Jennifer Finch

Jeff Alulis

'With Shooting Up and Making Out, Jennifer Finch has left us with a memoir that reads like a Fear and Loathing for the punk rock generation. An inspired account of resilience, determination, and unwavering courage. Her legacy defined. A hero’s journey turned up to eleven.'

Dave Grohl, Nirvana / Foo Fighters / author of The Storyteller

'A memoir as raw and searing as the music she put out in the world. Finch was one of a kind, with a voracious intellect, her path always colliding with adventure, danger, music, and art. A sensitive and generous spirit, I wish she were around to feel the love and appreciation this book will surely garner.'

Carrie Brownstein, Sleater-Kinney / Portlandia / author of Hunger Makes Me a Modern Girl

'Shooting Up and Making Out is a self-portrait of a woman moving through a scene, a movement, an era, and a sound, with a voice that is as unguarded as it is unrepentant. This book is evocative, profound, and an absolute thrill.'

'I knew Jennifer and I thought I knew her well, but this book unfurled entire universes in her life that were a total revelation to me. The term ‘fearless account’ may land as a cliché, but I think it’s an apt description of this incredible examination of a life.'

Ian MacKaye, Minor Threat / Fugazi / The Evens / Dischord Records

'Jennifer Finch was a FORCE, and her memoir is the powerful story of how her radiant goodness emerged from the depths of the LA underground to shine brightly around the world.'

'A glorious and gratifying testimony from one of punk’s greatest bad-girls-gone-good. Finch’s essence, her vitality and indomitable feminist spirit, pops off the page and plunges us into her life on and off stage. I am hugely grateful for this book and that this account of her artistry and activism is here for all of us to study.'

Jessica Hopper, author of The First Collection of Criticism by a Living Female Rock Critic

'Shooting Up and Making Out never romanticizes punk, fame, or addiction, and it never asks permission. It’s Jennifer telling her own story, through her own lens. The story of a woman who fought to be the author and archivist of her own life.'

Brett Gurewitz, Bad Religion / Epitaph Records

'A great book that among many other insights tells us exactly what it was like to be a maker of abrasive, semi-underground guitar music . . .Full of vivid anecdotes.'

A Memoir of my Life in LA and L7

'A Fear and Loathing for the punk rock generation.' DAVE GROHL 
 
From Jennifer Finch, the beloved bassist of L7, comes a raw, exhilarating memoir of life on the frontier of underground music. 
 
Jennifer Finch came of age in LA's punk music scene. Driven to create despite neglect and abuse, she became the bassist of the groundbreaking all-female hard rock band L7. This is the story of her extraordinary life, in her own words. 
 
At twelve, Finch ran away from home. By fourteen, she was shooting heroin. At nineteen, she started her first band with Courtney Love and Kat Bjelland. In her twenties, L7 became one of the defining bands of a generation. 
 
From sharing stages with Pearl Jam and the Red Hot Chili Peppers to surviving overdoses, dating Dave Grohl, and losing some of her closest friends far too soon, Finch lived every extreme before reinventing herself through sobriety, photography, and extraordinary courage in the face of a deadly illness. 
 
Shooting up and Making Out is a thrilling, unflinching account of Jennifer’s turbulent life. Completed shortly before Jennifer’s untimely death in July 2026, it is her testament to the power of music, the strength of the human spirit, and the relentless pursuit of artistic expression.

Jennifer Finch

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