Kathleen Hanna: “Queen of the Riot Grrrls”
Adidas for Opening Ceremony dress, Avelon leather jacket, Hollow Dancer ring
I love the medium because I’ve seen how powerful it is. It’s not just a snapshot of me when I was 25; it’s a musical snapshot of me, and my band, and what we made. And 16-year-old girls are finding it for the first time, and it’s brand new to them. That’s what’s so amazing about a medium that’s inexpensive to purchase, that can be widely distributed. It’s not like a painting. When you play it in a room, it actually fills up the entire room—it’s like painting the entire room. It engulfs people. It’s also just really fun. On the new record, there are moments of what sound like real joy. I was so sad and messed up when I wrote this record, and yet it comes across as so happy. I’m pretty happy now… so I know the next album is just going to be the biggest bummer. [Laughs] It’s going to be like the Drake record mixed with Leonard Cohen, with a girl singer. [Laughs harder] “Girls Like Us” is one of the songs from Run Fast that stands out for me. To compare it to a song like “Rebel Girl,” it seems that the tone really has changed quite a bit. Do you think that’s a result of age and maturation or something else? I already made Bikini Kill records, so I didn’t want to make another Bikini Kill record because I’m not that age. I feel like “Girls Like Us” is the natural progression because it’s about how we’re all different from each other. “Rebel Girl” is very much a call to arms—very anthemic—and I didn’t set out to write anthems on this record. I didn’t want to put that pressure on myself. That was a huge part of it for me, for both the solo Julie Ruin record and this record. And sometimes when you set out not to write an anthem, you end up with something kinda anthemic. 
You know what it’s like? It’s like if you’re decorating a room, and you think, “I’m going to do a Moroccan theme.” Then you go absolutely apeshit with Moroccan lamps, Moroccan rugs, Moroccan tables, and it looks totally fake and fucked up. I didn’t set out to make a room like that. I set out to let it be messy and what it wanted it to be. Maybe there is a Moroccan lamp in there, but that’s not all that there is, you know what I mean? I think “Girls Like Us” is a little bit anthemic. But it’s funny—when people sing the chorus when we play it live, I wonder, “Do they get what the lyrics are?” It’s actually not “girls like us” [points to self]. It’s saying that the idea we’re all the same is total bullshit. When people try to pigeonhole me, I’m like, “Actually, I’m super weird, and I’m really into watching movies about Egypt,” you know what I mean? I don’t sit around reading feminist theory all the time, and I’m not, like, a total bummer. Do you think that’s the perception people have of you? That I’m a super bummer? Like I’m this intense feminist, and people are just like, “shut the fuck up.” You’ve mentioned that with Bikini Kill, you were speaking to an elusive man and you wanted other women to listen in, whereas that solo Julie Ruin record was the first time you were speaking directly to women in your music. I hear a little bit of both going on in Run Fast. Yeah, absolutely. I’m not sure I was entirely accurate when I said that the first solo record was speaking directly to women, though. I think I was trying to find my voice, and definitely the song “I Wanna Know What Love Is” is directed to women, who maybe had experienced what I had. During that time period I was being stalked by a man who worked across the street at a gym called Hard Bodies. There was no front door on my apartment building—and I realized there was actually very little separating myself from this man, who, for whatever reason, told the guys at the coffee shop that he thought I was a prostitute and that he climbed onto the roof of his building and looked into my window with binoculars. This is what I was dealing with when I was making that Julie Ruin record. And the only place I could put my 8-track when I was recording was where the door was behind me. The songs on that first record are so disjointed partially because I had to take my headphones off every five minutes to turn around and make sure the guy wasn’t kicking the door in. I rarely tell that story. It’s super depressing. But that’s why “I Wanna Know What Love Is” is on that record. But, anyways! I feel like I was singing more to other women in Le Tigre, actually. That was much more about community building and a conceptual project about bringing people together through dance music. The Julie Ruin thing was much more about me just needing to get this stuff off my chest. And I felt that way about the current record–I just needed to get this stuff off my chest. Follow Lauren Beck on Twitter @heylaurenbeck.
