The Center
CARRIE
BROWNSTEIN
TALKS PROTECTING
HER PRIVATE LIFE,
INTERSECTIONAL
FEMINISM AND
SLEATER-KINNEY’S
COMPELLING NEW
ALBUM
WORDS ROXY BOURDILLON“I’m not interested in performing
relationships for the public,” Carrie
Brownstein tells me over a cappuc-
cino in a London hotel.
Despite this, the press remains
extremely interested in speculating
about Carrie’s dating life. Twenty-five
years after being thrust into the lime-
light as part of legendary punk band
Sleater-Kinney, and eight years since
earning A-list status co-creating and
co-starring in Emmy-winning sketch
show Portlandia, she’s racked up an
impressive roster of alleged romantic
partners: Orange Is The New Black’s
Taylor Schilling, Broad City’s Abbi
Jacobson, St Vincent aka Annie Clark
(who, incidentally, produced Sleater-
Kinney’s most recent album, but more
on that later).
I wonder, how does it feel to be so
regularly subjected to the rumour-
mill? “I don’t bemoan or begrudge it,
but I try not to play into it,” she replies
level-headedly, taking a sip. “There’s
a lot of people who really like to
have a relationship on a social media
stage. It just feels like, ‘Wait. Why are
you guys talking to each other on
Twitter? Aren’t you right next to each
other?’ There’s a pageantry to it that I
find strange.”
One reason Carrie’s particularly
protective of her own personal life
is that at the very beginning of her
career, the choice of what she did and
didn’t share publicly was snatched
away from her, when a past relation-
ship with bandmate Corin Tucker was
exposed in SPIN magazine. “It was
hurtful. We each want to control our
own narrative.” Neither Carrie nor
Corin had a chance to speak to their
parents before the story broke. “I was
barely over 20. I was still searching
and didn’t quite have the words for
what my heart wanted and how I
wanted to be seen in the world. It was
a difficult time. I think it instilled in
me a defensiveness. I also just think
there are things worth protecting in
an era where people feel very entitled
to know everything. It’s ok to have
things that are just for you.”
Carrie is incisive and forthright,
whether expressing her opinions
about social media PDA or singing on
Sleater-Kinney’s brilliantly urgent new
album, The Center Won’t Hold. After
over a decade-long slog of writing,
recording and touring, followed by a
much-needed eight-year hiatus, theband burst back into life in 2015 with
the acclaimed No Cities To Love. Their
latest offering is, as you’d expect from
a group famously influenced by the
riot grrrl scene, furiously feminist. In
a world telling women to take up less
space, Sleater-Kinney have produced
their most epic, expansive-sounding
record yet. It’s a rare joy to behold
40-something women unapologeti-
cally refusing to conform to societal
expectations or rein in their rage.
They’re still as scrappy, potent and
pissed off as ever, only now their
razor-sharp lyrics and gut-punchingly
raw emotions are accompanied by
more synths and special effects.
There’s a line in Love, a nostalgic
mini-herstory of band life, in whichCarrie sums up the album’s central
thesis: “There’s nothing more fright-
ening and nothing more obscene
than a well-worn body demanding to
be seen.”
Carrie’s full of praise for St Vin-
cent’s input. “Annie is fearless. She
wanted to illicit from us the most
personal, honest version of the band
and each song, really just searching
for... a feeling.” One of the most effec-
tive moments is the closing number,
heartfelt piano ballad Broken, which
was inspired by #MeToo. The lyrics in-
voke Christine Blasey Ford, the profes-
sor who spoke out against Associate
Justice of the Supreme Court Brett Ka-
vanaugh: “She, she, she stood up for
us when she testified. Me, me too, my54 SEPTEMBER 2019
PHOTO^ NIKKO^ LAMERE