Carrie Brownstein, left, and Corin Tucker of Sleater-Kinney. Photo: Supplied/Chris Hornbecker
Carrie Brownstein and Corin Tucker of feminist punk band Sleater-Kinney were halfway through recording their 11th studio album when they got the news: Brownstein's mother and stepfather had been killed in a car crash while holidaying in Italy.
In the aftermath, continuing with the album helped them to feel "a sense of purpose", Tucker told Music 101.
"The band and playing music is something that we've done for so long and we know how to do it. Even on your worst day, we know how to play guitar," she said.
"It's a very uplifting job, to write music, because eventually that music is going to help lift people up.
"It's kind of putting your head down and doing the work in order to feel a sense of purpose, a sense of mission. I think that helped in terms of feeling this incredible grief that was happening at the same time."
The album, Little Rope, was released in January to critical acclaim.
The band - a duo since the departure, in 2019, of drummer Janet Weiss - are currently on tour to support its release, and will play Auckland's Powerstation on 15 May.
Tucker said Australia and New Zealand occupied "a special place in our hearts" because of the role the countries played in the start of their careers.
"We sort of expanded our dream of the band by going there and playing with local musicians and then recording our first album [in Australia]."
Hailing from Olympia, Washington, Sleater-Kinney was part of the '90s riot grrrl movement that also included the bands Bikini Kill, Heavens to Betsy and Jack Off Jill.
Tucker said the movement was still relevant 30 years later, but the conversation around women's rights had changed.
Riot grrrl took academic ideas about feminism and put them "into a more everyday vocabulary" through music and zines, she said.
"I thought that was really, really important. There was definitely criticism about lack of diversity within the riot grrrl movement that was right on, and I think today's conversation about women's rights is more diverse and I think that's super important."
Things had changed for women in the United States with the 2022 overturning of Roe v Wade, which had guaranteed the constitutional right to an abortion, Tucker said.
Women "no longer have bodily autonomy in every state in this country", and laws were also being passed that meant transgender people did not have it, she said.
The band's "betrayal and outrage" about the situation came across on Little Rope, especially on songs like 'Untidy Creature'. It was about a personal relationship, but mirrored a broader theme of not feeling in control of your own life, she said.
"The song is about the idea of loss ... but there's broader themes on the album of feeling [that] women are not being listened to, or not being seen, or not being heard."
