Kathleen Hanna needs no introduction, and the iconic frontwoman and feminist will look back on her life and career in a new memoir, Rebel Girl: My Life as a Feminist Punk. It’s due out on May 14 via HarperCollins imprint Ecco, and here’s the synopsis:
Kathleen Hanna’s rallying cry to feminists echoed far and wide through the punk scene of the 90s and beyond. Her band, Bikini Kill, embodies this iconic time, and today her personal yet feminist lyrics on anthems like “Rebel Girl” and “Double Dare Ya” are more powerful than ever. But where did this transformative voice come from?
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. 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 lightening 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. 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.
In an uncut voice all her own, Hanna reveals the hardest times along with the most joyful–and how it continues to fuel her revolutionary art and music.
Kathleen is on the road with Le Tigre now on their first North American tour in 18 years, which wraps up with sold out NYC shows at Brooklyn Steel on July 27, 28, and 29, with Morgan Bassichis (night 1), Shamir (night 2), and Hyd (night 3). See all dates below.
Kathleen also recently joined TikTok, where she posted a new makeup tutorial that references Public Enemy. Watch it below.
@thekathleenhanna Second TikTok, and I’m doing a makeup tutorial? I love it here. Also, shoutout to @Selena Gomez thanks for bringing awareness to invisible illness!
LE TIGRE: 2023 TOUR
JULY 15- THE SALT SHED – CHICAGO, IL
JULY 17- AGORA THEATRE – CLEVELAND, OH
JULY 18- MR. SMALLS THEATRE – MILLVALE, PA
JULY 19- BALTIMORE SOUNDSTAGE – BALTIMORE, MD
JULY 21- HISTORY – TORONTO, ON
JULY 22- L’OLYMPIA – MONTREAL, QC
JULY 24- ROYALE – BOSTON, MA
JULY 25- ROYALE – BOSTON, MA
JULY 27- BROOKLYN STEEL – BROOKLYN, NYC
JULY 28- BROOKLYN STEEL – BROOKLYN, NYC
JULY 29- BROOKLYN STEEL – BROOKLYN, NYC