{"id":818015,"date":"2026-08-18T20:24:09","date_gmt":"2026-08-18T20:24:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/818015\/"},"modified":"2026-08-18T20:24:09","modified_gmt":"2026-08-18T20:24:09","slug":"courtney-love-flea-billy-corgan-more-remember-l7s-jennifer-finch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/818015\/","title":{"rendered":"Courtney Love, Flea, Billy Corgan, More Remember L7’s Jennifer Finch"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tJennifer Finch<\/a> was still a teenager when she met Flea<\/a> at a friend\u2019s house sometime in the early Eighties, fresh enough into the Red Hot Chili Peppers\u2019 career to make his acquaintance as \u201cMike.\u201d \u201cShe had a light in her,\u201d Flea tells Rolling Stone now. \u201cShe was smart. She was funny. She told me she wanted to play the bass, and I sat down with her and showed her some things to get started. She told me later that it was her first bass lesson.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tHe recalls seeing her swinging her bass with her band L7 years later and reflecting on how she had risen above a scene riddled with drugs. \u201cIt was a feat to be a survivor, to thrive, to be making art with all that pain and all those survival mechanisms [we shared],\u201d he says. \u201cIt was a feat to turn it into something beautiful that made people happy.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tCourtney Love<\/a> befriended Finch shortly after hitchhiking from San Francisco to L.A. in the summer of 1983. \u201c[Her dad\u2019s] house is the closest thing to a home I\u2019ll ever have,\u201d Love tells Rolling Stone in a tribute that will be published separately in full soon. They bonded over their favorite records from Love\u2019s U2 and Echo and the Bunnymen to Finch\u2019s SST hardcore and the Chili Peppers. \u201cShe dragged me to shows,\u201d Love says. \u201cThere wasn\u2019t a day she didn\u2019t stand by the strange girl from up north. We had guitars and taught each other to play. The Runaways were our Sex Pistols.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tSince Finch\u2019s death from brain cancer<\/a> at age 59 last month, her bandmates, friends, and peers have been remembering how music and friendship formed the double helix of her soul. That\u2019s also apparent from Finch\u2019s upcoming memoir, completed shortly before her death, which gives her account of how she maintained her punk roots and cultivated friendships with the era\u2019s who\u2019s who. The book, Shooting Up and Making Out: A Memoir of My Life in LA and L7<\/a>, cowritten with Jeff Alulis, will come out via Da Capo on Jan. 19.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn the book, Finch recounts how a tumultuous childhood at the hands of an abusive adoptive mom led her to want to escape her homelife. Out of her mother\u2019s clutches, she made lasting friendships with Love, Flea, and others, and fell in love with punk rock, photography, and heroin while still a teen. After playing in a short-lived band with Love and future Babes in Toyland singer-guitarist Kat Bjelland, she joined L7.<\/p>\n

\t\tEditor\u2019s picks<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cShe was hounding us to join before our other bass player even left,\u201d L7 singer-guitarist Donita Sparks says. \u201cShe had a lot of chutzpah.\u201d Before long, she was playing buzz saw punk alongside Sparks and singer-guitarist Suzi Gardner on the L.A. club circuit.<\/p>\n

\n\tWhen Tom Morello<\/a> was still a Midwestern transplant finding his way in Los Angeles, years before Rage Against the Machine, Finch welcomed him into town and helped him find his footing as an artist. Years later, when L7 were touring through San Francisco where Morello\u2019s band Lock Up were recording an album, L7 hung out between gigs. \u201cI was always surprised that someone that cool was that nice to me,\u201d he says. \u201cI\u2019m clearly bringing a lot of insecurity to that statement. But she just was in one of the coolest bands of all time in the L.A. underground scene.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tFinch was the type of person who would meet friends of friends, and she made time to meet Smashing Pumpkins\u2019 Billy Corgan<\/a>, at Love\u2019s suggestion. The pair quickly discovered they were kindred spirits. \u201cJennifer told me on many occasions that she felt music had saved her, and she wanted that sort of salvation for everyone whom she connected with; especially young women who wanted their own future in music,\u201d Corgan says. \u201cShe did not see herself as above anyone or anything and was personally repulsed by the aura of instant celebrity that came with grunge<\/a>\u2018s first wave.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tFinch, age 14<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tAlison Braun<\/p>\n

\n\tA PERFECT FIT FOR Finch\u2019s daring spirit, L7 played fast and frightening metal-tinged punk with hummable guitar riffs and catchy vocal hooks, which they perfected on their indie-label breakthrough EP, Smell the Magic, and major label albums, Bricks Are Heavy and Hungry for Stink, all of which played well on both MTV\u2019s 120 Minutes and Headbangers Ball. Finch\u2019s songwriting contributions to the band shine on \u201cEverglade,\u201d a swamp-grunge rocker about a Floridian female mosh pitter beating up dumb redneck dudes, the sick-of-it-all cool of \u201cOne More Thing,\u201d and \u201cShirley,\u201d a raging rock ode to drag racer Shirley Muldowney. \u201cWhat\u2019s a beautiful girl like you doing racing in a place like this?\u201d a man asks in a sample on the last song. The answer sums up Finch\u2019s outlook: \u201cWinning.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\tRelated Content<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201c[Jennifer] had a lot of energy,\u201d Sparks says. \u201cShe had great style. She was great onstage, great moves. She was brave.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tIn chapter after chapter, she charts that band\u2019s rise from van tours to the indie-rock success of Smell the Magic\u2019s \u201cShove\u201d to the MTV fame of Bricks Are Heavy\u2019s \u201cPretend We\u2019re Dead\u201d and gigs with Nirvana. \u201cKurt adored Jennifer, and she was one of the few people he spoke to a few times a week,\u201d Love says. (The book also addresses the effect Kurt Cobain\u2019s death had on her friends and her. \u201cShe got me through that horrible month and didn\u2019t leave my side,\u201d Love says.)<\/p>\n

\n\tAs L7 took off in the early Nineties, she fought to become sober, a difficult prospect for a touring artist but one she clung to for the rest of her life alongside offering to help others. \u201cShe got very involved in the sober community, and I think she helped other artists using her knowledge and experience,\u201d Warped Tour founder Kevin Lyman tells Rolling Stone.<\/p>\n

\n\tShe also wrote a full account of her own exit from L7 as pressures mounted behind the scenes in her personal life, as well as rumination on her values. She gives no quarter to people who wronged her, discussing sexual assaults and how she held the men accountable. She also advocates for women\u2019s rights throughout. \u201cA very early Rage Against the Machine show was playing a reproductive rights benefit that L7 spearheaded, Rock for Choice,\u201d Morello says. \u201cIt really helped to rally our community, which had disparate levels of political awareness and interest around that very important issue.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tIn the book, Finch, who also played in the groups Other Star People and the Shocker, addresses other illnesses she faced including adenomyosis and thyroid cancer, though it concludes with a happy ending in which she talks about how she\u2019s at peace with her life and accomplishments.<\/p>\n

\u201cJennifer sounded like herself, and that\u2019s the greatest compliment I can give to anyone.\u201d<\/p>\n

Flea<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI fucking really admire people who can live between being a very humble, graceful, caring human and a warrior,\u201d says Melissa Auf der Maur, erstwhile bassist for Hole and the Smashing Pumpkins. \u201cI cannot wait for Jennifer\u2019s book to come out. For her to die prior to her story being told in her own words is so tragic.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tWhat\u2019s most evident from reading Shooting Up and Making Out, though, is how her we\u2019re-all-in-this-together punk spirit guided her through tough times. Although she filled the book with famous names and a chapter about dating Dave Grohl, it never feels name-droppy. Her friends say that\u2019s because she was integral to her scene and she always managed to maintain a strong, positive energy.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIn my 62 years, I can think of nobody more loyal or honorable,\u201d Love says. \u201c[She was] a true friend, who also gave me the security of having one house where I was safe.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cJennifer was excellent in a crisis,\u201d Sparks says. \u201cWhether we had a flat tire in the van or the promoter didn\u2019t want to pay us, or somebody had to go to the hospital, she would spring into action. I get kind of paralyzed at that shit like, \u2018Fuck, what do we do?\u2019 And Jennifer\u2019s already out the door dealing with it.\u201d (Adds Flea: \u201cShe was sharp as a fucking tack. She was sweet. She felt good to be around.\u201d)<\/p>\n

\n\tAlthough she could maintain positivity, it wasn\u2019t until later in her life that she became aware of the impact she had on others. In a chapter titled \u201cFourteen and Shooting,\u201d about a gallery showing of photos she took as a teen of the L.A. punk scene, she reflected on how the media perceived L7 as she watched attendees, some younger than she was when she took the photos, peruse her view of punk history.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThey were trying to make sense of moments they hadn\u2019t lived, and I was curating a past that I hadn\u2019t fully processed myself,\u201d Finch writes. \u201cI connected it back to my decade in L7. How we fought so hard for a place in the narrative, only to realize that the mainstream didn\u2019t want us in the story. They needed us to exist as outsiders, to contextualize their more commercially successful bands as more authentic. We were a reference, not a revolution.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tSugar Babylon, 1986. Clockwise from top: Jennifer Finch, Suzanne Ramsey, Courtney Love, Kat Bjelland<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tCourtesy of Jennifer Precious Finch\u2019s Archive<\/p>\n

\n\tFinch\u2019s friends say that\u2019s not true and that L7 nevertheless sparked change \u2014 even if Finch and her bandmates weren\u2019t aware. Auf der Maur first saw the band in Montreal in 1991, before she\u2019d even picked up a bass. \u201cSomething about seeing all women in that level of grit and power made such an impression on me,\u201d she says. \u201cI obviously was a rock fan, but I hadn\u2019t yet chosen my instrument or chosen to make music my life.\u201d She credits seeing Finch \u2014 as well as bassists like Sonic Youth\u2019s Kim Gordon and Hole\u2019s Jill Emery \u2014 with the revelation that \u201cthe bass just called to me.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cL7 broke the mold and recast this idea that heavy music was essentially the providence of one gender,\u201d Corgan says, \u201cand they did so in a way that made their message a message of unity for all.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThose who spoke with Finch in her final months, as she came to terms with her brain cancer diagnosis \u2014 announced publicly only five days before her death \u2014 say she knew she was loved. \u201cI talked to Jennifer about three months ago: \u2018How you doing?\u2019\u201d NOFX vocalist-bassist Fat Mike Burkett says. \u201cShe goes, \u2018Mike, I\u2019m doing OK. I got the best partner, and people were treating me really well, and I\u2019m at peace.\u2019 She wasn\u2019t happy about it, but she realized what an impact she made on this world, how important she was, how many people\u2019s lives she made better.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tWhen Love learned how sick Finch was in June, she traveled to be by her friend\u2019s side and spent the final five weeks of Finch\u2019s life with her. \u201cShe could not have written her chaotic ending better herself,\u201d Love says. \u201cMore than 100 people were fighting to get in, arguing that they were on the list as if it were a club, because she had more than 100 passionate friends who would hock their houses for her. There were bouncers rotating at the door \u2026 the tired, the sick, the hungry, the famous and tons of ex-boyfriends [showed up], all regretting their wrongs. She loved it. Everyone remembering her with love and sobbing.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was always surprised that someone that cool was that nice to me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tom Morello<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cAt four in the morning, when her body shut down and the medical staff said it was time, I heard someone say, \u201cBut we ordered breakfast for eight, and Flea\u2019s coming at nine,’\u201d Love continues, adding that the irony of the scene made her laugh.<\/p>\n

\n\tL7 fans will get a chance to say goodbye to the group this fall when they embark on a \u201cLast Hurrah\u201d farewell tour. The band already played a handful of dates this summer with Tsuzumi Okai filling in for Finch after she announced she was sitting the tour out due to illness. Sparks says Finch\u2019s doctors had given her hope she\u2019d be able to make it to the fall dates, but now she describes the aftermath of losing Finch as something like a fog, especially as L7 prepare for fall tour dates.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIt\u2019s a really weird feeling of grieving but also having to keep the ball moving forward,\u201d she says. \u201cI wrote this down: \u2018I just have to do a little bit each day, and if I can do a little bit each day, I can get through this and all of us can get through this.\u2019 It\u2019s just really a little bit at a time.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThe tour is supposed to be joyous saying goodbye,\u201d she continues. \u201cWe can celebrate Jennifer. Now there\u2019s going to be a lot more emotion with it for sure. We\u2019re tying up our career with a ribbon. That\u2019s what Jennifer wanted us to do, so we\u2019re doing it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tFinch\u2019s own personal legacy has been slowly coming into focus. \u201cThe outpouring of love that has come to Jennifer and L7 since her passing has been remarkable and touching and kind of overwhelming,\u201d Sparks says. \u201cI turned off my phone for a couple days because I was just like, \u2018I can\u2019t take this.\u2019 It\u2019s a heavy thing. It\u2019s a really heavy thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cJennifer sounded like herself, and that\u2019s the greatest compliment I can give to anyone,\u201d Flea says. \u201cShe knew what she loved and she went for it. She put her whole body into every note. She vibrated with the instrument. She was a true rocker.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tPreorder Shooting Up and Making Out: A Memoir of My Life in LA and L7<\/a>, out Jan. 19.<\/p>\n

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