FEATURE: Spotlight: Lambrini Girls — Music Musings & Such

FEATURE:

Spotlight

Lambrini Girls

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THERE might be a bit of…

confusion and inconsistency, in the sense that Lambrini Girls are a duo, though they are also in publicity photos with a third member, Banksy. Rather than refer to them as a trio, there are going to be photos with Banksy included. The interviews are with Phoebe Lunny and Lilly Macieira. Recent cuts God’s Country and Body of Mine are incredible and stunning examples of the Punk duo’s prowess. Lambrini Girls should be on your radar. Earlier in the year, VOCAL GIRLS spoke with the duo. Following their E.P., You’re Welcome, Lambrini Girls are definitely on a mission. One of the most powerful and important acts in the country:

“Following last year’s debut EP ‘You’re Welcome’, Lambrini Girls are back with riotous new single ‘God’s Country’. To mark its release, VOCAL GIRLS chat to the band about using their platform and responsible activism.

“I don’t think there’s any point in being a punk band and releasing a political song that’s a pile of shit,” Phoebe Lunny, vocalist and guitarist of punk duo Lambrini Girls, says firmly. She’s reflecting on their latest single, ‘God’s Country’, which takes thrashing aim at the pretty bleak state of affairs in the UK right now. “Just saying ‘don’t trust your government, let’s have a fucking beer, waheeeey’ – it trivialises it,” she continues. “I wanted [‘God’s Country’] to actually be attuned to the current political landscape.”

PHOTO CREDIT: Brodie Florence

To date, Lambrini Girls (completed by bassist Lilly Macieira) have followed the same highly-charged and unwavering path, confronting social issues such as lad culture, misogyny, transphobia, and homophobia across last year’s ‘You’re Welcome’ EP. They’re now hunkering down on a farm to write their debut album, where they do at least have the idylls of Oxfordshire countryside – complete, as they cheerfully inform me, with horses, chickens and geese – to offset the doom. ‘God’s Country’ is the first single to bridge the gap between the two projects: twisting hot-headed, flag-wielding patriotism on its head to poke holes in its logic, the song takes “God save the king” as its snarling refrain – an unfortunate coincidence given last week’s announcement of Charles’ cancer diagnosis. “The timing of that!” Phoebe sighs, shaking her head ruefully. “What can you do? That’s out of our control.”

One issue Lambrini Girls have always shouted loud about is the treatment of women and non-binary people, from their avid support of trans rights and ‘FUCK TERFS’ merch to songs like ‘Boys in the Band’, which calls out the toxic culture enabling assault (“Problematic and well connected / But it's still being deflected / Because we separate the art from the artist”). The government’s Misogyny in Music report, published at the end of January, therefore came as little shock to either of them. “People on X [fka Twitter] were [reacting] like–,” Phoebe slaps a hand across her mouth to feign outrage, “–what?!” She sighs, exasperated. “What do you mean ‘what?’! This is our whole fucking lives! This is every non-male person’s career in music. It’s like everyone forgot the #MeToo movement happened, or think it just exclusively applied to the film industry. No!”

“Among women and queer people it’s common knowledge,” Lilly nods. “When I was first getting into music, my mum warned me about the industry and said ‘you never have to do anything you don’t want to do’, blah blah blah. Even she was completely aware of what it’s like.”

An example of social media’s mixed blessings, in the wake of the report, Instagram provided a space for people to share solidarity as well as their own experiences. Phoebe points to a statement posted by Izzy Baxter Phillips, frontperson of Black Honey. “I think what’s beautiful is that the more people who are vocal, the less scary it gets,” Phoebe says. “[Izzy’s] in a relatively big band, so a lot of smaller bands, or a lot of women or queer people, are gonna see that and think ‘it’s safe for me to do that too’. It makes it a lot easier for other people who might be a bit scared to do so – which is slay!”

Among other things, the report aims to limit the use of NDAs and develop a school programme to combat misogyny in boys. The latter point feels most critical for digging out the problem’s cultural root, but that is far easier said than done. “I feel like we’re in this weird sensationalist cycle where this kind of thing comes out and there’s a temporary uproar about it, but no one’s actually learning from it,” Lilly says. “People don’t take responsibility and don’t look at their roles in these things – particularly men, to be honest. The people who are affected by it are lower down in the power dynamic because we’re affected by it; that’s the inherent nature of it.”

“You have to recognise your privilege and use it to open dialogues, which might even get you in a bit of shit,” Phoebe agrees. “Every non-male person is putting their fucking neck on the line – it’s not enough to just see it and be like ‘aw yeah, that’s shit, let me repost that’.”

Challenging “cis geezers” and the generally unconverted to accept their sermon is why festivals and support slots are an important part of the Lambrini Girls agenda. “If you’re preaching to the choir 24/7 you’re enforcing your bubble, but you’re not making it any bigger,” Phoebe says. “In a crowd of 700 people, you might change one person’s mind, or at least make them think; that’s what’s important.” In fact, making people think seems to be the band’s raison d’être. Theirs is not a hollow, controversial-for-the-sake-of-it rehash of punk; nor is it aloof, claiming absolute wisdom from atop the high horse. Instead, Lambrini Girls are navigating both the political and digital landscape with admirable transparency - learning as they go - and making sure to scream their lungs out about any and all prejudice they see along the way”.

In February, DIY chatted with Lambrini Girls. They explained how they wanted to piss people off and make them question themselves. They are releasing such potent music that everyone needs to hear. With stations such as BBC Radio 6 Music shouting about them, this duo are primed for headline stages:

“Lambrini Girls, their vocalist and guitarist Phoebe Lunny explains, has always been “a passion project”. Born from the bones of a different band and a frustration with the Brighton music scene (and beyond), the project started in earnest when Phoebe met bassist Lilly Macieira-Bosgelmez - who’d been given 24 hours to learn the band’s set from scratch - and “something just clicked”.

Both were ambitious, determined to try and make music their career. More importantly, both were angry: about the ubiquity of misogynistic and homophobic ‘lad culture’; about the widespread occurrences of sexual assault at gigs; about the musicians and fans who perpetuate these behaviours. And so they set about addressing all these issues and more via the medium of fiery, three-minute punk scorchers - music that is virtually unignorable, intensely powerful, and utterly memorable.

“Hey mum / Why haven’t I had a boyfriend? / Um, maybe it’s because I’m potentially a lesbian?” Phoebe intones on debut single ‘Help Me I’m Gay’. Live, its performance involves asking the crowd to “put your hand up if you’re gay!” - something which can variously be “a celebration of people’s queerness” if there are lots of hands, or simply a way to show people that they’re not alone. And in encouraging this sort of community in others, the pair have gained confidence in their own identities, too. “I was a little bit more of a late bloomer with my sexuality,” says Lilly. “I started off saying ‘I’m half gay’, because I’m bisexual, and then with time I learned that actually, that’s not being half gay - [bisexuality] counts just as much. There are some parts of the queer community where you can be made to feel a bit invalidated as a bisexual person, so the band really helped me in that sense.”

PHOTO CREDIT: Emma Swann

Elsewhere on Lambrini Girls’ 2023 EP ‘You’re Welcome’, tracks like ‘White Van’, ‘Lads Lads Lads’ and ‘Boys In The Band’ take aim at society’s deeply embedded problems with sexual harassment, with the latter placing the alternative music scene under particular scrutiny. Do they think that any significant progress has been made with tackling abuse culture within the industry? “In Brighton, it seems like people are being a lot more vigilant of it and opening dialogues,” muses Phoebe. “But I think there’s a lot of work to be done in London. It’s not a safe space; there are bands that are actively known to have done very dodgy stuff who still get to play the venues everyone else does.”

The first step towards stamping out these sorts of behaviours, the band believe, is “calling out your mates and believing victims.” Lilly explains that “we’re not trying to peddle a sort of inconsequential cancel culture where you hear something bad about someone then immediately cut them out. If someone is willing to take responsibility or explore the ways in which they might have hurt someone, that’s something really positive to go off.” The same can be said for their attitude towards the social discourse surrounding trans rights; in an era where social media has us primed to think in absolutes, it’s important to give people the grace to get it wrong (misgendering someone, for example) - providing they’re willing to learn.

“There’s ignorance on one hand,” says Phoebe, who is currently sporting a Lambrini Girls cap emblazoned with the words ‘FUCK TERFS’. “Then there’s wilful ignorance. There are people who are being actively hateful and are trying to stop other people just having human rights.” But, as Lilly acknowledges, “fifty years ago we’d be having this conversation about homophobia rather than transphobia. So I’d like to hope that [trans rights] will change with time.”

Phoebe also points out that these conversations shouldn’t centre around the band. Rather, their goal is “to show allyship and use [their] platform to bring these conversations into a slight mainstream” - something they believe is intrinsic to being a punk artist. “If you’re building your platform off politics, you have to put your money where your mouth is. If you’re a political punk band, then you do have a degree of responsibility to use your platform for good”.

Last month, Lambrini Girls were interviewed by Rolling Stone UK at Awake Festival. Among their missions is to make men speak up when they see things that aren’t okay. So much modern music is empty and is all about love stories and personal woes. The music of Lambrini Girls seems much more important. They are tackling themes and asking questions that the biggest artists in the world are not. You almost wish that roles were reversed and Lambrini Girls got to tour the world and have tens of thousands of people watching them:

“The Brighton punk duo address the issue on their song ‘Boys In The Band’, which sees them take aim at musicians who take advantage of their status to commit heinous acts.

“Hide your drink, from the boys in music, Before you pass out in their limousine,” comes their stark warning on the song.

Taking aim at victim-blaming, they add: “It was completely your fault, you can’t prove it was assault. And you shouldn’t have got so drunk at their gig.”

Before performing the track at last weekend’s Wide Awake Festival, the pair also encouraged attendees to call out their friends whenever they are confronted with inappropriate behaviour.

Speaking backstage, vocalist Phoebe Lunny told Rolling Stone UK: “It’s really important to us. We’re both women, so it’s something that we can relate to directly because it’s one in four women.

“Any crowd can relate to what we’re saying because half the crowd has experienced it, it’s something which is happening constantly and it is a massive societal issue that we have. It does really just stem from the fact that people hate confrontation, calling out their friends and actually speaking to their friends about it.

“Especially in music scenes, everyone just wants to be popular. Everyone wants everyone to like them. So when they hear something dodgy, they don’t say anything.”

She went on: “I’ve been that person [who doesn’t anything] myself, I know I have. But it comes from opening a dialogue and educating yourself and learning and also relating to something hat you can’t really relate to yourself sometimes.”

Her bandmate, Lilly Maciera, added: “I think also what we’re trying to do is trying to get men specifically to take accountability and to get more involved in things that they are seeing happening. Because I think the issue applies to all of us. I don’t think it is just men, but because of the power dynamic that exists between men and women, I think generally it shouldn’t be this way, but men hold a lot of power. And I think there’s a difference between women being like, this is fucked up, this is not OK and a man saying that.

“I think the reason for this is because women can relate to experiences as such. And I think men generally can, but not all of them. And it’s less likely for men to be able to relate to these kinds of experiences because I think micro-aggressions are a part of our daily lives. I think they are part of all women’s daily lives, and I don’t think they’re a part of men’s daily lives. So I think it’s all about making men feel aware about their privilege and trying to get them to be able to identify situations that are not OK and trying to encourage men to speak up about things when they see things that are not OK”

Explaining how the song reflects the “social climate we’re in,” Maciera went on to explain how parallels can be made with the importance of speaking out against the ongoing war in Gaza.

“The genocide that’s happening at the moment is the same thing. We’re not directly affected by it, are we? But it’s very important to stand up for it,” she said”.

I really love Lambrini Girls. They are such a vital force for change and conversation. Releasing stunning music that has real depth and bite, you need to get involved and follow them. As they are on the radar of some big music websites and radio stations, you are going to see them climb even higher with each new single. I cannot wait for an album from them. Artists that call out the bad and unlawful, compel change in those not doing enough, and who are also committed and passionate activists is…