Jennifer Finch, L7's longtime bassist, dies at 59

Jennifer Finch, longtime bassist of the Los Angeles rock band L7, has died, the group announced. She was 59. L7 said Finch died of "an aggressive form of brain cancer," according to a statement reported by the Los Angeles Times.

"We are shattered by the loss of our beloved bandmate, sister and friend," the band said, calling her fierce spirit and creativity a force that "changed all of our lives forever." Finch had been receiving treatment for the cancer and had just withdrawn from L7's planned farewell tour the week before her death; the band said those dates were booked back when "all four of us were in good health and spirits," and that Finch had asked her bandmates to carry on without her while she pursued treatment.

Finch co-founded L7 in 1985 alongside guitarists and singers Suzi Gardner and Donita Sparks and drummer Dee Plakas, and the band became a defining act of the 1990s alt-rock scene, helping usher in the riot grrl wave alongside Hole and Sleater-Kinney. Finch's basslines anchored the group's biggest single, "Pretend We're Dead," and the anti-war anthem "Wargasm," and she wrote several of the band's own songs, including "Everglade." L7 went on hiatus in 2001 and reunited in 2014, releasing its most recent album, "Scatter the Rats," in 2019.

Beyond the band, Finch was also a photographer whose images of the Los Angeles punk and rock scene captured the era, and she appeared as a member of the fictional band Camel Lips in John Waters' 1994 dark comedy "Serial Mom." She founded a second band, the Shocker, in 2002.

L7's next tour, "The Last Hurrah," is booked to begin in San Diego on Oct. 6. Finch's family and the band opened a GoFundMe campaign to support her medical care; information about surviving family had not been made available.