At a time when straight-up rock seems hard to come by, four Palo Alto, California teens known as The Donnas are winning fans with an enthusiastic, full-throttle sound that has already drawn comparisons to the Ramones and the Runaways.

But Donna F., Donna A., Donna R., and Donna C. (whose real names are Maya, Brett, Allison, and Torry respectively) say that the Donnas almost didn't make it this far.

We were going to break up the Donnas at the end of senior year because the Donnas were more like a joke... not stupid. I mean like, more for fun," guitarist Donna R. recently told MTV News. "I mean it wasn't what we were interested in doing because we weren't writing the songs at that point and we aren't the type of people that want other people to be writing songs for us because that sort of gives you a bad image as these helpless girls that don't know how to do anything.

At the time, the girls were doing double-duty as they also performed as a different

band, called the Electrocutes, and the Donnas were becoming less of a priority.

The Electrocutes songs, at least for us, I just like them better a lot of the time," drummer Donna C. added. "They were more fun to play and everything and I felt the Donnas were kind of lame. I mean it was fun but I wasn't as into it and whatever.

I think after we got home from a two week thing in Japan where we played like four shows we were saying we were going to break up... just kind of let the Donnas fizzle out," Donna R. said. "But then we realized that that was kind of sad because people were going to the Donnas shows and people were really having fun and we were having fun playing them I guess. I mean, we just felt weird playing songs we hadn't written. Then we just realized, 'Why don't we just write the songs now, and then we can keep the name? We can keep the style and we can put what we like into it.' We have a lot of mix of style now.

The move apparently

worked as the band began writing its own material and soon landed a deal with Berkeley, California's indie punk institution Lookout Records. The Donnas are currently on the road in support of their Lookout debut, "American Teenage Rock 'N' Roll Machine.