Kathleen Hanna
From Punkopedia - The Punk, Hardcore, and Indie Encyclopedia
 Kathleen Hanna | |
| Homebase | Portland, OR |
| Born | November 12, 1968 |
| Website | Kathleen Hanna site |
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Contents |
[edit] Biography
[edit] Life and Career
[edit] Childhood
Born in Portland, Oregon, Kathleen Hanna's family moved to Calverton, Maryland in 1971. This was followed by a series of moves due to her father changing occupations, which continued until Hanna's parents got a divorce while she was in high school. Hanna first became interested in feminism around the age of nine, after her mother took her to a rally in Washington D.C. where feminist icon Gloria Steinem spoke. Though it would be several years until she would become the outspoken feminist she is today, the event clearly left an impression on Hanna. In a 2000 interview with BUST magazine, Hanna recalled:
“ My mom was a housewife, and wasn't somebody that people would think of as a feminist, and when Ms. magazine came out we were incredibly inspired by it. I used to cut pictures out of it and make posters that said "Girls can do anything", and stuff like that, and my mom was inspired to work at a basement of a church doing anti-domestic violence work. Then she took me to the Solidarity Day thing, and it was the first time I had ever been in a big crowd of women yelling, and it really made me want to do it forever. ”
In the 2006 documentary, Don't Need You: the Herstory of Riot Grrrl, Hanna elaborates on the effect feminism had on her in childhood, recalling that her interest grew when her mother checked out a copy of Betty Friedan's "The Feminine Mystique" from the library. Yet Hanna and her mother's involvement in the women's rights movement had to be done quietly in the years before her parents' divorce, due to her father's disapproval.
[edit] College
Hanna attended The Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington in the late 1980s, where she studied photography. Determined to support herself, Hanna began working as a burlesque dancer during this time. She also participated in the burgeoning art scene in Olympia during these years, doing spoken-word performances which addressed sexism and violence against women, issues which she witnessed daily as she became involved with a domestic violence organization over the next two years.
Working with fellow Evergreen student and photographer Aaron Baush-Greene, Hanna set up a photo show featuring the pair's photography, which dealt with, respectively, sexism and AIDS. However, the school administrators took the photos down before they got the chance to be viewed, an act of censorship which prompted what Hanna refers to as her "first foray into activism"–the creation of an independent feminist art gallery called Reko Muse with friends Heidi Arbogast and Tammy Rae Carland. The three women then formed a band called Amy Carter, which put on shows before the art exhibitions.
Hanna later started another band, Viva Knievel, which toured the United States for two months before disbanding. Upon returning to Olympia, Hanna began collaborating with fellow Evergreen student and punk zinester Tobi Vail after seeing a performance of The Go Team, (a band made up of Vail, Billy Karren, and Calvin Johnson) and recognizing Vail as the mastermind behind the fanzine Jigsaw, which Hanna greatly admired.
[edit] Personal
Hanna is married to Adam Horovitz, better known as King Ad-Rock of the legendary hip hop group the Beastie Boys.
Hanna is bisexual, stating in a 1991 interview: "I do like boys, I like girls too..."
In interviews, Hanna has openly discussed having an abortion when she was younger, saying "It was one of the first things I did on my own; I worked at McDonald's, raised the money and did it. I'm really, really passionate about pro-choice, because I wouldn't be here talking to you right now if I'd had a kid at 15". Hanna has expressed the belief that by talking about her abortion, it will encourage other women to openly discuss the topic, lessening any stigmas and creating further political momentum for the pro-choice movement.
She has at least two tattoos, one around her ankle and a large black heart on her right upper-arm. The latter is a cover-up of a tattoo she had during the early years of Bikini Kill, a heart with a banner that read "Daddy." This was likely meant to be ironic, seeing as Hanna has stated in interviews she does not have much contact with her father.
She cites Times Square, Ladies and Gentlemen, The Fabulous Stains, Over the Edge, Poison, Born in Flames and The Boys in the Band as some of her favorite movies.
[edit] Relationship with other musicians
She has collaborated with Juliana Lueking, Atari Teenage Riot, Comet Gain, Joan Jett, The Rickets, Green Day, Metal Church, Mike Watt, Helter Skillet, Internal/External, Yoko Ono, and she appeared as a dancer in Sonic Youth's "Bull in the Heather" music video.
She was once involved with Dave Grohl of Scream and Nirvana, back when Nirvana was still an independent Olympia band. Tobi Vail was going out with her friend and collaborator Kurt Cobain at the time, and the Bikini Kill/Nirvana couples hung out together for a few months, skateboarding and indulging in occasional acts of vandalism. It was during one of these nights that Hanna had spray-painted "Kurt smells like Teen Spirit" on one of Cobain's walls, inspiring the title of their hit song. She was later punched by Courtney Love backstage during the Lollapalooza tour on 4 July 1995. Courtney has a history of attacking friends of Kurt from his days in the Olympia indie-punk scene, including Calvin Johnson, Mary Lou Lord, and even Kurt's mother Wendy O'Connor.
"Kathleen was a big influence on him too," says Ian Dickson of Earth about his old friend, Kurt Cobain. "Imagine if you had two superheros, one 'good' and the other 'bad'. That's Kathleen and Courtney. Kathleen embodies all these feminist ideas and has always been very consistent. Courtney adopted a lot of her agenda and used it to become famous. Kurt was tremendously attracted to Kathleen's ideas because he loved the underdog."
[edit] Projects
Bikini Kill
Hanna and Tobi Vail's first collaboration was a zine called Revolution Girl Style Now. This led to a later zine titled Bikini Kill, a response to sexism in the punk rock scene, written with fellow Evergreen student and friend Kathi Wilcox. The three women decided to form a band to personify their ideals and recruited Vail’s bandmate Karren as the fourth member, naming the band after their zine.
Bikini Kill soon became part of the seminal Olympia, Washington music scene of the early 1990’s, which was characterized by political awareness, a strong artistic do-it-yourself ethic, and an emphasis on local collaboration and support.
The band's first release for the Kill Rock Stars label was a self-titled EP produced by Ian MacKaye of Minor Threat/Fugazi. Bikini Kill then toured the UK, recording a split LP with UK band Huggy Bear. This tour was filmed and the band was interviewed by Lucy Thane for her documentary, It Changed My Life: Bikini Kill In The UK. Upon returning to the U.S., the band began working with Joan Jett, who produced their single, "New Radio/Rebel Girl". After the release of this record, Kathleen began co-writing some songs with Joan for her new album.
At the same time Kathleen produced several solo pieces for the Kill Rock Stars "Wordcore" series of recordings, including the 7" single "Rockstar" and the song "I Wish I Was Him" (a Ben Lee cover about alternative rock heartthrob Evan Dando) on the KRS compilation Rock Stars Kill. She was also in the band called Suture with Sharon Cheslow and Dug E. Bird.
The first two Bikini Kill EPs were released on CD as the appropriately titled The CD Version of the First Two Records in 1992. The band released two more full-length albums, Pussy Whipped in 1994 and Reject All American in 1996, and in 1998, Kill Rock Stars released Bikini Kill: The Singles, a collection of the group's seven inch and compilation tracks. Bikini Kill broke up on friendly terms around April 1998.
[edit] Influence on Riot Grrrl
In 1991, the band spent a summer in Washington, D.C., where Hanna began collaborating with Allison Wolfe and Molly Neuman from the band Bratmobile on the zine riot grrrl, which became a call to action for increased feminist activity and female involvement in the punk rock scene. In a 2000 interview with Index Magazine, Hanna relates:
“ We wanted to start a magazine, and Allison Wolfe and Molly Neuman from the band Bratmobile had started a little fanzine called Riot Grrrl and we were writing little things for it. I'd always wanted to start a big magazine with really cool, smart writing in it, and I wanted to see if the other punk girls in D.C. that I was meeting were interested in that. So I called a meeting and found a space for it, and it just turned into this sort of consciousness-raising thing. I realized really quickly that a magazine wasn't the way to go. People wanted to be having shows, and teaching each other how to play music, and writing fanzines, so that started happening. It got some press attention, and girls in other places would be like "I wanna do that. I wanna start one of those." ”
Bikini Kill, Bratmobile, and zines like Jigsaw and Girl Germs helped define the movement that came to be called Riot Grrrl.
[edit] Between bands
Post-Bikini Kill, Hanna moved to Durham, North Carolina, home of Mr. Lady records, which was run by her close friend Tammy Rae Carland. Hanna began a series of projects, the first of which was The Fakes, in which she enlisted the help of Rachel Carns of The Need. The resulting CD, Real Fiction was released on Chainsaw Records.
Her next project, Julie Ruin was a sampler-driven lo-fi electronic project recorded in the closet of Hanna's Olympia apartment using only a sampler, a drum machine and an 8-track recorder. It was released on the Kill Rock Stars label.
[edit] Le Tigre
In Portland, Oregon Hanna began working with friend and zine editor Johanna Fateman on a live show for Julie Ruin. The collaboration eventually resulted in the two briefly forming a band called The Troublemakers, named after a G.B. Jones film, which ended when Fateman relocated to New York City to attend art school.
However, Hanna soon joined Fateman on the East Coast and with the addition of filmmaker Sadie Benning, they started another band, this time called Le Tigre. This band continued to pursue a more electronic style of music similar to the sampler-driven sound Hanna had begun to explore with Julie Ruin. The band began recording records for the Mr. Lady Records label, the first being the self-titled Le Tigre, which included the singles "Hot Topic" and "Deceptacon." After the first record, Sadie Benning left the band and JD Samson joined before the follow-up CD Feminist Sweepstakes was released. When Mr. Lady Records closed down, the group switched labels to Universal Records for the 2004 release of This Island. Le Tigre toured the United States once in 2005 and again in 2006 with a small tour of Europe afterwards. They also released two remixed albums before announcing their extended hiatus as of January 2007.
Kathleen Hanna (front) with "Le Tigre"
Recent
According to the Le Tigre website, during her time off from the band Kathleen has been volunteering as a band coach for "The Willie Mae Rock Camp for Girls". She will also be teaching an art class at NYU's grad school in the Fall 2007 semester.
During Beavis and Butthead's review of Bull in the Heather (as stated, a Sonic Youth video where she is featured), they believe she's a five-year-old girl who cannot dance.
Discography
[edit] Bikini Kill
Albums
Revolution Girl Style Now! self-released cassette (1991)
Bikini Kill (EP) on Kill Rock Stars (1991)
Yeah Yeah Yeah Yeah split LP with Huggy Bear on Catcall Records in the UK, Kill Rock Stars in the US (1993)
Pussy Whipped on Kill Rock Stars (1994)
Reject All American on Kill Rock Stars (1996)
Singles
New Radio/Rebel Girl 7" single on Kill Rock Stars (1993)
The Anti-Pleasure Dissertation Single on Kill Rock Stars (1994)
I Like Fucking/I Hate Danger 7" single on Kill Rock Stars (1995) ,br>
Compilations
Kill Rock Stars on Kill Rock Stars LP/CD (1991)
Throw: The YoYo Studio Compilation on YoYo Records (1991)
"Daddy's Lil' Girl" on Give Me Back LP, Ebullition Records (1991)
"Suck My Left One" on There's A Dyke In The Pit, Outpunk Records (1992)
Bikini Kill: The Singles (1998)
[edit] Julie Ruin
Julie Ruin on Kill Rock Stars (1998)
[edit] Le Tigre
Full-Length Albums
Le Tigre on Mr. Lady (1999)
Feminist Sweepstakes on Mr. Lady (2001)
This Island on Universal (2004)
Singles and EPs
Hot Topic (1999)
From the Desk of Mr. Lady EP (2001)
Remix (2003)
Standing In The Way Of Control 12" split EP with The Gossip on Kill Rock Stars
This Island Remixes Volume 1 EP, Chicks On Speed Records
This Island Remixes Volume 2EP, Chicks On Speed Records
Miscellaneous
Real Fiction, The Fakes, Kill Rock Stars, Inside Out, Internal External, K Records Featuring..., Internal External, K Records Rock Star / Mean (wordcore v. 1) as Kathleen Hanna and Slim Moon, Kill Rock Stars[19] Rock Stars Kill, includes Hanna's "I Wish I Was Him", Various Artists, Kill Rock Stars Ball Hog or Tug Boat? LP/CD "Heatbeat"-Mike Watt Decomposition 00, Suture, Kill Rock Stars, 1991 Suture!, Suture, Kill Rock Stars, 1992 Realistes, Comet Gain, Hanna featured on the track "Ripped-Up Suit"
[edit] Influences
[edit] Links
- Laurie Weeks interviews Kathleen Hanna
- Salon.com audio "RockStar" mp3
- Kathleen's Herstory from the Le Tigre site
- Two interviews with Hanna on the NPR show Fresh Air: one from 2000, and one from 2001.
