Corin Tucker, Carrie Brownstein, and Janet Weiss - the very talented women who make up the Sleater-Kinney triumverate - are indie-rock “It” girls whose band has been hailed as one of the best and most influential groups around today. But they are so much more than musicians - they are social and political activists who have breathed new life into the Riot Grrrl community, and broken into the overwhelmingly male rock establishment. When we spoke, they were gearing up for Ladyfest, the five-day long women’s art and music festival that rocked Olympia last August. With their in-your-face attitude and an unwavering commitment to inspire other women to raise their voices, the band continues to destroy conventional ideas about what female musicians should sound like. Believe the hype - Sleater-Kinney’s a girl band if ever there was one, and punk rock’s not just for boys anymore.
So let’s start with something that’s big on your schedule these days - Ladyfest.
Corin:
It’s a thing that Allison Wolf [from Bratmobile] started, and it’s just a lot of people that I’ve known over the years, and a lot of people that were involved with Riot Grrrl. [We] really wanted it to be a positive political feminist convention, so it’s been interesting working on it.
I’ve noticed that the Ladyfest web site is pretty big. How do you see the Internet playing a role in the mobilization of younger feminists today who would be drawn to something like Ladyfest?
Corin: Well, I think for Ladyfest the Internet is a really great tool, because when Riot Grrrl started in 1990, we didn’t have e-mail. There was no way to organize women across the country or internationally, except for writing letters and talking on the phone. So this has been really interesting way of organizing something.
On the new album, the song “#1 Must Have” very obviously takes issue with the way women and the web are colliding these days. What do you see as the downside of the Internet?
Corin:The downside is that most of the people who have access to the Internet are upper middle class or middle class who have the access to computers. It’s a medium that’s not something that all people have access to. Especially for organizing something like a local festival, I think it’s important to try and do outreach to different communities and different people who might not be at a fancy college.
What are your thoughts on things like Oxygen and Women.comm. and the way that women are all of a sudden being courted in a brand new way in such a vast scope?
Corin:I find it to be really disconcerting, the way that I am such the target audience for marketing. It’s just like, “30-year-old white woman - goosh, goosh, goosh.” [Corin makes a hand motion of bright flashes.] It’s something that I think is reflected in the whole idea of Ladyfest. The kind of culture that those women were inventing in 1990 - things you would wear, the way you would talk, the language - all these things have been co-opted by advertising agencies now, like “girl power dot com” or whatever. I feel like it’s a really sickening way of taking those ideas and turning them into advertisements without really thinking about what we were really trying to do. The whole idea of Ladyfest is putting the politics back into those kinds of cultural ideas, instead of just having it be, “Oh, this girl band is gonna sell a million records.” What’s the point of being successful without changing anything? Just being successful in itself, to me, seems really…empty.
How do you define success?
Corin: I think there are just so many different ideas of what “successful” is. I don’t necessarily want to make any more money or be any more popular. I want things to change. I don’t want to fit into the rock establishment or the boys’ club. It’s really important that we are integrated into rock culture, and it’s important that something like rock is integrated with men and women. But I don’t want to have to leave my politics or my ideas about changing things behind. I would rather make one girl’s life a little bit more interesting, or have her be a little bit inspired, than sell a million records.
Getting back to the male-dominated rock establishment, how do you choose whom to tour with?
Janet:We definitely try to pick bands with women. Good bands with women in them, to show that there are a lot of women out there playing good music. I think it really rejuvenates us to see young bands and give them a chance to express themselves in front of all these people and get their message across…it’s amazing. It’s a great thing.
On your web site where your fans can post questions, so often people write that “Sleater-Kinney’s helped me through one of the hardest times in my life…” What goes through your head when you’re being posed as this sort of therapist/savior?
Carrie:Well, I try to understand it on a few levels. One is, trying to remember back to the role that music played in my life when I was younger, and how sometimes when you feel like you can’t express yourself, you turn to music as a way of explaining your feelings, of letting someone else express something for you that you feel is too hard to talk about. Music becomes a soundtrack to the kind of experiences you have when you’re younger, more so when you’re older. But also, when answering those questions, I try to let people know that I am someone who has contradictions and faults; that I’m a real person. Especially when people come to me with questions that have to do with things that are life-threatening or really detrimental or are really big decisions, I always try to refer them to professionals. I try to acknowledge that I’m thankful that our music is important to them and show them that our music is important to me too. But I also try to create a separation between what music can do for you and what friends and family and counseling can do for you. It’s too much responsibility; it’s one thing to inspire, and it’s another thing to instruct. And our songs aren’t meant to instruct people how to live their lives.
What else do you feel you’re speaking out strongly against this time around?
Corin:In the song “#1 Must Have,” [we’re] saying that rape is a really big deal and that it is still happening and that it happens at rock concerts, which is where we work, and that, to me, is a really horrible thing. And I want to educate people about sexual assault and about rape and sexual abuse, and just let them know that it’s not okay and that there are women in positions of power who are not going to forget about it.
Carrie:Also, I think people aren’t making really informed choices because they’re taking the easy way since [there is] such accessibility. And I think when so many things are available to you, and you spend your energy consuming rather than creating or inventing, you’re more willing to accept the status quo. I think it has this way of quelling inspiration and empowerment. [The song encourages you not to] spend your energy consuming, but to spend your energy inventing, especially if you don’t see yourself represented in the mainstream, which most people don’t.
