Beyond beer and boys

To hear the Donnas, you’d think they spend all their free time pinching boys’ bottoms or shoving them out of the way. They seem like a gang as much as a band -- a tightknit clique snapping gum, smoking Marlboros and emasculating every man they meet.

See them outside of their records, and their reputation as Pabst-swilling, sex-crazed party animals quickly disintegrates. Trail them for an evening and you won’t see them putting out cigarettes in men’s drinks or writing their numbers on napkins in lipstick.

The Bay Area quartet are just regular girls -- best friends who like to sip iced tea, eat candy and watch “The O.C.” Most of them even have long-term boyfriends, even if those boys are taking a back seat to the band these days while the Donnas promote their sixth and latest record, “Gold Medal.”

On the eve of the record’s release, Donnas A, C, R and F are at Hollywood’s Hotel Bel Age having a quick dinner.

In 15 minutes they’ll be heading to “Jimmy Kimmel Live” for an outdoor performance, followed by a midnight meet-and-greet at Tower Records and the official kickoff of what will most likely be a yearlong tour.

Donna R (Allison Robertson) is concentrating on her Cobb salad while Donna A (Brett Anderson) samples a shrimp dumpling that Donna F (Maya Ford) has warned is no good. Donna C (Torry Castellano) jokes about seeing her “good friend” actor Jason Schwartzman, who is a guest on “Kimmel.” The entire group laughs, knowing she’s met him only once.

Like the image they project on their records, the Donnas like to have a good time. But the devil-may-care vibe in their songs is an act -- one that’s at odds with their real-life ambitions. Two years ago, they made the leap to Atlantic Records after five years with Lookout, the Berkeley-based indie label that signed them as teens. More mature as musicians and as women, they’re now 25 and looking to ratchet up their career. It isn’t so easy.

“We’re taken less seriously now,” says Anderson, a singer whose Sandra Dee good looks are at odds with her sneering vocals. “Every time we get reviewed in Rolling Stone, I feel like they’re reviewing our first album. They might like it, but what they say about it is: hair metal. I’m like, ‘Are you listening to the same album we just put out?’ ”

Listeners familiar with the blunt-talking, come-hither/go-away guitar rock on their 1999 breakthrough “Get Skintight” or even their major label 2002 debut “Spend the Night” will hear some differences on “Gold Medal.” The songs are slightly slower, to compensate for the tendinitis Castellano was diagnosed with last summer. Musically, the Donnas have grown beyond the Ramones shtick of matching names, matching outfits and lifted riffs to more fully explore the era’s parallel world of straightforward rock, pairing Heart-style guitar licks with hand claps and harmonies.

Slicker than their previous albums, thanks to Avril Lavigne producer Butch Walker, the record is also less venomous. Anderson’s vocals don’t sound threatening so much as unimpressed. Lyrically, there isn’t nearly as much shut-up-and-get-naked sass, but they can still throw a mean punch. On “Out of my Hands,” they dish: “I may not be a man, but you’re not one either. It takes one to know one.”

The Donnas’ unique brand of snotty rock defies easy classification, but because they’re a girl band -- a rare breed these days -- they are compared with the few other women who’ve climbed on to the charts.

“Everyone from the Yeah Yeah Yeahs to Britney Spears to Ashlee Simpson to Avril Lavigne. Anyone who’s female,” says Castellano, a drummer who now wears a wrist brace. “Guy bands out there like the Strokes or the Vines, people would never compare them to the Backstreet Boys. And yet we are in that position.”

A decade ago, when the Donnas formed a band at their Palo Alto high school, it seemed like radio couldn’t get enough female artists on the air. On the commercial end of the dial, Hole and L7 reigned supreme; out left, it was PJ Harvey, Liz Phair, Bikini Kill and Babes in Toyland. Women rocked, and radio loved them.

It’s a different climate these days. The Donnas have been college radio faves for years, but they get almost no airtime on commercial stations.

“It’s funny because I feel like the same thing we were going up against when we were first starting out, we’re still going up against,” Castellano says. “When we first started out, it was a lot more blatant because the guys at our school were like: ‘Girls can’t play. Go home and play with your dolls.’ Now it’s a little more subtle. No one actually comes up to us and says, ‘Girls can’t play.’ They say, ‘We just don’t really play girls on rock radio.’ ”

Closing in on 6 p.m., the Donnas climb into an SUV for a rush-hour trip through Hollywood en route to “Jimmy Kimmel.” As the driver passes the Viper Room, Castellano points to it and says the group once did a photo shoot on its roof. Not only did they have to climb a creaking fire escape to get there, they had to do it in heels.

“And then they didn’t even use the picture!” Anderson says.

The story kicks off a 15-minute discussion on photo shoots and stylists attempting to coerce them into clothes they’d never wear. Anderson talks about a time she was dolled up as a “prairie country girl.” Robertson recounts the fight she had over a necklace she accidentally broke.

“It was ugly anyway,” quips Ford, the group’s sharp-tongued bass player.

The Donnas are perennial magazine favorites, even if photo shoots are the part of their job they like least. Chances are you’ve seen pictures of them in a pillow fight or scribbling on a bathroom wall. Maybe they were blowing bubbles, touching up their lip gloss or doing any number of other girly things that are “something that we’re not that isn’t about rock ‘n’ roll,” says Robertson, a guitarist who could out-noodle most of today’s male players. “They’re always trying to clean us up or sex us up or cute us up.”

Behind the scenes at “Jimmy Kimmel,” Castellano is fixing her ponytail and checking herself out in the mirror. Ford is reading the instruction manual for a new cellphone. Anderson snuggles on a couch with her boyfriend, while Robertson half-watches a video of celebrity rock group Camp Freddy, making jokes about the guys in the band.

“Why is it that Slash always looks like he’s impersonating himself?”

In a couple hours the four of them are onstage themselves, dolled up in tight jeans, revealing tops and hairdos fresh from the curling iron, walking the fine line between staying true to themselves and working to win the hearts and minds of a new audience. Performing a cut from their new record, Anderson sings the truth: “Just have to wait and see.”

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The Donnas

Where: House of Blues, 8430 Sunset Blvd., West Hollywood

When: 8 p.m. Sunday

Cost: $15

Info: (323) 848-5100 or www.hob.com

Susan Carpenter can be reached at weekend@latimes.com.