Kathleen Hanna
Appearances
Fresh Air
Maggie Rogers / Kathleen Hanna
We're Bikini Kill, and we want revolution! Grrrl don't die!
Fresh Air
Maggie Rogers / Kathleen Hanna
This is from the prologue. I want to tell you how I write songs and produce music. How singing makes me feel connected to a million miracles at once. How being on stage is the one place I feel the most me. But I can't untangle all of that from the background that is male violence. I wish I could forget the guy who stalked me while I was making my solo record.
Fresh Air
Maggie Rogers / Kathleen Hanna
How he sat on the roof of the building across from mine and looked into my windows with binoculars as I worked. How he told my neighbors he thought I was a prostitute who needed to be stopped. I wish I could slice him out of my story as a musician, but I can't. I also don't want this book to be a list of traumas, so I'm leaving a lot of that on the cutting room floor.
Fresh Air
Maggie Rogers / Kathleen Hanna
It's more important to remember that I've seen ugly basement rooms transform into warm campfires. Dank rock bro clubs become bright parties where girls and gay kids and misfits dance together in a sea of freedom and joy. Art galleries that had only ever showcased white male mediocrity become sites of thrilling feminist collaborations.
Fresh Air
Maggie Rogers / Kathleen Hanna
I also ate gelato on a street in Milan with my bandmates and cried because it tasted that good. But yeah, there were also rapes and run-ins with jerks who threw water on my shine. I keep trying to make my rapes funny, but I have to stop doing that because they aren't. I want them to be stories because stories are made up of words and words can't hurt me.
Fresh Air
Maggie Rogers / Kathleen Hanna
But the things I'm writing about aren't stories, they're my blood. They're the things that shaped me. The things that keep me up at night rechecking the locks on the doors. The things that make me afraid and ashamed. The things that inspire me to keep going.
Fresh Air
Maggie Rogers / Kathleen Hanna
Yeah, we wrote that one in the basement of this house called The Embassy. It was a punk house, and punk houses a lot of times have names. And this one was called The Embassy because it was pretty close to Embassy Row in D.C. And I'll always remember writing that song because it was one of those times where I was writing it as we were playing it.
Fresh Air
Maggie Rogers / Kathleen Hanna
So they started coming up with the music, and as it became more full-formed, I started hearing the first couple lines in my head, and I just stepped to the mic, and then they just kind of fell out. And I stepped back and started thinking, okay, what's the chorus going to be?
Fresh Air
Maggie Rogers / Kathleen Hanna
I was looking through poems and stuff I had in my notebook, and then I was just like, no, what are you feeling in this moment? I'm going to feel this moment because in that moment, Riot Grrrl meetings had just started in D.C. Our friends Bratmobile were playing shows and that we were just, you know, gobbling up like, you know, manna from heaven.
Fresh Air
Maggie Rogers / Kathleen Hanna
And Joan Jetta just called me on the phone and said, I like your band. And I was just like, I'm not going to look at my notebook. I'm going to feel this feeling. And then I walked back to the mic and I just sang. And, you know, Rebel Girl, Rebel Girl, You Are the Queen of My World came out.
Fresh Air
Maggie Rogers / Kathleen Hanna
I mean, I was thinking about my friend Juliana Looking, who's a spoken word artist who really kind of mentored me. I was thinking about Toby. I was thinking about Kathy.
Fresh Air
Maggie Rogers / Kathleen Hanna
I was thinking about the girls in the Riot Grrrl meetings who were saying stuff like, you know, just crying because it was the first time they'd been in an all-female atmosphere. And they were just like, whoa, this feels really weird. I'm confused. And then like, wait, why have I never made this a priority before?
Fresh Air
Maggie Rogers / Kathleen Hanna
And just that feeling of, you know, a room changing, like, you know, just sitting at a crappy plastic office max table with a bunch of young women sitting who have been relegated to the back of the room at punk shows for so long, finally saying, I've always wanted to start a band. Or, hey, does anybody know how to play guitar? I'd like to learn.
Fresh Air
Maggie Rogers / Kathleen Hanna
That's an amazing feeling that really kind of changes the room into this beautiful place of possibilities.
Fresh Air
Maggie Rogers / Kathleen Hanna
We moved a lot all around Maryland. Like we moved every three years. So I changed schools every three years. You know, we lived in kind of suburbs where not much was going on. And then we moved back to the Pacific Northwest. And I changed schools even then in high school. I went to two different high schools.
Fresh Air
Maggie Rogers / Kathleen Hanna
So I really started seeing the game and how at every school there was like kind of the same group breakdown. Yeah. You know, like the popular rich kid clique, the stoners, the people who are into this kind of music, the people who are into that kind of music, people who are into sports, like these kind of different groups.
Fresh Air
Maggie Rogers / Kathleen Hanna
And how a lot of the ways the interactions were so similar at every place that it just started to feel ridiculous to me. And, and I didn't have very many friends. I just sort of experimented with like, what would it be like if I was in this group of people? What would it be like?
Fresh Air
Maggie Rogers / Kathleen Hanna
And I think it gave me a chameleon like quality that definitely served me later when I had to grin and bear it through a lot of nonsense in the punk scene. Um, But yeah I think the moving a lot made me really turn to singing as my home.
Fresh Air
Maggie Rogers / Kathleen Hanna
I didn't think of myself as a good singer, but I sang all the time by myself because it was a place that I felt safe. And I knew no matter where we lived, I could walk in the woods and sing or I could sing along to records in my room. Like, I didn't want anybody to know and I didn't think I was good or, you know, whatever. I just, it was something that was fun. And...
Fresh Air
Maggie Rogers / Kathleen Hanna
Then a friend of mine in, I guess it was fourth grade, Maureen Gaines convinced me to go with her to an audition for Annie for the school play, and I got the part. And so in that moment, I was like, wait, other people think I can sing? Yeah. Like it was this real shock. Like I was like, I didn't realize that I actually had any kind of talent at it or that it sounded good to anybody beyond myself.
Fresh Air
Maggie Rogers / Kathleen Hanna
So there was that kind of eureka moment. So I was like practicing, practicing, practicing, practicing. And then once it came time to be on stage, I just felt like it was the first time where I really expressed myself mainly sadness, in front of a bunch of people. You know? Like, even though, you know, I didn't write the lyrics myself, they definitely spoke to my situation.
Fresh Air
Maggie Rogers / Kathleen Hanna
And just the quality of my voice and what I could do with my voice... I felt like I was saying I'm having a really hard time at home to, you know, a whole auditorium full of kids and grownups. And that felt really like a relief.
Fresh Air
Maggie Rogers / Kathleen Hanna
Yeah. I mean, I was feeling really proud of myself. And as we're getting to the car, my dad was saying, let's go get ice cream. And in my family, that really meant like you did a great job. You know what I mean? Like nobody said like, I love you or, you know, like, oh, I'm so proud of you kind of thing. It was more like we'll get ice cream. And that is code for we're proud of you.
Fresh Air
Maggie Rogers / Kathleen Hanna
So I was like, they're proud of me. My parents thought I did great. Like, you know, I read all this stuff into it. Like, they thought my singing was great. They thought, you know, blah, blah, blah in my head. And then as I sit down in the car, my dad says, anyone who can make such a fool of themselves in front of that many people deserves an ice cream. And I was just like, oh, my God. Like...
Fresh Air
Maggie Rogers / Kathleen Hanna
I just remember feeling like going from the top of the world to just like crashing, you know, on like concrete. And that was something that on my dad's side of the family, I have to say, I got to give them credit. They were so good at giving a compliment and then ripping it away and Like, it was almost a skill that they passed down from generation to generation.
Fresh Air
Maggie Rogers / Kathleen Hanna
So while I think it's a hideous thing to say to a child, that moment also inspired me to keep going. Because the fact that that didn't stop me meant I really wanted it. And also, I didn't like my dad. I thought he was a jerk. So, like... I learned really early, like, whose opinion matters to you?
Fresh Air
Maggie Rogers / Kathleen Hanna
You know, I came out the other end kind of being like more determined to get more involved in music at my school because I was like, this is what I want, despite you.
Fresh Air
Maggie Rogers / Kathleen Hanna
Yeah, I mean, there's also great things about my dad. My dad always said, you need to go to college. And he wanted me to go to college because he, I think, took like one or two semesters and had to drop out to get a job because, you know, my sister was born and he wanted that for me. And that was something beautiful that he gave me.
Fresh Air
Maggie Rogers / Kathleen Hanna
I think it's complicated and I think it's important to acknowledge that we can get positive things out of really negative situations. And like the experience of being shot down by my dad and keeping going was something that I still hold in my heart to this day in a way that is fuel.
Fresh Air
Maggie Rogers / Kathleen Hanna
You know, I moved to Olympia, Washington to go to college and had a really thriving music scene. And they really defined punk in that town in a different way than I'd ever seen. I'd gone to punk shows in high school and it was like, you know, kind of B versions of the Sex Pistols, you know, straight white guys who are like, I'm going to spit on you. Yeah.
Fresh Air
Maggie Rogers / Kathleen Hanna
And it just was like a lot of toxic masculinity disguised as, you know, radicalness. So it's kind of like the beginning of the edgelord era. But yeah, when I moved to Olympia, there were all these kids who were making music and putting out records on small indie labels.
Fresh Air
Maggie Rogers / Kathleen Hanna
And they sort of defined punk not as a genre or a sound, a loud, angry, aggressive sound, but as an idea, as the idea that, you know, we don't have to wait for corporations to tell us what is good music or art or writing. We can make it ourselves. So it's like, hey, let's put on a spoken word event. Let's put on a punk show at the laundromat.
Fresh Air
Maggie Rogers / Kathleen Hanna
It really was the town that gave me permission to do stuff. And I'd always wanted to be in a band, but sort of thought it was off limits. And this was the place that I saw people in bands just like walking around on the street. And I was like, well, they can do it. I can do it.
Fresh Air
Maggie Rogers / Kathleen Hanna
And at the same time, I was being really inspired by feminist performance artists like Karen Finley, who I saw live in Seattle and was just what this woman is doing on stage. going into from different voices, you know, getting naked and dumping chocolate and sprinkles on herself, you know, making fun of herself while also being incredibly powerful.
Fresh Air
Maggie Rogers / Kathleen Hanna
And so a lot of times when I first started being in Bikini Kill, I thought of myself as a feminist performance artist who was in a punk band.
Fresh Air
Maggie Rogers / Kathleen Hanna
Yeah, I mean, it was really pretty amazing because I was like, oh, this actually is a great way to continue the work that I'm doing at Safe Place when I'm not able to volunteer. So I felt like it was just working. I was still doing further work for Safe Place when I was doing counseling in an alleyway after a show. And that felt great to a certain extent.
Fresh Air
Maggie Rogers / Kathleen Hanna
You know, after a while, it's a job that is a heavy burnout job where you can just get burnout to the point where you feel like, you know, you've been vampired and you have no blood in your body. So it is a lot to be in a band and to not... We had no crew. We had no management. We had no publicist. And we did everything ourselves. And then on top of it, I'm doing social work for free. So...
Fresh Air
Maggie Rogers / Kathleen Hanna
That was like having a lot of jobs and then actually a real job and going to school. So at a certain point, and it wasn't until many, many, many, many, many years later that I said I need to pull back on this like kind of one-to-one social work, which is what it was.
Fresh Air
Maggie Rogers / Kathleen Hanna
You know, we did stuff like handed out lyric sheets that had the lyrics on them so that other girls and women would know these are the lyrics and what the subject matter was. Because a lot of times you couldn't understand what I was saying through the crappy PAs I was singing through. And sometimes even talking in between songs, you couldn't understand what I was saying.
Fresh Air
Maggie Rogers / Kathleen Hanna
And so that was one way that give them a souvenir to take home. you know, to read through and think about and maybe disagree with so that they start their own bands or it encourages them to write their own poetry or write their own zines. We also had zines that talked about a lot of different political issues of the day that we sold at our shows.
Fresh Air
Maggie Rogers / Kathleen Hanna
And I also, you know, we prioritized having girls and women come up to the front. Because a lot of the shows we were playing back then, it was, you know, straight, cisgender, white guys predominating and taking up all the space of the room. And we really selfishly wanted to build community so we had more girl bands to play with. And how is that going to happen if they're all stuck in the back?
Fresh Air
Maggie Rogers / Kathleen Hanna
And they can't see us play and they can't see, oh, you know, that's how you do a drum fill or, you know, that's how you play, you know, three notes on the bass and make them sound really interesting. And so I started saying, you know, inviting the girls to the front, hey, do you guys want to come to the front? And then it kind of became a thing.
Fresh Air
Maggie Rogers / Kathleen Hanna
It's like something that's actually meant to be an experiment, you know, in punk. It was like, what if we just rearrange this room a little bit? What's going to happen? And what happened were, you know, a lot of men were really mad and hated us. But it was also an interesting experiment.
Fresh Air
Maggie Rogers / Kathleen Hanna
I asked my son, whose name is Julius. I said, Julius, you know, mommy's writing a book. Do you want to be in it? And he's like, yeah, I better be. And so he's in it. And it was it felt really good to be able to write about being a parent because it's a huge part of my life. You know, you learn a lot about who you are in the world by being a parent.
Fresh Air
Maggie Rogers / Kathleen Hanna
And I think also with the current political situation, how do we talk to our kids about this stuff? How do we educate, you know, fun, awesome, wild, but good citizens? So these are conversations I'm looking forward to having and not dreading. I just, I didn't want while I was actively promoting albums to have, you know, constantly like, You and Ad-Rock have a kid. That kid must be so cool.
Fresh Air
Maggie Rogers / Kathleen Hanna
They must be so lucky. They must listen to Kraftwerk every day. Kraftwerk. My kid did listen to Kraftwerk, actually, for a while. And he told me in the kitchen one time, he's like, Mom, I know more about Kraftwerk than you. And you know what I replied? Go to your room. And it felt so good. I was like, don't child-splain craft work to me, toddler.
Fresh Air
Maggie Rogers / Kathleen Hanna
Oh, yeah. But I feel like there's so much more joy. Yeah. Like there's still the anger still there, but it's like a joyous anger because it's like, you know, a lot of us are sitting at home yelling at the TV and to get outside and like yell into a microphone and to have that release of like, you know, it feels joyous to explore our anger in public.
Fresh Air
Maggie Rogers / Kathleen Hanna
It feels joyous to be like, look, it's normal that we're all really upset and sad and all these different emotions and they can all coexist together. Right. And the songs really go from joy to sadness to rage very quickly. And I'm finding nuances in them that I didn't know were there. And the lyrics. Yeah, and so I'm really enjoying the songs, and they feel very fresh.
Fresh Air
Maggie Rogers / Kathleen Hanna
Like, it doesn't feel like, oh, God. I felt more that way about, like, playing Rebel Girl for the 800th time back in the 90s, and now I feel, like, so excited when it comes on. Because, I mean, the song really has legs, because I can sing it about anybody in my head. We played a show in, like, 2019, and I got up on stage, and I sang it, and I thought about myself. Yeah. And I sang it to myself.
Fresh Air
Maggie Rogers / Kathleen Hanna
I mean, and I felt like proud, you know, that I kept going and that I didn't give up and that I was still making music and that I really love what I do and that I have such great friends. I felt grateful. I felt proud. And I sang that song directed at me. And I know that's probably really gross and embarrassing, but it felt amazing.
Fresh Air
Maggie Rogers / Kathleen Hanna
You know, kind of B versions of the Sex Pistols, you know, straight white guys who are like, I'm going to spit on you. And it just was like a lot of toxic masculinity disguised as radicalness.
Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me!
WWDTM: Eric Idle, Bridget Everett + Jeff Hiller, and more!
I really need a beach house in Malibu, and feminist art pays so well.
Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me!
WWDTM: Eric Idle, Bridget Everett + Jeff Hiller, and more!
that I just figured, you know, go for the millions. I mean, clearly with everything going on in the world, we are just like kind of reinvigorated to sing the songs again.
Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me!
WWDTM: Eric Idle, Bridget Everett + Jeff Hiller, and more!
It just felt like the right time. You know, I didn't want to sing these songs 15 years ago and I really want to sing them again now. They feel really like it feels good physically to sing them on stage.
Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me!
WWDTM: Eric Idle, Bridget Everett + Jeff Hiller, and more!
Yeah, I got the part of Annie in the musical Annie.
Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me!
WWDTM: Eric Idle, Bridget Everett + Jeff Hiller, and more!
Well, what actually happened was a woman who had a son who went to the school complained that it was sexist, that there weren't very many parts for boys in it. So the play actually ended up being a really horrible mashup of Annie and Oliver. Also, you know, about orphans, I guess they were like, let's do a boy orphans and girl orphans. Wow.
Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me!
WWDTM: Eric Idle, Bridget Everett + Jeff Hiller, and more!
He was like two feet tall, and I was like four foot eight, so I really felt like it was not a fair fight.
Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me!
WWDTM: Eric Idle, Bridget Everett + Jeff Hiller, and more!
And he was a very cute, sweet kid, and he made everybody cry with that dumb Where Is Love song. Where Is Love.
Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me!
WWDTM: Eric Idle, Bridget Everett + Jeff Hiller, and more!
Oh, I do it all the time.
Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me!
WWDTM: Eric Idle, Bridget Everett + Jeff Hiller, and more!
I can't do it with earplugs. Let's see. The sun will come out.
Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me!
WWDTM: Eric Idle, Bridget Everett + Jeff Hiller, and more!
I just drove here from Hershey park, Pennsylvania. I was, I was on a roller coasters for like 10 hours. So I'm sort of like fried.
Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me!
WWDTM: Eric Idle, Bridget Everett + Jeff Hiller, and more!
Oh, yeah. No, we don't play venues that big.
Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me!
WWDTM: Eric Idle, Bridget Everett + Jeff Hiller, and more!
Thank you very much.
Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me!
WWDTM: Eric Idle, Bridget Everett + Jeff Hiller, and more!
Yeah, of course. You know, I went to ride the Super Duper Looper again because I rode it when I was like 10. And so I took my son so he could ride it. And he loves roller coasters. He's an enthusiast.
Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me!
WWDTM: Eric Idle, Bridget Everett + Jeff Hiller, and more!
It's a nice park. It's a nice park.
Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me!
WWDTM: Eric Idle, Bridget Everett + Jeff Hiller, and more!
Thank you. Thank you.