Why Kathleen Hanna never respected Steve Albini: “Threw the tape out”
Not only is Kathleen Hanna one of the most influential artists of all time, but, perhaps more importantly, her work has always commanded respect. For that reason, it’s important to pay attention when she casts doubt on someone’s moral character.
The feminist icon is best known for spearheading the riot grrrl movement during the 1990s. More than just music, it changed its landscape and gender dynamics forever. In hindsight, her legacy and the stories behind it almost seem cinematic, but a closer look reveals some pretty disturbing details. After all, it isn’t all that surprising that a cultural resistance against male-dominated spaces resulted in some pretty dark moments.
In 2024, the veteran singer published a deeply personal and self-aware memoir titled ‘Rebel Girl’. The book explores Hanna’s journey as an artist and musician who had to claw her way past the inescapable misogyny of the creative circuit she operated within and beyond, which inevitably brought to light some ugly truths about the industry’s most beloved figures. One such name to pop up in the text was late musician and audio engineer Steve Albini, who is famous for working on classic 90s albums such as ‘In Utero’ by Nirvana, ‘Surfer Rosa’ by Pixies and more. While he is revered in the business as someone who helped define an entire era, Hanna’s memory of him isn’t all that sparkly.
Before she formed Bikini Kill and took the United States’ underground scene by storm, the punk veteran was in a band called Viva Knievel. Unknown for the most part, the group hit the road back in 1990 in the hope of spreading their music and turning heads. As they drove from city to city in a van and handled pretty much all the challenges of touring by themselves, the stumbled upon the opportunity to record with Albini while passing through Illinois. Whereas Hanna wasn’t too familiar with his work, it was her bandmate Zeb Olsen’s dream to work with the indie producer.
As someone with minimal recording experience at the time, Hanna wasn’t happy to see Albini ‘snickering’ at her during their sessions together. Her scepticism was further validated when she went into his mixing booth. There, she noticed a big sticker on one of his speakers that read ‘RAPEMAN’. When she asked him what it meant, he told her it was a band he was in that was named after a rapist superhero.
Naturally, Albini reducing sexual assault to a joke left a foul taste in her mouth. Referring to the tape Viva Knievel recorded with him as a ‘shitty mix’, Hanna revealed that she “threw the tape out of [her] apartment window” just days later.
Interestingly, Albini passed away from a heart attack soon after the ‘Rebel Girl’ manuscript was finalised and before it was published. Still, the author would’ve most likely retained the bit about him in her book even if she had the opportunity to remove it. In an interview with Spin, she made it clear that she holds no ill will toward the famed engineer and even acknowledged that he probably changed his outlook over time. In fact, she even praised him for writing a ‘canonical’ and ‘well-written’ article about independent versus major labels. At the same time, she stood by the disgust she felt based on their meeting more than 30 years ago.
Regarding the shameless confidence with which he stood by Rapeman, Hanna said, “Somebody thinking that was okay was horrifying to me. And that experience was a typical experience being in the punk scene in the ‘90s. It can still be a typical experience for a lot of people today.”
