a fan favorite. Unfortunately, and it is one of our biggest songs, it never got on the radio. So, you know, that's the curse. If you've got a really cool song, but it's got a swear word in it, it’s not gonna get on the radio. At least the radio that was common back then. So no video was made for it or whatever, but strangely and amazingly, you know, in Natural Born Killers, Juliette Lewis does a fight scene. Actually. It's more like a kicking ass scene to “Shitlist” in that movie. So that almost works as a video, even though I do not like violence at all. And you know, I'm not crazy about that being so associated with the song because it's so violent, but her performance is so great. And so many people identify that song with that scene from the movie. And that's fine by me, you know, cause it is an amazing scene. But for the record I am against violence.

When I do jump the octave, it is insane. And when I do it live, it's really insane because people don't think I can still do it, but I do it. And I probably do it even better than I did on that recording because my voice, you can hear my voice starting to rasp out right now, you know? And like when you're on tour for you know, even just after a show or two, your voice starts to get raspy, right? And so when I hit that with this rasp, it just sounds insane. And it's, people are always kind of taken aback, especially people who have never seen L7 before. Like maybe people who are kind of new in my life, like new friends, who were never really big rock fans or something. And they come to see L7 and when I hit that, they kind of chuckle because it is so shocking, but I can usually pull it off, you know, knock on wood.

“This Ain’t Pleasure” 

And then we decided to close with a barnstormer as well, which is “This Ain’t Pleasure.” So we kind of start and finish with two fast ones. In looking at the sequence, there are maybe some things I would've changed. I know we wanted to put “Pretend We’re Dead” third, because that's, usually we didn't wanna put it up top, you know, cause we thought that that was probably gonna be the first single. I probably might have put “Diet Pill” a little bit later, cause it is so slow and heavy. Who knows, but I think it does flow well, you know, so who am I to say. Who am I to be a Monday morning quarterback on the sequence for this record? So I'm cool with it.

“This Ain’t Pleasure” has these different time signatures and yeah this one, you know, I think because of the different time signatures, it was kind of piece by piece a little bit. Dee of course played through the whole thing. I think probably for some of the changing rhythm sections, we kind of recorded those separately. I'm not sure. I can't really remember how the recording of this one went down, but I would imagine that that's kind of how we pulled it off at the time. We were really down to the line because it was approaching Christmas. And so everybody had to, we had to finish. And so by the end of our recording at Madison, we were using every available closet and room with different engineers, finishing up all the overdubs, you know? So every corner of that studio was utilized just to finish. 

We've never played this song live. So this will be challenging to work on for, you know, when we play the whole album to get that tight. But we can do it. We've done it before. Not a big deal (laughs). 

This album, Bricks Are Heavy, is probably our career peak. Not that I think it's our musical peak, but it was definitely our career peak and we were getting on TV and it was selling well, and we were hot shit. And it was quite exciting and fun. We were loving it, you know, and we thought there'd be more of it. And then it wasn't (laughs), it kind of, we kind of, you know, plateaued at that space for a while career wise and then started to go down. But it was a great ride. This album means a lot to people. And so it's highly respected in our camp. We appreciate that this was a generational touchstone for a lot of people. And I'm super proud of that. And I think, man, when people tell you that an album helped get through their horrible teeny bopper years or teenage years, it's like, “Oh my God, how great.” So we were even hearing from famous people who were, you know, “Shitlist” was their anthem about dealing with assholes, you know? So it felt really great. Yeah it was a great ride.

I'm thrilled that Bricks Are Heavy is holding up for people and it's holding up in the rock world and that's unbelievable. It's amazing. And I'm so happy about that. And we're all proud of this record. You know, we're proud of all of our records by the way, but this one really sticks with a lot of people. And so even though it didn't make us gazillionaires or anywhere close (laughs), I'm happy that it's still up there in some people's minds.

Outro:

Dan Nordheim: Visit lifeoftherecord.com for more information about L7. You’ll also find a link to stream or purchase Bricks Are Heavy, including the recent 30th anniversary edition. Thanks for listening.

Credits:

"Wargasm” (Donita Sparks)

"Scrap" (Donita Sparks, Brett Gurewitz)

"Pretend We're Dead" (Donita Sparks)

"Diet Pill" (Donita Sparks)

"Everglade" (Jennifer Finch, Daniel Rey)

"Slide" (Suzi Gardner, Donita Sparks)

"One More Thing" (Jennifer Finch)

"Mr. Integrity" (Donita Sparks)

"Monster" (Suzi Gardner)

"Shitlist" (Donita Sparks)

"This Ain't Pleasure" (Suzi Gardner, Phil Caviano)

All songs published by Drop Trou Tunes/Virgin Songs, BMI

©℗ 1992 Slash Records

L7:

Donita Sparks - guitar, lead vocals on 1, 2, 3, 4, 8 and 10

Suzi Gardner - guitar, lead vocals on 6, 9 and 11

Jennifer Finch - bass, lead vocals on 5 and 7

Dee Plakas - drums, backing vocals on 3

Additional musicians:

Pauli Ryan - bongos on “Mr. Integrity”

Pete Love - handclaps on “Mr. Integrity”

Yoko Ono - sample on “Wargasm” from Live Peace in Toronto

Produced by Butch Vig and L7

Engineered and mixed by Butch Vig

Recorded at Smart Studios, Madison, WI and Sound City, Van Nuys, CA

Additional engineering at Smart Studios by Mr. Colson and Steve Marker

Additional engineering at Sound City by Jeff “Yeastie” Sheehan

Mastered by Howie Weinberg at Masterdisk, NYC

Episode Credits:

Theme Music:

“Winter Cold” by North Home

Intro/Outro Music:

“La Sirena” by Skinny Girl Diet from the album, Ideal Woman

Episode produced, edited and mixed by Dan Nordheim

Additional mixing and mastering by Jeremy Whitwam