Bikini Kill’s Kathleen Hanna announces memoir ‘Rebel Girl: My Life As A Feminist Punk’
Bikini Kill’s Kathleen Hanna has announced details of a new memoir, titled Rebel Girl: My Life As A Feminist Punk.
Set for release in May next year via HarperCollins imprint Ecco, the book looks to discuss the emergence of the ’90s feminist punk movement, and detail the life and relationships of the artist.
It also explores how Hanna became a founder of the Riot Grrrl movement and went on to inspire the likes of Kurt Cobain and Sonic Youth with her attitude and work as a musician, as well as her struggle with Lyme disease. Pre-order the book here.
“In Rebel Girl, Hanna’s raw and insightful new memoir, she takes us from her tumultuous childhood home to her formative college years in Olympia, Washington, and on to her first years on tour, fighting hard for gigs and for her band,” reads the description. “As Hanna makes clear, being in a ‘girl band,’ especially a punk girl band, in those years was not a simple or safe prospect. Male violence and antagonism threatened at every turn, and surviving as a singer who was a lightning rod for controversy took limitless amounts of determination.
But the relationships she developed during those years buoyed her—including with her bandmates, Tobi Vail, Kathi Wilcox, and Johanna Fateman; her friendships with Kurt Cobain and Ian MacKaye; and her introduction to Joan Jett— were all a testament to how the punk world could nurture and care for its own,” it continues.
“Hanna opens up about falling in love with Ad-Rock of the Beastie Boys and her debilitating battle with Lyme disease, and she brings us behind the scenes of her musical growth in her bands, Le Tigre and The Julie Ruin. She also writes candidly about the Riot Grrrl movement, documenting with love its grassroots origins but critiquing its later exclusivity.”
The news of Hanna’s memoir arrives on the heels of Bikini Kill’s recent tour of North America, which wrapped up this Spring.
The tour dates were originally set to take place in summer of last year, but were postponed and rescheduled after a member of crew tested positive for COVID-19.
The band reformed just before the pandemic, and her other band Le Tigre also announced a variety of support acts for their first UK and European tour in 18 years back in April.
In other news, last year Bikini Kill’s guitarist Erica Dawn Lyle and drum tech Vice Cooler announced a benefit compilation featuring contributions from The Linda Lindas and Kim Gordon. For this, Hanna featured on the album’s first single ‘Mirrorball’.
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Liberty Dunworth
NME
