Sleater-Kinney

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2:11Cards issued by JPMorgan Chase Bank and a member FDIC. Subject to credit approval. Terms apply. Slater-Kinney has long been a safe space for band members Carrie Brownstein and Corin Tucker. What started as a group born out of the feminist punk riot girl scene in Olympia, Washington in the early 90s has grown into a life-affirming artistic endeavor. In late 2022, tragedy struck when Carrie's mother and stepfather were killed in a car accident overseas. In the months after, Carrie found respite from her men's grief by playing the guitar for hours on end and writing new music. Slater Kinney's latest album, Little Rope, is in part a meditation on Carrie's grief.

2:56But it's also proven to be a triumph for the band. Corin Tucker, who handles the bulk of the singing for the new album, has been racking up rave reviews, including one from The New Yorker, who noted that Corin's performance is the most dynamic and flexible of her career. On today's episode, Bruce Hedlum talks to Carrie Brownstein and Corin Tucker about their intimate recording relationship and how their sometimes opposing approaches to creative work complement one another. They also talk about the matriarchal nature of the early Olympia music scene and why they wanted their new album to sometimes sound gross and obnoxious.

3:38This is Broken Record. Line of notes for the digital age. I'm Justin Richman. Here's Bruce Hedlum's conversation with Slater Kinney. I think for some acts, and I think you might be one of them, critics almost get in the way. I think this is the first time I've been able to listen to one of your new records without reading sort of manifesto about what it meant from somebody or, you know, hearing all the kind of, is it Riot Grrrl, is it this, is it this, is it this. It was just pure pleasure listening to it. Just a great album. And it also is, it's incredibly lively. Like, we've done a lot of interviews with people who've sort of been coming out of pandemic and a lot of their stuff feels tentative.

4:20This feels like it was a shot out of a cannon. I want to know from you how this album started and the kind of world you were trying to create with this album to invite people in. What was it? I think because we did make a pandemic album before this one, perhaps we got that insular, isolating sound out of the way. This one, I think we were recommitting to the band, which to me is almost an act you have to do with each album, is recommit to the need, recommit to the making and doing of music and find necessity in it. find intention and purpose so that it's not random or something you take for granted.

5:17And then you get to the task of making it. But I do think because of that, and perhaps feeling slightly underestimated that, you know, when you're on your 11th album, that people wonder what you have to say. I think as we were writing, we knew we had something to say. I think there was an urgency to it. There was a deliberate, I guess, nature in terms of songwriting and the craft of it and approaching things in new ways, but also returning to some of the methods that we have used for almost 30 years, which is the two of us in a room together with guitar and singing. So, yeah, I think just in terms of when you start writing a record and it's your 11th album, you have to know that you want this still because otherwise there's just a flattening of the whole experience and the sonic nature of it as well, which we didn't want.

6:25Was there something different you did sonically here? It's a great sounding record. There's a couple tracks particularly I thought just had a great sort of background sound. I think Hunt You Down was one of them that really just had a great sort of atmosphere. I think that, you know, we really approached it with wanting to have, you know, an album that was really bold. And we were fortunate enough to work with John Congleton as a producer on this album. And so we worked really hard on finding sounds that were cutting edge, kind of extra, that were loud and sometimes gross was a word that we used a lot.

7:11And we wanted it to be a little bit obnoxious at times. Yeah. But I think like with something like Hunt You Down, we wanted to set moods, but I don't like music that is just vibe. but I do like things that are immersive, that bring you into a world. And I think we thought with each song about the rhythm and what tones work with the song and about arrangement a lot. We also do a lot of editing. When you start out as a band, a lot of it is first idea, best idea, or it's a culmination of everything you've been thinking about, everything that's been percolating and building up for your entire life.

7:54And then the first three records are kind of an extension of, I don't know, that sort of back catalog of ideas. But then after that, there is a searching and a seeking. And so we don't always trust first idea, best idea. We sit with something for a while. Hunt You Down is a song that we wrote three or four choruses for that we really made have elements come in, guitar parts that come in just once to just punctuate and accentuate a certain lyric. We really thought about that song as a journey, I think. And we did that with a lot of these songs, really sat with them and wrestled with them over and over again until we had sort of the perfect version of them.

8:44And then, of course, you try to throw that out when you're recording. and accentuate things that are imperfect or things that are messy or things that kind of teeter on the edge. Can you tell me a little more what that writing is like? You mentioned that you guys have always just sat in rooms with guitars, I assume facing each other and writing. What's it like for you? What's the room like? What are you playing? How does that work? For this album, I was actually using a friend's apartment. Yeah, he has an apartment downtown. And that was kind of nice because Corinne and I, when we do write together, it is often in our own homes or, you know, small rooms, whether it's been a basement.

9:30That's very often a basement or an office or some kind of den. But we were in a space that was more like a loft in downtown. And neither of us live downtown. A lot of people in Portland live on the east side of town, so you're not kind of immersed in the city of Portland. So we were on this sort of upper floor, able to kind of look out at the river and see the skyline and, you know, see the sort of the mountains, you know, Mount Hood in the distance and Mount Tabor. And that was kind of nice to build, to have this particular space that we didn't necessarily know we were going to have, that we only wrote music there.

10:17It wasn't anywhere that we did any other living. We just went there and wrote and worked. And I think that kind of insularity can be good. You know, sometimes I like when you're writing and you're sort of, it's ambient and you're kind of eating and breathing music and you can walk from your, you know, where your amplifier is to the kitchen. But I also just like getting in my car or walking and being in the space where I know what I'm there to do is write and work. And we had that with this album, which we have not always had. I think that we give ourselves multiple avenues to arrive upon a song, whether it's jamming on something or working on a particular part of a song, trying to crack a certain chorus of a song.

11:10You know, I think that we allow ourselves to experiment with different ways of writing, different places, different setups, so that we can approach things from different angles. We also sometimes send ideas back and forth using software where we can really flesh out an entire demo of something and then the other person gets it and sits with it for a while and maybe reharmonizes the chords underneath it or works on a top line melody. Can you walk me through, I mean, there are lots of standouts on this record, but Untidy Creature, which is the last track. So I'm starting with the end, but I thought it was such an outstanding song.

11:55How did that start? How did that go back and forth between you? The funny thing about that song is it actually was the first song we wrote for the album. And we wrote it in, was it 2021? Beginning of that year. And I think Carrie had this great riff idea for a song. and I think we just started jamming on that one and coming up with an idea for the song and I think it came together fairly quickly in terms of the music of the song but the lyrics really changed over the year you know I think that I wanted it to be a really personal story but it also definitely reflects what happened in the past couple of years in terms of women's rights in this country and in terms of feeling autonomous and feeling respected.

13:01I think that, you know, it's meant to reflect that experience and rebel against it. I love that opening riff. It actually reminds me, it's like a minor version to me of the Waterloo Sunset riff, kind of the way that little figure just descends. When you work out the music for that, and did you work out the music really solidly before the lyrical ideas came? Yes. When do you guys kind of lock in your guitar playing? Because I can't think of another band that has an interaction between guitar players the way you guys do. You don't have a bass player, but there's something amazing about how you fill up the space with your two guitars.

13:45How do you work that out? That is a very ineffable thing, and it's a sonic vernacular that we came to very early in this band. And it is very instinctive in some ways in terms of how we fill things out sonically. You know, neither of us are trained musicians, so we are often approaching things a little bit differently, probably not always doing what is expected in terms of chord progression, note progression, kind of hybridizing scales and sliding into notes that might not be, you know, the most comfortable for the listener. And I think that then affects how Korn sings. We also detune to C sharp, which always creates something that feels, I think, a little bit scary and certainly a little bit sour.

14:48sometimes. The tuning is slippery in C-sharp, no matter how many people intonate these guitars. It definitely creates some dissonance there that we like. We like creating a sonic landscape that isn't just something that you can sort of relax into, because then when it does, when all the notes align, it's very satisfying. But there's a lot of times where the notes are misaligning, you know, when it's just right on the edge of not being right. So I think we're aware of that as we are putting the guitar parts together and we utilize that discord. We seek it out a little bit and we toy with it. And then we can also contrast that really well with something pretty, like Untidy Creature starts out with that big riff and then it, you know, breaks down into a very beautiful, catchy verse, has much more classic chord structures.

15:55And then the other interesting thing about that song is that because we didn't record it, Corin misremembered the chord she played under my riff. So she ended up writing two different chord progressions. And when I remembered that she had written two different ones, I thought, well, let's use both. So at the end of the song, it switches. Just her guitar switches. I'm still playing that riff and her part switches. And I think we are conscious of the ways that that can really change something. It can make something go from minor to major or even something a little more subtle than that. And it's very satisfying.

16:39we are such a guitar based band that is such a tool for us in terms of how we express the emotion in our song and so yeah we are very particular about it but mostly it's instinctive but we also I think have gotten better at utilizing it effectively just so I understand are you using standard tuning and then tuning everything down Yes. Three semitimes. It's not an altar to anything like that. That would be even more insane. Yes. And in fact, sometimes when we've had people come into the studio or join us live and we say C Sharp, they're imagining some real jazzy, crazy tuning. And we're like, no, it's just basically standard, but dropped a step and a half there.

17:29And was this just something you started doing early? It was such an accident, right, Corinne? Yeah, it really was an accident. it was I think when we first started playing together I had detuned my guitar for my former band I was the only player I was the only instrument player and I liked singing with a slightly dropped tuning because it made my voice it just gave like a drama to my voice that I liked and so when Carrie and I started playing together we when we finally tuned our guitars to each other it happened to be C sharp and we're like great that's what it is yeah it could have been D at that you know I mean it could have been yeah it could have been E flat could have been D literally the moment we decided to codify it it was C sharp and for some reason we still only tune to that it is the language of this band it's like you step into the land of Slater sharp.

18:34That's just, it's one of the only rules. After a quick break, we'll be back with more from Slater Kinney. In today's super competitive business environment, the edge goes to those who push harder, move faster, and level up every tool in their arsenal. T-Mobile knows all about that. They're now the best network, according to the experts at Oocla Speedtest, and they're using that network to launch Supermobile, the first and only business plan to combine intelligent performance, built-in security, and seamless satellite coverage. With Supermobile, your performance, security, and coverage are supercharged.

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21:08Terms apply. Imagine that you're on an airplane and all of a sudden you hear this. Attention passengers, the pilot is having an emergency and we need someone, anyone, to land this plane. Think you could do it? It turns out that nearly 50 % of men think that they could land the plane with the help of air traffic control. And they're saying like, okay, pull this, do this, pull that, turn this. It's just... I can do it with my eyes closed. I'm Manny. I'm Noah. This is Devin. And on our new show, No Such Thing, we get to the bottom of questions like these. Join us as we talk to the leading expert on overconfidence.

21:45Those who lack expertise lack the expertise they need to recognize that they lack expertise. And then as we try the whole thing out for real. Wait, what? Oh, that's the runway. I'm looking at this thing. Listen to No Such Thing on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. We're back with more from Bruce Edlam and Slater Kinney. So did the lyrical idea, does it grow naturally out of the music? Or you're just hearing it and you think, well, no, I have this, I have a lyrical idea, I can apply it to this. Or are you listening to it saying, it's got to be this, this is where it's leading me?

22:29I think it depends on the song. I think for Untidy Creature, that one had some lyrics that came very naturally while I was singing. but I really wanted to develop a story in that song that was about one particular experience, that was about being inside of a world, inside of a moment, inside of a feeling. And so that involved a lot of writing and rewriting and rewriting and rewriting those lyrics. But the music had come first in that particular song. Yeah, I feel like both of us, but I definitely write things down all the time, either in my notes app or in an actual notebook, lyric ideas. But I can't always be certain that they will fit with the song.

23:28A song like Needlessly Wild or the verses of Hunt You Down, it's like the music compels me to sing a certain way or to sing certain words. And often we will have placeholders and it's almost like a feeling. Like the word has to sound a certain way in your mouth. You can't shoehorn some new set of consonants in there, you know, or it has to be this way syllabically. Like it does inform things. You want it to be singable and not, you know, sort of clumsy. so sometimes the melody a little bit dictates the lyrics. Obviously, you hear certain – when I listen to a band like The National, I think there's no way.

24:17Matt Berenger, he must be almost telling a short story here. But for us, I think, and especially Corin, with her capabilities as a singer, she can convey a lot with very few words, but they still have to be the right words. But I do think the music can kind of inform what we end up singing about because it's a feeling. And if you put the wrong lyrics over it, you can really tell. Sometimes those are the songs that don't end up on the album because they just don't feel connected in that way. The relationship is muddy between music and lyrics. You mentioned the singing on this song, and I would say the whole album is fantastic.

25:07I'm not sure you've sounded better, in fact. Corinne, are there things you can do with your voice now, you feel, that you couldn't do before? Yeah, weirdly, yes. Over the years, I have started taking better care of my voice, And I did start working with a voice coach in Portland who helped me work on maintaining my voice on tour. And I think he taught me a bunch about singing. He taught me how to work through different parts of my voice and control them a bit better. And so I think kind of unconsciously that came out on this album because it was a very emotional album, but it also has a complexity to it that I think sort of really speaks to where we are in our lives right now.

26:07And I wanted to be able to convey that with the singing as well. Carrie, did you find her singing on this album different? Yeah, I think it is some of Corrin's best singing. I go back and listen to something like Dig Me Out or The Woods, which are two albums that Slater-Kinney are sort of known for. And Corrin's voice is incredible on both of those albums, but the control on this album, the nuance, the diversity of sounds and voicings. A song like Small Finds, there are three distinct vocal styles on that song. You know, the verse has kind of a tossed-off, insouciant, almost Kim Gordon feel, and then the chorus is this big rock voice, and then the coda, which takes you out of the song, has this whole other almost Jim Morrison Doors vibe.

27:07It's astounding to me. And then, of course, there's something like the choruses of hell, which, yes, you can maybe imagine that on Dig Me Out, but not with that control and not with the verses being so pretty and melodic. So, yeah, I'm very impressed. And I really needed Corinne to sing more on this record because I had just gone through loss in my life and was grieving and didn't really think that my strength was going to be in singing on this album. And so Corinne really stepped up, and it's probably the most singing she's done since very, very early Slater-Kinney. So Corinne, was your voice your first instrument growing up?

27:55My dad, he was like a hobby musician. He played folk music in the 60s. He opened for Pete Seeger once. Wow. Yeah. And he was always playing music when I was little. I remember being two or three years old and singing folk songs with him. And he would play guitar and be like, sing this one. And I just thought that was what kids did growing up, was learning folk songs. I wanted to sing. I think I got really anxious as a teenager. I didn't feel comfortable pursuing it because I was just, I didn't have the self-confidence. But when I arrived in Olympia and I connected with the music scene there, it was so supportive and so wide open in terms of what a band could be, what a singer could be, that I wanted to start my own band.

28:56I was so inspired by other women in bands that I wanted to do it myself. And so I started a band right away and started singing in it and performing with no real training, no real idea what I was doing. Was there a particular song, a moment that made you feel that you wanted to do this? I think there was a moment. It was February 14th, 1991, and it was a Valentine's Day show with Bikini Kill and Bratmobile, two bands that I was extremely inspired by. And I think Feels Blind by Bikini Kill was probably one of the most inspirational songs. It hit me so hard at that age. I was 18 and I saw what they did as a band.

29:56It was so impactful. It wasn't professional. It wasn't polished. But it just really dared people to do something different with our lives. And I felt like it was a calling for me as well to start singing and do my own band. Carrie, what was it for you? Gosh, a single moment. I think for me, it was definitely in high school when I started actually going to shows. I had grown up listening to a lot of pop music in the 80s and watching MTV, but I could never decode how or what people were playing. There was a lot of spectacle surrounding that music. You couldn't really permeate the artifice of it.

30:48But I started going to shows in high school, and I remember seeing Hammerbox. They were a band from Seattle, the Fastbacks, Beat Happening. And I would just watch these people play, like Kim Warnick or Kurt Block from the Fastbacks, and I could actually see what they were doing. I could see what the pedals, the guitar effects pedals look like. I saw that there was a quarter inch cable going from an amp to a pedal to maybe a tuner if we were lucky. And I could see how their fingers moved across the fretboard. I could see that there were monitors. Like that whole machinery was demystified for me.

31:33And music was something that was made. It wasn't just packaged or produced. There was sweat and effort. And I really just needed to kind of press myself to the front of those stages and watch and decode. and so I think more than a single moment but just being in rooms every weekend and understanding that this was something that wasn't happening in New York or LA or London but happening in the suburbs of Seattle and in Seattle and in all these places that I inhabited with people that were just a little bit older than me and that I had access to it that I could if I got a guitar that I could play this.

32:22It wasn't foreign. You know, I've asked that question of so many people, and you're the first two who've mentioned live music, not recorded music. For so many people, it's, you know, under the covers with my radio hearing Love Me Do for the first time, or whatever it is. It's amazing that's what you reacted to so strongly. Yeah, I think, of course, we both have all those moments of recorded music, but, you know, we came up with such community. And I think that idea of conveying something live and being able to do that, to me, it was not just an aural experience. There was something more than just listening involved.