“We both worked for the (public) school system,” Johnny Whitman, the bassist, told palabra in an interview. “I worked for Cal State Northridge, and Dawn worked for the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD), so we couldn’t go to work or do much under curfew,” she added. Nevertheless, and to Johnny’s amazement, Dawn asked if she wanted to get together to play music during the curfew. What seemed like a casual jam-out session – killing time with a longtime friend – became the beginning of something special. “I didn’t play music at all. I just liked music and going to shows,” added Johnny, who was an avid concertgoer at the time. She was also an emerging musical talent, taking lessons from Rage Against the Machine guitarist Tom Morello, who she’d met at a show in 1990. (Johnny and a friend had booked Morello’s previous band, Lock Up, for a campus gig at Cal State Northridge – only to find out that the band had broken up and could not perform.)
AL.com