Rewrite and translate this title Kathleen Hanna and Lambrini Girls go head to head to Japanese between 50 and 60 characters. Do not include any introductory or extra text; return only the title in Japanese.

If rubbing the right people up the wrong way were a sport, Lambrini Girls would be Olympic champions. Composed of guitarist/screamer-in-chief Phoebe Lunny and bassist Lilly Macieira, the Brighton-based punk band have spent the last two years gleefully antagonising the right with their breakneck diatribes, eviscerating everyone from gatekeeping rock bros to TERFs. On their debut album, they go even further.

Recorded in ten days with Daniel Fox of Dublin noise outfit Gilla Band, the darkly humorous Who Let The Dogs Out sees the duo taking aim at institutional racism and sexual harassment in the workplace, nepo babies and disordered eating, over sawn-off guitar riffs and whiplash-inducing drums. If it sounds like a total riot, it is, which is why it’s not hugely surprising that feminist punk firebrand Kathleen Hanna is already a big fan.

Fresh from publishing her powerful memoir, Rebel Girl: My Life As A Feminist Punk, the Bikini Kill and Le Tigre frontwoman sat down to swap notes with Lunny and Macieira over Zoom. What follows was an impassioned back and forth tackling patriarchal microaggressions, tokenism, Palestine and why Hanna no longer wishes to be associated with the riot grrrl movement.

What is your relationship to each other’s art?

Phoebe Lunny: When I found out about Bikini Kill, I must have been about 14. Before that I really liked Fleetwood Mac because Stevie Nicks is obviously a feminist icon, being so brazen and powerful on stage. And that really sparked an interest for me to find more women in music who were going against the grain and defying social constructs. I went on a bit of a deep dive and got totally obsessed with your music and what you were singing about. And I feel like riot grrrl really set a framework for me on how to delve into feminism.

Lilly Macieira: Yeah, I had quite a similar experience. I’ve always really been into alternative music but I started off with super male-dominated punk music – bands like Green Day and The Offspring. I can’t actually explain the importance of finding representation because I think it also made me question my internalised misogyny. As a teenager I was a classic pick-me girl, rejecting any notion of femininity, so finding bands like Bikini Kill, Sleater-Kinney and X-Ray Spex was a turning point.

Kathleen Hanna: I don’t even know if somebody told me your name but I found out about [Lambrini Girls] on YouTube, watching videos of you playing live. I was like, oh my god, they’re so fucking cool. And I had no idea if you knew who I was, so it’s cool to hear that you’re fans. Especially with the whole riot grrrl scene not being intersectional. I know a lot of people don’t want to be associated with [riot grrrl], which makes total perfect sense to me because I don’t really want to be associated with it anymore either. But can I ask a question? I’m wondering about your songwriting process and the differences between the EP and the album. How has it evolved?

Phoebe Lunny: I’d like to think the album is a bit more mature than the EP. The thing which I think is really important as a political band, is that you want to sing about shit you’re fucking angry about. You never want to be just ticking off topics for the sake of it because that totally trivialises your art.

With the album, we had loads of like lyrics ready to go and some really cool riffs, but we didn’t have long to write it at all because we were touring so much. So it was like, [the album’s] just going to be what it’s going to fucking be, and either people can get on board or get out the way. What would you say the distinction is between the EP and album?

Lilly Macieira: I couldn’t really tell you, to be honest. But for me personally, when the EP came out I had literally just joined the band so I was trying to write parts that I thought would fit into what already existed. Whereas for the album, it was definitely more of a case of, like, we haven’t got any fucking time whatsoever, so we’re going to use these ten days to write whatever. Also, because we had done two years of extensive touring, Phoebe is like a sister now, so I think our personal relationship really played into the way that we write.

Kathleen Hanna: You had ten days to write a whole fucking album?! How are you still alive? Is your management off camera with a gun?

Phoebe Lunny: [Laughs] It was just fucking impossible to get into a writing cycle unless we cleared our schedule completely. So we were like, we’re gonna lock ourselves away on this farm for ten days and do it.

Kathleen Hanna: It sounds like some sort of weird survival game show. But I’m always interested to hear how other people are recording, because I’m about to go record some stuff, and I’m trying to make a bunch of decisions.

“But people will boycott us over fucking anything. When you put yourself out politically in any way, there’s always someone going, ‘Who made your shoes?’. I really don’t think bands like Idles are getting that” – Kathleen Hanna

Lilly Macieira: How does that process usually work for you? Does it vary between your projects?

Kathleen Hanna: I mean, I’ve been working on this album in-between every other project. So as soon as I get home, I start working on it with two of my friends who live here in California. I’ve never been somebody who jams. When I was in Bikini Kill they would write the music, and I would do the lyrics, and I would bring in bass lines sometimes. And then in Le Tigre, we would each go in our own corners and make things and then bring it back together, because we were working electronically. We actually had a practice space where we’d go in one at a time and make stuff and then leave it, like a weird secret message, for the next person to add to.

But yeah, I’m just considering recording the instrumentals, and then goofing around a little bit more than I usually let myself with the melody and lyrical ideas, because when it sounds really pre-planned, it doesn’t sound alive anymore. You know, the curse of the demo, where they always sound 100 times better than what ends up on the record. But yeah. How exhausted are you?

Phoebe Lunny: Me and Lilly both suffer from burnout a lot, but right now we’re playing a gig a week, if that, so it’s getting a bit easier now. But there were points in the summer where we just absolutely lost our fucking minds. I guess it’s about setting boundaries, because if you’re doing something which you’re extremely passionate about, it’s easy to push yourself to the absolute fucking brink.

Lilly Macieira: It was really brutal. Like, I developed a nervous tic from the stress. And it takes a bit of learning to feel like it’s OK to say no to the people that we work with. I mean, our team are great, it’s more of me being a people pleaser.

Kathleen Hanna: When I was researching y’all, there was just so much out there that I could tell how much work that you’ve been doing. And it seems like you were super DIY at first. I’m interested in that transition, because, for one, I think being a ‘political band’ and being women, being queer, there’s this whole thing of having to deal with these asshole sound men and promoters who act like you’re difficult just because you ask a simple question. I stayed DIY for way too long, so I’m so glad that y’all took the option of getting a team because the idea is that the pie chart of your life becomes more creative and less business.

I have a thing in my head where I just go, file under: not my problem, because delegating is really important. And we finally found a lot of female and non-binary crew members, and it’s been so great, although I do worry about their mental health, because they’re the ones who are now interfacing with the people who were driving me insane with their microaggressions. Like, we showed up to play somewhere that LCD Soundsystem had played the night before and everybody was coming in late, hungover, and they gave us leftovers from LCD’s rider to eat.

Phoebe Lunny: Holy shit. Did you kick off?

Kathleen Hanna: Fuck no, I have a tour manager, so he can go get mad at people. I don’t really have time to get angry about stuff like that, because there’s just so much bigger stuff to get angry about, you know, like genocide and shit.

Phoebe Lunny: When the genocide in Palestine became more of an open discourse, we started to be vocal about it, and our team was very supportive. But there were so many conversations about boycotting things. Obviously, at the end of the day, of course you boycott all of this stuff because there’s fucking genocide occurring. But have there ever been any moments where you’ve felt like you’ve had to compromise on your opinions or beliefs because of your team?

Kathleen Hanna: No. But also we’re on our own record label and we don’t have a manager, so we’re kinda the opposite of you. For me, having a team has made me be able to be more vocal because I’m not fucking around with the monitor guy refusing to turn me up. Because I’m not dealing with that shit, I’m able to get a speech about how ‘girls to the front’ includes trans and non-binary people, and that men of colour should not be pushed to the back [of the venue], translated into whatever language is needed. I’m able to find out about local issues, invite local political people up to talk and figure out what the theme of the show is that night. Like, if I am going to talk about Palestine, how am I going to talk about it? We were really thrilled when we were in Latin America, because people would start spontaneously chanting ‘free Palestine’ in the middle of our shows and it was really beautiful.

So I think you can be even more ethical if you’ve got other people working with you who are looking out for the issues that are important, and I can make sure I’m giving the best performance possible. But also I feel like because of who we are, we’re supposed to be giving 300 per cent [on stage] and then there’s all these dude bands who just stare at the ground and we’re making less money than them.

Phoebe Lunny: I wish I could be like, ‘That really shocks me,’ but literally last week, we played a show with a band who have half the following we do, and yet they headline because they’re men. I think on every single level of the music industry, men are favoured in every way. They could be releasing the most fucking average, boring music and because they are men they will always have the upper hand.

And if you see any woman or queer person who has got to a place of success, they’ve had to fight five times harder for it than anyone else in the room. And even if you do get to a point where you’re successful, there’s the element of tokenisation within that. I’m just going on a rant now. [Laughs]

“Female political bands are always the ones whose politics are questioned. You’re called performative. And it’s always men who do it” – Phoebe Lunny

Kathleen Hanna: Oh no, love it. And it’s so valid. The thing of y’all being tokenised, we get the same shit where there’s no women on the day of the festival [we play]. And we’re like, fuck, I’d really like to meet the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, but we’ll never be put on the same day of a festival ever, because it’s either us or them. Also, by being tokenised and separated, we’re not forming communities. Then when you’re finally invited to play the festival, you’re getting paid way less than the other bands because their budget is only this big by the time that they ask you. And now that we’re ‘legacy’ artists, when we show up there’s a bunch of men who come up and tell us how brave we are. They’re like, ‘You inspired my girlfriend.’ And then they tell me their girlfriend’s rape story without her permission…

Lilly Macieira: Oh my god.

Kathleen Hanna: This is why I need a buffer. And like you were saying before about boycotting things, one of the boundaries we’ve set is like, we’re not responsible for male violence. I’m not gonna say an all-girl band can’t play with us because one of them was friends with a rapist at one point in her life, because I’m not going to make women responsible for male violence. I mean, if I find out there’s a band member doing that now that’s a different story. But people will boycott us over fucking anything. When you put yourself out politically in any way, there’s always someone going, ‘Who made your shoes?’. I really don’t think bands like Idles are getting that.

Phoebe Lunny: Literally, female political bands are always the ones whose politics are questioned. You’re called performative. And it’s always men who do it. I think it comes from the fact that they just cannot fathom that women are literally able to be socially attuned. It makes them feel so small and emasculated.

Kathleen Hanna: I mean, I’m married to someone [Adam Horowitz of Beastie Boys] who was in a band that was so homophobic and so sexist in the beginning of their career, and they were never boycotted. They had a huge inflatable dick on stage, and go-go dancers that they dumped beer on, and they’ve never been boycotted. And I have to tell you what a huge education that was for me when we got together, and I found that out. And I mean, I love him, but that’s like, my personal relationship.

I feel like when men say anything feminist, they get a fucking parade. And we’ve been doing this work forever, and we’re told we’re out of touch and performative or doing it the wrong way. For me, the most painful thing is when it’s coming from my own community. If I get challenged on my position on trans issues being outdated – which has happened in the past – I will listen and I will change. But if I’m getting called out on, you know, stupid shit that doesn’t have anything to do with me, that I wasn’t there for… Basically, I just really want to hear men asked what it’s like to be men in bands. Because I want them to say, ’It’s actually way easier’.

Who Let The Dogs Out is out on 10 January 2025 via City Slang.

If rubbing the right people up the wrong way were a sport, Lambrini Girls would be Olympic champions. Composed of guitarist/screamer-in-chief Phoebe Lunny and bassist Lilly Macieira, the Brighton-based punk band have spent the last two years gleefully antagonising the right with their breakneck diatribes, eviscerating everyone from gatekeeping rock bros to TERFs. On their debut album, they go even further.

Recorded in ten days with Daniel Fox of Dublin noise outfit Gilla Band, the darkly humorous Who Let The Dogs Out sees the duo taking aim at institutional racism and sexual harassment in the workplace, nepo babies and disordered eating, over sawn-off guitar riffs and whiplash-inducing drums. If it sounds like a total riot, it is, which is why it’s not hugely surprising that feminist punk firebrand Kathleen Hanna is already a big fan.

Fresh from publishing her powerful memoir, Rebel Girl: My Life As A Feminist Punk, the Bikini Kill and Le Tigre frontwoman sat down to swap notes with Lunny and Macieira over Zoom. What follows was an impassioned back and forth tackling patriarchal microaggressions, tokenism, Palestine and why Hanna no longer wishes to be associated with the riot grrrl movement.

What is your relationship to each other’s art?

Phoebe Lunny: When I found out about Bikini Kill, I must have been about 14. Before that I really liked Fleetwood Mac because Stevie Nicks is obviously a feminist icon, being so brazen and powerful on stage. And that really sparked an interest for me to find more women in music who were going against the grain and defying social constructs. I went on a bit of a deep dive and got totally obsessed with your music and what you were singing about. And I feel like riot grrrl really set a framework for me on how to delve into feminism.

Lilly Macieira: Yeah, I had quite a similar experience. I’ve always really been into alternative music but I started off with super male-dominated punk music – bands like Green Day and The Offspring. I can’t actually explain the importance of finding representation because I think it also made me question my internalised misogyny. As a teenager I was a classic pick-me girl, rejecting any notion of femininity, so finding bands like Bikini Kill, Sleater-Kinney and X-Ray Spex was a turning point.

Kathleen Hanna: I don’t even know if somebody told me your name but I found out about [Lambrini Girls] on YouTube, watching videos of you playing live. I was like, oh my god, they’re so fucking cool. And I had no idea if you knew who I was, so it’s cool to hear that you’re fans. Especially with the whole riot grrrl scene not being intersectional. I know a lot of people don’t want to be associated with [riot grrrl], which makes total perfect sense to me because I don’t really want to be associated with it anymore either. But can I ask a question? I’m wondering about your songwriting process and the differences between the EP and the album. How has it evolved?

Phoebe Lunny: I’d like to think the album is a bit more mature than the EP. The thing which I think is really important as a political band, is that you want to sing about shit you’re fucking angry about. You never want to be just ticking off topics for the sake of it because that totally trivialises your art.

With the album, we had loads of like lyrics ready to go and some really cool riffs, but we didn’t have long to write it at all because we were touring so much. So it was like, [the album’s] just going to be what it’s going to fucking be, and either people can get on board or get out the way. What would you say the distinction is between the EP and album?

Lilly Macieira: I couldn’t really tell you, to be honest. But for me personally, when the EP came out I had literally just joined the band so I was trying to write parts that I thought would fit into what already existed. Whereas for the album, it was definitely more of a case of, like, we haven’t got any fucking time whatsoever, so we’re going to use these ten days to write whatever. Also, because we had done two years of extensive touring, Phoebe is like a sister now, so I think our personal relationship really played into the way that we write.

Kathleen Hanna: You had ten days to write a whole fucking album?! How are you still alive? Is your management off camera with a gun?

Phoebe Lunny: [Laughs] It was just fucking impossible to get into a writing cycle unless we cleared our schedule completely. So we were like, we’re gonna lock ourselves away on this farm for ten days and do it.

Kathleen Hanna: It sounds like some sort of weird survival game show. But I’m always interested to hear how other people are recording, because I’m about to go record some stuff, and I’m trying to make a bunch of decisions.

“But people will boycott us over fucking anything. When you put yourself out politically in any way, there’s always someone going, ‘Who made your shoes?’. I really don’t think bands like Idles are getting that” – Kathleen Hanna

Lilly Macieira: How does that process usually work for you? Does it vary between your projects?

Kathleen Hanna: I mean, I’ve been working on this album in-between every other project. So as soon as I get home, I start working on it with two of my friends who live here in California. I’ve never been somebody who jams. When I was in Bikini Kill they would write the music, and I would do the lyrics, and I would bring in bass lines sometimes. And then in Le Tigre, we would each go in our own corners and make things and then bring it back together, because we were working electronically. We actually had a practice space where we’d go in one at a time and make stuff and then leave it, like a weird secret message, for the next person to add to.

But yeah, I’m just considering recording the instrumentals, and then goofing around a little bit more than I usually let myself with the melody and lyrical ideas, because when it sounds really pre-planned, it doesn’t sound alive anymore. You know, the curse of the demo, where they always sound 100 times better than what ends up on the record. But yeah. How exhausted are you?

Phoebe Lunny: Me and Lilly both suffer from burnout a lot, but right now we’re playing a gig a week, if that, so it’s getting a bit easier now. But there were points in the summer where we just absolutely lost our fucking minds. I guess it’s about setting boundaries, because if you’re doing something which you’re extremely passionate about, it’s easy to push yourself to the absolute fucking brink.

Lilly Macieira: It was really brutal. Like, I developed a nervous tic from the stress. And it takes a bit of learning to feel like it’s OK to say no to the people that we work with. I mean, our team are great, it’s more of me being a people pleaser.

Kathleen Hanna: When I was researching y’all, there was just so much out there that I could tell how much work that you’ve been doing. And it seems like you were super DIY at first. I’m interested in that transition, because, for one, I think being a ‘political band’ and being women, being queer, there’s this whole thing of having to deal with these asshole sound men and promoters who act like you’re difficult just because you ask a simple question. I stayed DIY for way too long, so I’m so glad that y’all took the option of getting a team because the idea is that the pie chart of your life becomes more creative and less business.

I have a thing in my head where I just go, file under: not my problem, because delegating is really important. And we finally found a lot of female and non-binary crew members, and it’s been so great, although I do worry about their mental health, because they’re the ones who are now interfacing with the people who were driving me insane with their microaggressions. Like, we showed up to play somewhere that LCD Soundsystem had played the night before and everybody was coming in late, hungover, and they gave us leftovers from LCD’s rider to eat.

Phoebe Lunny: Holy shit. Did you kick off?

Kathleen Hanna: Fuck no, I have a tour manager, so he can go get mad at people. I don’t really have time to get angry about stuff like that, because there’s just so much bigger stuff to get angry about, you know, like genocide and shit.

Phoebe Lunny: When the genocide in Palestine became more of an open discourse, we started to be vocal about it, and our team was very supportive. But there were so many conversations about boycotting things. Obviously, at the end of the day, of course you boycott all of this stuff because there’s fucking genocide occurring. But have there ever been any moments where you’ve felt like you’ve had to compromise on your opinions or beliefs because of your team?

Kathleen Hanna: No. But also we’re on our own record label and we don’t have a manager, so we’re kinda the opposite of you. For me, having a team has made me be able to be more vocal because I’m not fucking around with the monitor guy refusing to turn me up. Because I’m not dealing with that shit, I’m able to get a speech about how ‘girls to the front’ includes trans and non-binary people, and that men of colour should not be pushed to the back [of the venue], translated into whatever language is needed. I’m able to find out about local issues, invite local political people up to talk and figure out what the theme of the show is that night. Like, if I am going to talk about Palestine, how am I going to talk about it? We were really thrilled when we were in Latin America, because people would start spontaneously chanting ‘free Palestine’ in the middle of our shows and it was really beautiful.

So I think you can be even more ethical if you’ve got other people working with you who are looking out for the issues that are important, and I can make sure I’m giving the best performance possible. But also I feel like because of who we are, we’re supposed to be giving 300 per cent [on stage] and then there’s all these dude bands who just stare at the ground and we’re making less money than them.

Phoebe Lunny: I wish I could be like, ‘That really shocks me,’ but literally last week, we played a show with a band who have half the following we do, and yet they headline because they’re men. I think on every single level of the music industry, men are favoured in every way. They could be releasing the most fucking average, boring music and because they are men they will always have the upper hand.

And if you see any woman or queer person who has got to a place of success, they’ve had to fight five times harder for it than anyone else in the room. And even if you do get to a point where you’re successful, there’s the element of tokenisation within that. I’m just going on a rant now. [Laughs]

“Female political bands are always the ones whose politics are questioned. You’re called performative. And it’s always men who do it” – Phoebe Lunny

Kathleen Hanna: Oh no, love it. And it’s so valid. The thing of y’all being tokenised, we get the same shit where there’s no women on the day of the festival [we play]. And we’re like, fuck, I’d really like to meet the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, but we’ll never be put on the same day of a festival ever, because it’s either us or them. Also, by being tokenised and separated, we’re not forming communities. Then when you’re finally invited to play the festival, you’re getting paid way less than the other bands because their budget is only this big by the time that they ask you. And now that we’re ‘legacy’ artists, when we show up there’s a bunch of men who come up and tell us how brave we are. They’re like, ‘You inspired my girlfriend.’ And then they tell me their girlfriend’s rape story without her permission…

Lilly Macieira: Oh my god.

Kathleen Hanna: This is why I need a buffer. And like you were saying before about boycotting things, one of the boundaries we’ve set is like, we’re not responsible for male violence. I’m not gonna say an all-girl band can’t play with us because one of them was friends with a rapist at one point in her life, because I’m not going to make women responsible for male violence. I mean, if I find out there’s a band member doing that now that’s a different story. But people will boycott us over fucking anything. When you put yourself out politically in any way, there’s always someone going, ‘Who made your shoes?’. I really don’t think bands like Idles are getting that.

Phoebe Lunny: Literally, female political bands are always the ones whose politics are questioned. You’re called performative. And it’s always men who do it. I think it comes from the fact that they just cannot fathom that women are literally able to be socially attuned. It makes them feel so small and emasculated.

Kathleen Hanna: I mean, I’m married to someone [Adam Horowitz of Beastie Boys] who was in a band that was so homophobic and so sexist in the beginning of their career, and they were never boycotted. They had a huge inflatable dick on stage, and go-go dancers that they dumped beer on, and they’ve never been boycotted. And I have to tell you what a huge education that was for me when we got together, and I found that out. And I mean, I love him, but that’s like, my personal relationship.

I feel like when men say anything feminist, they get a fucking parade. And we’ve been doing this work forever, and we’re told we’re out of touch and performative or doing it the wrong way. For me, the most painful thing is when it’s coming from my own community. If I get challenged on my position on trans issues being outdated – which has happened in the past – I will listen and I will change. But if I’m getting called out on, you know, stupid shit that doesn’t have anything to do with me, that I wasn’t there for… Basically, I just really want to hear men asked what it’s like to be men in bands. Because I want them to say, ’It’s actually way easier’.

Who Let The Dogs Out is out on 10 January 2025 via City Slang.