Skip to content
News

Sleater-Kinney Tease New Tracks During NPR Interview

Sleater-kinney, npr

In a new interview with NPR — the first they’ve done as a band since the release of their single, “Bury Our Friends” — Sleater-Kinney previewed some new tracks off of their upcoming album, No Cities To Love. Carrie Brownstein, Corin Tucker, and Janet Weiss also took some time to discuss how the band’s reunion (after a ten-year absence from recording) came about in the first place:

CORIN TUCKER: Actually, Carrie was at my house. We were hanging out, and I think we were watching Portlandia episodes that they were working on. And Fred [Armisen] was there, too. We were talking about playing music … and I said, …’I wonder if we’re ever gonna do a Sleater-Kinney show again.’

CARRIE BROWNSTEIN: I think we had two people in the room who are known fans of the band. One is Corin’s husband, Lance Bangs, and the other is Fred Armisen, who was a fan of the band long before he and I worked together… they were very encouraging, and I think just wouldn’t let that conversation die…It was something that began percolating then. We talked to Janet and, you know, the conversation started.

Brownstein also commented on the state of pop music, and how it continues to inspire her in certain ways:

I do think that I like pop music, and I think a lot about melody — but that doesn’t even mean Top 40 music, necessarily, it’s just, in the years of listening to music, and what I’ve decided to discard, and literally throw out, it tends to be music that just doesn’t have good songwriting, or good melody. Like, that’s just what I come back to over and over again: a great chorus, or a great hook. It doesn’t have to be saccharine, it doesn’t have to be cheap.

Stream the entire interview, including those new Sleater-Kinney snippets, here. (Note: “Surface Envy,” comes at 19:19; and the final one, “No Cities To Love,” pops up at 32:39). Look for the album on January 20.