fuck yeah, kathleen hanna!

KATHLEEN HANNA: [Laughs] I guess that I am a feminist artist and people should know who I am because I am a feminist artist. I’ve made some good work and made some shitty work. If you’re interested in music and feminist art then you should at least know a little bit about what I’ve done so that you can, put it in your pipe and smoke it! [laughs].

Posted on Sunday, February 12th, 2012 at CollapseBoard.com

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KATHLEEN HANNA: Yeah I was really sick that night, it was a hard night for me.

INTERVIEWER: What did you make of it all? To have a tribute to someone when they’re still very much …

KATHLEEN HANNA: Alive! [laughs]. It was really, really weird. I will say there was some great things that happened at the show. There was this guy Dan Fishback who did a performance with a bunch of other guys of this really obscure song I did on an album. Mike Watt [Minutemen, dos, Firehose] did this record in the 90s and he got all these people like Eddie Vedder to do a song with him. I think there weren’t enough girls on the record so he asked me. He came to see us play at a punk club in New York. I did this whole thing that was an answering machine message and I talked about Annie and I basically refused to be on the record in an answering machine message but it was all fake. The piece was kind of about the absence of women on the record. I had a real quandary. I feel like I was kind of being tokenised, that I was just being asked to be on this record because I was a women. At the same time I don’t want to say that I am being tokenised so that there is not very many women on the record. I’m not calling him a sexist at all. I just felt like I was filling a void on the record because there wasn’t enough women. I thought, how do I record my absence? The answering machine message came out very much me talking in my ‘Valley girl’ accent [puts on the accent], like oh my god Mike! I don’t want to be on your stupid fucking record with Henry Rollins. Fuck you! [laughs]. He put it on.

These guys led by Dan Fishback redid it as a spoken song with harmonies. It was so funny! And I don’t know if you know Toshi Reagon? She’s a really incredible singer-songwriter, she did ‘Keep On Living’ by Le Tigre and she did it in a whole different way with an acoustic guitar and her singing, getting the audience to do the choruses.

To hear songs that I’d been a part of redone by other people was the best part of the night. It was so exciting see Kaia Wilson do ‘Pretty Is’, which is a really obscure song I did with a side project band. That part was really gratifying. I wrote songs for Joan Jett a long time ago and seeing her stand on stage and sing my lyrics was thrilling. I think it’s almost more thrilling than being a performer, to watch someone else interpret something you wrote.

INTERVIEWER: Especially when that person is Joan Jett!

KATHLEEN HANNA: I know like, whoa! Come on, the Queen of Rock! You can’t do much better than that!

Posted on Sunday, February 12th, 2012 at CollapseBoard.com

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KATHLEEN HANNA:  You know I haven’t seen much more of it than you’ve seen. I saw the same thing that they used on Kickstarter pretty much. The thing that I was most shocked about was what Kathi from Bikini Kill (and now The Julie Ruin band) said, this really sweet thing: she’s a perfect front person. I never knew she thought that. That’s not the kind of thing you say to somebody’s face. The whole way she said it was just so nonchalant. I was like, wow! That is really sweet. I don’t think of myself as the prefect front person. She just said it like, oh yeah it’s totally obvious and who wouldn’t want to be in a band with her. I was like, whoa! That was probably the most shocking thing to me.

Posted on Sunday, February 12th, 2012 at CollapseBoard.com

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KATHLEEN HANNA: I think talking about why I haven’t performed in so long was really difficult. Singing is my life and I haven’t done it publically for a really long time. While that has been something that I have needed to have a break from it’s also something that I have missed quite a bit. It’s really hard. I really touch on some personal stuff in it that I have never talked about publicly that was just difficult. In the same way that you were saying about interviews and being honest and not just towing the line of I’m going to say the thing about my record … I just felt like I needed to open up because somebody, even just one person, might relate to a little part of my story and feel like they’re not alone. I tried to be as honest as I possibly could. As you know, I cried sometimes in it. Sini [Anderson] who is filming it is a really close dear friend so it’s really easy for her to make me cry [laughs].

Posted on Sunday, February 12th, 2012 at CollapseBoard.com

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KATHLEEN HANNA: Oh my home! [laughs]. I kind of describe it as it’s like ‘The Little Match Girl’, that fairy tale but, it’s like if she had some money [laughs]. If she married someone rich this is what her house would look like. I like bright colours. I like to be comfortable. I think my house is cosy and comfy. We always have people staying with us and lots of life and energy in our house. My whole design thing was making it a place where people feel comfortable. I’m so corny it really is unbelievable! [laughs]. You get this way when you get older. I still have like seven years on you so you just wait! You’ll start talking about your soul and love …

INTERVIEWER: Ha! It’s funny that you mention that because I already do, I’m all about that kind of stuff. I have a project on punk and spirituality.

KATHLEEN HANNA: Oh how interesting! Are people willing to share that information? That just seems so … I won’t talk about sex because … like I can say someone is cute or a guitar riff is sexy but I don’t talk to people about sex. It’s just very personal. There’s certain things to me that are very personal. Spirituality seems like one of those things. I can’t believe or imagine … what are people saying?

Posted on Sunday, February 12th, 2012 at CollapseBoard.com

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KATHLEEN HANNA: [Laughs] Yes that is true. I’m trying to do set design now. I’ve done that for a couple of shows. I went to school for it after I left Le Tigre. I still have one class I need to do to get my Associates degree. I’m really interested in a lot of design. I don’t know if I’m the kind of person that is going to be able to work with rich people to design their apartments and stuff. I think I want to use the skills that I got for set design and maybe take some classes in set building. I enjoy being behind the scenes and I enjoy making things look beautiful. I really like the challenge of somebody saying, this is what the themes and the ideas are and making it look like that.

Posted on Sunday, February 12th, 2012 at CollapseBoard.com

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KATHLEEN HANNA: In every way imaginable! I really can’t say enough about the guy. I think he is … [pauses] have you ever seen that movie Evita with Madonna in it?

INTERVIEWER: I actually haven’t.

KATHLEEN HANNA: There’s this scene in Evita and she is dying, it’s super sad. Her husband is standing over her (she’s playing Eva Peron) and she sings this really beautiful song. The lyrics are like: you must love me. She just figured it out as she was dying. She never really felt loved. It was on her deathbed that she was like [sings] you must love me.

I guess I just feel that I’m really lucky that through him [Adam] I have realised how much love I have in my life. Not just him but he has helped me see how much my friends care for me, I mean I already know how much I adore and totally love my friends but, I always kind of saw myself in the kind of ‘dad role’ taking care of people; giving up stuff I wanted to do to make other people happy. I think a lot of women get trapped in that role. People sometimes see it as the ‘mom role’ but I always see it as the dad role: the provider, the protector. I really saw through him how to ask for help and get it. Just realising that I don’t want to be on my deathbed saying, oh my god you loved me. I want to experience that every single day. I learned how to let that into my life.

How are you making me open up so much? This is crazy! You’re a really good interviewer [laughs]. It’s really bad because I never tell people corny shit like this. I’m going to be really embarrassed tomorrow [laughs].

INTERVIEWER: Truthfully, I just think it’s because I really, really care about the people that I interview. I love hearing people’s stories, I love sharing that with others and I hope when someone reads the work they will be inspired to do rad, positive things in their own life. That’s pretty much the main reason I do it. I’m not getting paid for this.

KATHLEEN HANNA: Labour of love!

INTERVIEWER: This is my gift.

KATHLEEN HANNA: Well you’re really good at it because I usually just tell people, the album has this many songs and this is when it’s coming out.

INTERVIEWER: I believe that people are fascinating regardless of their latest record or tour.

KATHLEEN HANNA: It’s just nice to be able to have a conversation and be totally honest. I don’t want to be guarded anymore. I don’t want to say the thing I’m supposed to say to sell the five records I’m going to sell [laughs]. Who cares at this point! Hopefully when people read interviews with people that are supposedly ‘big deals’ because they get on stage, they realise, oh I’m totally like this person, I could do that too if I felt like it.

Posted on Sunday, February 12th, 2012 at CollapseBoard.com

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KATHLEEN HANNA: Yeah and it lasts! How crazy! It’s really amazing when you realise, wow! This just keeps getting better. I keep waiting for it to suck [laughs]. There’s been bad times for sure but you just think, when is this going to start sucking? and it hasn’t happened.

Posted on Sunday, February 12th, 2012 at CollapseBoard.com

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KATHLEEN HANNA: Oh wow! Well, I’m obsessed with watching downtown performance artists such as Neal Medlyn and Erin Markey who is just a fucking genius! Cole Escola. I just really like seeing performance art in New York and just all of the great things that are going on here. That’s what I’m obsessed with more than going to shows. Shows for me became work because I toured so much that walking into a club became this experience of … I’ve always had horrible stage fright, every show I have ever played I’ve had horrible, horrible stage fright!

I think it adds to the tension of the performance. So when I walk into a club … unless it’s to see a band like Comet Gain which is one of my favourite bands and whenever they come to New York and I see them I just feel so super happy. I went to Diamond Rings’ show and I really love that guy, he has such a beautiful voice and beautiful presence. I still do like going to music shows but I much prefer to go see performance art.

I’m also obsessed with the 10 minutes I spend talking to my husband before I fall asleep. We have a thing that we talk for 10 minutes before we go to sleep [laughs]. We see each other all through the day and we talk all through the day too but it’s just like a special “what happened today?” conversation. I’m super into my husband! I love being around him.

Posted on Sunday, February 12th, 2012 at CollapseBoard.com

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KATHLEEN HANNA: You know I don’t really have an overall vision for it. I think that’s the exciting thing. I am trying to be a little bit more present in the moment as much as a total control freak stress out person can be. I’m not trying to save the world at the moment. I’m not trying to make this thing to please other people. I’m really making something I want to make with my friends and I’m having an enjoyable time doing it. I’m not thinking about this is feminist pop music or this is this kind of thing that’s going to have this kind of effect and make this person feel included. I feel like I’ve done that, I feel like that is the work that I’ve already done. It would be really boring if I wrote the same record over and over again. I’m really glad that the Bikini Kill records exist, I don’t have to write the songs again.

Posted on Sunday, February 12th, 2012 at CollapseBoard.com

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KATHLEEN HANNA: I totally have to work at my lyrics. The way that I usually work is that I have some kind of music going on like a loop I’ve made or something that the band plays and I just start singing what feels natural to me or I try a more formal idea that I’ve always wanted to try. Sometimes the lyrics just start coming. A lot of times though, I sing nonsense for a long time. There was a song in Bikini Kill called ‘Demirep’ and we used to play that song live all of the time and I never knew the lyrics, I made them up every night. I would sing nonsense or whatever I was thinking. The day before we recorded it and we were in England, I had to go to a coffee shop and be like, these are the final lyrics. I had taped it on a cassette of me singing it and I just listened to what the words sounded like [laughs] and wrote them down and they became the lyrics. I’ve been working that way ever since. Sometimes I’ll craft it more into the thing that I think it’s about. When I started I’d write the lyrics first and now I do it totally the opposite.

Posted on Sunday, February 12th, 2012 at CollapseBoard.com

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KATHLEEN HANNA: Oh I didn’t know about that. Oh that is so scary! I’m not going to look at that but … you’re obviously going to tell me [laughs].

INTERVIEWER: Some of the ideas people had about the meaning of the song were: it’s your alter egos battling; it’s a song about two people looking at the same thing differently; it’s a response to the ‘Kill Rock Stars’ song Nofx wrote…

KATHLEEN HANNA: Oh, I have definitely never written anything in relation to that band [laughs]. The people that said it was about two sides of myself were in a way totally right, a lot of it is about battling addiction. You can make a choice whether to be in “the dark bar getting wasted” or to be “enjoying the moon in Texas at night” you can make that choice. It’s a lot harder if you have addiction in your life. At the same time it was directed towards the part of myself that can be a real addict. It was also directed at the fact that I was living in Olympia at the time and there was a lot of heroin and people were dying. I was really frustrated with it. I really wanted to be the one to help people; I really wanted to be somebody that helped people get rehab. In that song I am angry, I was a little bit fucking sick of it. I was singing like, look at me! I’m having this great fucking life because I’m not doing heroin and look at you, you’re stuck in this bummer situation because you’re getting wasted all of the time and you’re ruining your life and all of your friends are watching you ruin your life. That’s what it is about to me but really it’s about what anyone thinks it’s about to them. I can’t even believe that anybody listened to that song.

Posted on Sunday, February 12th, 2012 at CollapseBoard.com

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KATHLEEN HANNA: I guess lyrics are a little bit hard for me actually. I’m really trying to be a lot less literal. I’m a very literal person … actually it’s not that I’m a literal person … I don’t even know what kind of person I am — I’m probably a total jerk.

When I started making music I really saw a space for women singing about feminism in a really obvious way, because no one was doing that. It’s not like it was a shtick or a marketing thing, I was just obsessed with feminism. It’s what I was thinking about and what my life was made up of, not just academic feminism but I worked in a domestic violence shelter. Seeing the shelter fill up time and time again and seeing the dudes at my school telling me that feminism didn’t exist and I felt very passionate about making sure feminism did exist for my generation and the generations after me.

When I first started writing lyrics it was really important to me that people knew what I was talking about and that I was a feminist. That’s actually a really scary position because a lot of times people want you to write in these abstract ways that everybody can insert themselves into whereas I thought, nobody is writing songs for girls! I want to write songs specifically for girls that they understand, that they take into their hearts and that they decide it’s about them or, that they decided that they’re not into it at all and that they’re going to write a song that’s 100 times better. That was the point.

In Le Tigre there got to be a lot of pressure on us to represent something, to represent the crossover of a couple of different communities. It’s hard to write lyrics under that pressure and under the whole “you’re an icon” like what you said Kaia said about me. The hard thing for me has been to let it go and write what I actually really want to write now. Some of what I want to write is more like poetic nonsense. I have to be ok with that. I don’t care if other people like it [laughs].

Posted on Sunday, February 12th, 2012 at CollapseBoard.com

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KATHLEEN HANNA: Yeah! When she plays there’s something really sexy about her playing. I know that might sound gross [laughs]. It just makes my hips shake and makes me feel ecstatic and happy. It’s a really visceral experience. I worked with her at Rock Camp for Girls, it’s where we met. We were coaching a band of girls between the ages of 11 and 17. Watching her work with them and having such a fun time with her through that experience, she became a person that when I was going to bed at night I thought, I want to work with her. When I heard her play it was completely over. I didn’t care if she was the biggest douche bag in the world (thank god she’s not); I just wanted her in my band.

Posted on Sunday, February 12th, 2012 at CollapseBoard.com

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