MINNEAPOLIS — Donita Sparks is confident her band L7 can go out on a high note, even after losing its low-end power player.

One of the too-few all-women units to push against the flannel tide in the early-‘90s grunge boom — Minneapolis’ Babes in Toyland was their “other kindred sister band,” Sparks said — L7 has been rising above troubled waters for more than 40 years. Earlier this year, though, Sparks and her bandmates faced their toughest ordeal yet.

Just as they were solidifying plans for their farewell Last Hurrah Tour, the members of the Los Angeles sludge-rock band learned their longtime bassist and co-writer Jennifer Finch had been diagnosed with brain cancer. She died July 18 at age 59.

Talking by phone in early October after tour kick-off shows in San Diego, Sparks was mourning her bandmate and weighing the mixed emotions of touring with Finch’s replacement, Janis Tanaka. Tanaka had performed with L7 starting in 1999 after the band’s commercial peak with the 1992 hit “Pretend We’re Dead.”

Along with fellow singer/guitarist Suzi Gardner and drummer Dee Plakas, though, Sparks remained committed to the mission Finch also wanted: to see L7 go out strong with a farewell tour.

Here’s an edited version of the conversation with Sparks.

Q: What were the emotions in those first two farewell gigs without Jennifer?

A: They were smaller shows than the rest of the tour at a club that always supported us, the Casbah, so that part of it was fun. Suzi felt emotional about Jennifer as soon as we walked onstage. It hit me when we had a projector show a couple photos of Jennifer. That was only after three songs, and I was like, ‘Oh, man, we can’t do that.’ So the second night we just said something about Jennifer, and then the crowd took over. There were a couple fights. It was like an old-school L7 show. It was that crazy.

Q: Did you consider not going through with the tour?

A: No, not really. We would’ve had to cancel shows. Contracts were signed. People were working really hard on our behalf to make this happen. It was on.

And it became part of the thing about me processing Jennifer. I’m not even sure I’ve quite done that yet. I was just slammed with so much work to do before the tour, and I think that was good.

Q: Why did you decide to do a farewell tour?

A: We’re still loved and appreciated, and we know what it feels like to lose the love and appreciation. When we went on our indefinite hiatus in 2001, we had sputtered out. We were roughing it again, touring in a van, staying at Motel 6s, sharing rooms, playing the same clubs we started out in. It was a classic rise and fall, and the fall turned into bickering and blame.

But we’ve been going strong lately, and we were going to be going out on a high, if not for the tragedy that Jennifer passed. But we still want to say goodbye to our fans in a proper manner. We want the concerts to be joyous. It’s a terrible thing Jennifer passed, but we were one of the only bands around that still had its original members. People are digging us. So it feels like we’re going out the right way.

Q: What did Jennifer bring to the band when she joined?

A: Jennifer grew up in L.A., and we did not. She was on the scene as a young kid, so she met people who ended up having record companies and had all the connections, like Brett Gurewitz of Epitaph Records. Suzi and I had been really grinding it out in the underground on our own. Jennifer kind of hounded me to be in the band. When she joined, all of a sudden we had stickers, and then we had a stage backdrop that she made herself and stuff like that.

That’s all in addition to her phenomenal stage presence, her physicality. So she brought a lot of excitement and movement to the band. To me, that was her biggest strength: her stage performance.

Q: L7 is celebrated but not exactly famous. How do you look back on your legacy?

A: We never made the big bread. That’s another reason why this farewell is happening: because touring has gotten so expensive, and we don’t have the hits to play county fairs and casinos that pay better. We’re not the B-52s or Joan Jett.

But it’s nice what people say about us now. When we went away the first time, everybody forgot about us and it was like they completely forgot about our contributions and accomplishments. But we’re kind of in the zeitgeist again, which is cool. And that probably won’t last, so we’re gonna enjoy it while we’re here.

Q: You did have “Pretend We’re Dead.” How do you look back on that experience?

A: We did enjoy it, but we started to [crap] on our hit, and I regret that. Like a lot of bands, they get a hit, and they start making fun of it. We’d have our roadie come out and vacuum during “Pretend We’re Dead.” We’d start ironing on an ironing board, stuff like that, to be funny. We were just being brats or something, like we didn’t want want to be in the mainstream. It’s like, we just wanted to stay this scuzzy art band from L.A.

Q: What sort of connections did L7 build with the Minneapolis music scene?

A: Minneapolis was like a cultural hub for us. Our booking agent, Peter Davis, lived there, and Amphetamine Reptile Records and Babes in Toyland were there, and we were close to all them. There were a lot of other bands there akin to us, like the Cows and the God Bullies. We all played the same clubs. We all crashed on the same people’s floors in each city.

We were connected far more to the Minneapolis scene than the Chicago scene, even though I’m from Chicago. Minneapolis was more like Seattle. It was a midsized city that had a really strong rock ‘n’ roll underground, D.I.Y. thing happening. We always looked forward to getting to Minneapolis.

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