I know a female musician who’s quitting music because people were contacting her constantly and saying, “You can’t play this show, this guy did this thing, he’s in this band,” and it’s like: What is she supposed to do? She’s a struggling musician. Is there anything you feel is missing from the current conversation around call-out culture? She was talking about stuff like call-out culture and the trajectory it’s taken since ’90s identity politics, and I felt like, “Oh God, I need this in my life.” It’s been complicated for us seeing how some of the not-great parts of identity politics have come back. I could go to therapy for 10 years and not get what I got out of the first day practicing with Tobi again. When I turn around and see their faces, there are certain looks they give-I can’t describe it, it’s just beautiful. There’s a certain shorthand you have with best friends you’ve been through hell with. More so than even playing, it was being together.
Kathleen Hanna: It felt like what I was supposed to be doing the whole time.
Pitchfork: How did it feel when Bikini Kill started playing together again? Here, Hanna explains how the band got back together, why she stopped saying “girls to the front,” what she does to unwind after a big show, and much more. She can be riotously funny, dead serious, or a mix of both at once, as she is while discussing some of Bikini Kill’s more maddening obstacles in the ’90s, or digging into the intricacies of call-out culture. Similar to her legendary singing style, Hanna’s tone in conversation pivots seamlessly. The band will continue doing just that in 2020, with new tour dates across Europe and North America, including a benefit for the Interfaith Works homeless shelter in their hometown of Olympia, Washington. (They also sold enough tickets to their short run of shows this year to fill Madison Square Garden almost twice over, something that would have been unfathomable in the ’90s.) Bikini Kill’s anthems of opposition, empathy, and solidarity feel newly relevant and resonant in the Trump era, which spurred on Hanna’s interest in playing them again. Their sets have been intergenerational celebrations of one of the all-time great feminist songbooks, a fact that could get lost during their tumultuous first iteration. The shows that the iconic 1990s riot grrrl band-comprised of Hanna, drummer Tobi Vail, bassist Kathi Wilcox, and new guitarist Erica Dawn Lyle-played in New York, L.A., Chicago, and London earlier this year felt less like a reunion and more like a timely continuation, a historical corrective. But before the retro festivities begin, she’s ready to discuss a firmly-2019 matter: the return of Bikini Kill. “It just brings you back to the ’70s,” says Hanna, clad in a lemon-yellow sweater and bubblegum-pink lipstick. She’s celebrating with a party at a local roller rink, where she’ll take over the sound system with a disco-heavy mix including Kool & the Gang, Donna Summer, Earth, Wind & Fire, and Foreigner. On a recent Tuesday morning, she FaceTimes me from her home in Pasadena, California, and it just so happens to be her 51st birthday. Kathleen Hanna is about to head to Party City.
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