Formation Bassist/lead vocalist Kelly Ogden and guitarist Luis Cabezas have known each other since meeting in the eighth grade in
Land o' Lakes, Florida. They both attended
New College of Florida where they formed a band called No Chef with friends Josh Harrold and Mike Benbow. Ogden and Cabezas played the guitar while Harrold was the bassist/lead vocalist and Benbow was the drummer. Cabezas described the subject matter of their songs as being "about ninjas, zombies and
Charles Manson." In November 2014 The Dollyrots were asked to create a theme song for
The CW show
Gallery Mallory. The resulting intro song was described as "catchy as hell and fits the show perfectly". The show debuted on CW seed in October 2013 and renamed
Very Mallory. Following extensive touring and appearances at both the 2013
NAMM Show and South by Southwest Music Conference and band revealed Ogden's pregnancy through a YouTube video.
Barefoot and Pregnant and the birth of River The Dollyrots launched a
PledgeMusic crowdsourcing project for their fifth studio album on September 19, 2013. The effort, later titled
Barefoot and Pregnant, was written and recorded while Ogden was pregnant. Again enlisting John Fields to co-produce and mix, it was primarily tracked by Cabezas at the band's home studio. "The album is called 'Barefoot and Pregnant,' because that's what I was," Ogden said. "We wrote and recorded almost the entire album in our bedroom while I was pregnant. It was amazing and trying and crazy at times, but it definitely pushed us to learn new things and perform in a different way."
Stacy Jones of
Letters to Cleo provided drums for eleven of the tracks, while former drummer Amy Wood contributed to the remaining two. Despite Ogden's pregnancy The Dollyrots played a short acoustic set at
The Satellite in Los Angeles on August 8, 2013, to celebrate the premier of
In Heaven There Is No Beer, a film starring the duo and documenting the local "Kiss Or Kill" rock scene of 2002 to 2007 that the band emerged from several years prior. The couple's first child, River Ogden Cabezas, was born November 25, 2013, in Los Angeles. Cabezas and Ogden announced the birth on
Instagram. The band released a digital-only acoustic album
Love Songs, Werewolves, & Zombies exclusively to Pledgemusic supporters in late 2013. A public CD release followed in early 2014.
Barefoot and Pregnant was released through the band's own label on February 18, 2014, with a #7 debut on
Billboard Magazine's Heatseekers Chart.
Popmatters gave the album 7/10 stars, describing it as having "more variety and nuance here than ever before; jokey hardcore runs seamlessly into mid-tempo stomps and bad-girl anthems, all powered by Luis Cabezas' satisfyingly fuzzy guitars and delivered with an economy that would have made Dee Dee and the boys proud." The Dollyrots followed up the release with a West Coast run supporting
Black Flag, an appearance at South-By-Southwest, and more headlining dates through 2014.
Little Steven's
Underground Garage named lead single "Come And Get It" the Coolest Song In The World for the week of April 13, 2014. Aixa Vilar from
Go Betty Go played drums on these dates. In August 2014 Kelly Ogden began a personal blog detailing her experiences as a mother in a rock band. The focus of the blog is the unique experiences faced when bringing a toddler on the road and raising a child as working musicians. On July 28, 2014, The Dollyrots announced an October UK tour supporting Buzzcocks. Drummer Mickey Richards of
People on Vacation joined the band for this three-week run. The music video for single "Get Weird" reached #1 on Diffuser.fm's Top Ten Video Countdown on December 24, 2014.
Live In The USA PledgeMusic Campaign and U.S./U.K. tours Following an early 2015 solo U.S. West Coast run, the band announced a full U.S. tour with Bowling For Soup and PledgeMusic campaign to create their first live concert album and film tentatively titled
Live In the USA. On July 29, 2015, The Dollyrots were announced as main support for Bowling For Soup's How About Another Round 2016 UK tour.
Live in the USA was retitled
Family Vacation: Live in Los Angeles and filmed as a single concert film at the
Roxy Theatre in Hollywood on September 19, 2015. The resulting 40 minute film was directed by Ian MacLeod and features cameos by former Dollyrots band members, most notably, drummer Chris Black and Bowling For Soup's
Jaret Reddick. The concert's audio was recorded multi-track for the purpose of releasing as a live album, engineered by Cabezas and later edited, mixed, and mastered by
Linus of Hollywood, Jay Ruston, and Paul Logus. Following a successful PledgeMusic Campaign whereby the band exceeded over 150% of their initial goal The Dollyrots signed with
MVD Entertainment Group to distribute the 2-disc CD/DVD set. Later in 2015 the band provided main support for
Lita Ford at the Northern California Women's Music Festival and appeared at the 2015
FEST in Gainesville, Florida.
The ''Mama's Gonna Knock You Out'' EP The Dollyrots recorded the 3-song ''Mama's Gonna Knock You Out'' EP in Van Nuys, California with longtime producer
John Fields in October 2016. The EP was released January 29, 2016, both digitally and on CD to coincide with the beginning of the "How About Another Round" UK tour.
Family Vacation: Live in Los Angeles Following a February 2016 tour of the United Kingdom The Dollyrots released their first ever concert film and companion live album,
Family Vacation: Live in Los Angeles on March 11, 2016. The double-disc set reached #15 on
Billboard Magazine's Heatseekers Chart in its first week of sales. Punk News rated the album 4 out of 5 stars and made it a "Staff Pick", writing "The Dollyrots not only accomplish everything they did in the studio, they take it to the next level" and that the concert film and audio album "both not only work in standalone form, they work even better as complementary pieces."
Whiplash Splash While expecting their second child in November 2016, Kelly and Luis started another PledgeMusic campaign to raise funds to record their sixth studio album. They returned to the studio with producer John Fields in early September to record Whiplash Splash. Kelly gave birth to Daisy Moon Cabezas on November 15, 2016. Whiplash Splash was released on March 24, 2017, and reached number 13 on the Billboard Heatseekers Chart, with PledgeMusic supporters getting a digital download of it on February 24, 2017. A tour to promote Whiplash Splash, with The Two Tens as supporting act, started in Chicago on March 16, 2017. Rikki Styxx (wife of drummer
Dusty Watson) drummed with The Dollyrots from the fall of 2014 until May 2018.
Other work The band has released a number of cover singles, including "Punk Rock Girls" by The Queers, "
Let's Turkey Trot" by
Little Eva, "
Dream Lover" by
Bobby Darin, and "
Happy Together" by
The Turtles. The Dollyrots recorded a cover of the song "There's A Barbarian in the Back Of My Car" by
Voice of the Beehive for
Snake Oil Supercharm, a 2003 tribute album to
Zodiac Mindwarp and the Love Reaction. The band recorded a version of "
Santa Baby" for the 2009 album
A Blackheart Christmas and also recorded a cover of "
Bad Reputation" by
Joan Jett for the film
Endless Bummer. In July 2011 the band announced that they would be teaming up with
Bowling For Soup to release a
split 7-inch.
The Dollyrots vs. Bowling for Soup 7-inch featured both bands covering one of the others songs. The band also released a version of "
Come Out And Play (Keep 'Em Separated)" by
The Offspring with
Jaret Reddick from Bowling For Soup on guest vocals. The Offspring's
Noodles described it as "very cool" and said that the band was "truly honored." On 4 October 2017, two days after the death of
Tom Petty, the band released a cover of
"American Girl" with all proceeds going to
Midnight Mission, an organization that both they and Petty had supported. After the release of the 2019 film
Radioactive, the band recorded a 4-song tribute EP entitled
Active on the Radio. ==Uses in media==