Lambrini Girls are ready for a “silly time” next week when they play their first Irish show at Borderline Festival in the Workman’s Club. The noise punk outfit have been making waves over the last year, nabbing support slots with Iggy Pop as they tackle misogyny, transphobia, and racism along the way, taking no shit from anyone at raucous shows.
The group are already been billed as one of the biggest acts set to come out of The Great Escape and SXSW in 2024 while their debut EP You’re Welcome has been on steady rotation across the last year since its release.
Ahead of Lambrini Girls’ debut Irish show at the inaugural Borderline in Workman’s Club, Cathal Ryan caught up with singer and guitarist Phoebe Lunny to chat about punk music, Iggy Pop, and creating safe spaces for artists.
For those who don’t know, who are the Lambrini Girls?
Phoebe: Well, it’s me Phoebe, and I’m the singer, and the guitarist, and then it’s Lilly who’s the bassist.
We tell people our drummer’s Banksy, for the record, because in press shots we just have someone in a balaclava and you can’t prove that’s not Banksy.
Because no one knows what Banksy looks like. And if people are like, No, it’s not, I’m like it is. And then there’s there’s not really much to go from there.
With bands like X-Ray Spex, Bikini Kill, The Slits, and The Raincoats – Queer, female and non-binary punk artists are super integral to the genre, and ethos, why?
Phoebe: The punk scene, the sort of indie DIY scene is still extremely male-dominated, I think it’s very important that we create those spaces for artists who aren’t straight cis males.
But the brunt of it is the only people that will enforce and create those spaces, are women, queer people, non-binary, those are the only people that are going to do that.
So it’s kind of important that we get our foot in the door to kind of open up dialogue and sort of disrupt the sort of culture which is so male-dominated, but it does come down to us, the majority of the time.
It’s really important to do and I think everyone says, “Oh, my God, it’s so important.” The only people who actually are the ones enforcing that are the women and gender queer artists themselves, I’d say.
Lambrini Girls have had Iggy Pop celebrate the group as one of the top punk acts going at the moment, that must be pretty cool.
Phoebe: It was pretty sick. It was so weird how it happened, when we released the first proper single called ‘Help Me I’m Gay’, he just randomly one day played it on Radio 6.
We were like, ‘Oh, shit, that’s mental. Iggy Pop played us! What the fuck?’ And then we were like, ‘Oh, that’s nice’. And then he just kept playing it. And we were like, ‘Okay, cool. Thanks!’
Then we just got randomly an offer to support him, And we were like, ‘Yeah, Okay.’
Then everyone was like, ‘Oh, yeah, Iggy Pop’s favourite band.’ And we were like, ‘We don’t actually know if we’re his favourite band. I’m sure he’s got loads of favourite bands.’
Even since then, he’s been so supportive. We did a track with him where I played the guitar, which was very cool and we’ve kept in touch.
His manager, Henry is an absolutely lovely geezer. He’ll just always be like ‘Iggy heard this and thinks it’s sick.’
We do owe a lot to him. Because we probably wouldn’t have the visibility we did without it. So yeah, legend!
Borderline next week is Lambrini Girls’ first Irish show, who are you buzzing to see at the showcase?
Phoebe: Honestly, I’m so fucking excited. All my family are from Dublin, so I’m really excited to play. Especially playing at the Workman’s Club. It’s like such an iconic venue.
We see them all the time, but Enola Gay are like our besties so we’ll see them again, which I’m very excited about because we always have a really silly time together.
Other bands, I’m really excited to see Spider and I’m really excited to see Maruja because I’ve heard like, fucking nuts things about them.
Lambrini Girls are also tackling transphobia, why is it important that artists speak out as allies?
Phoebe: We played a show, supporting Iggy Pop we had this visualiser in the background saying Trans Lives Matter, and stuff.
The next day when we woke up and looked at Twitter, never even used Twitter before, we just had like an account. And suddenly it was just blowing up. And I was like, ‘What the fuck. Who’s this Graham geezer?’
He was like, at-ing us just saying really horrible transphobic things about trans people. And I was like, ‘What the fuck?’
I just immediately start popping off, like, Who the fuck does this guy think he is? Then I did my research on it.
I guess that was a sort of big introduction to if you do stand up to these issues, there is a significant backlash.
From what we sort of took from that is, because what we didn’t realise is it got in a lot of music press, and it was like Lambrini Girls versus Graham Linehan and it was like, that was kind of the opposite effect of what we wanted, a visualiser at Crystal Palace saying Trans Lives Matter.
We want to bring light to these issues, bring visibility, and open that dialogue, a space for people. But that’s not our space entirely, like me and Lily aren’t trans. We want to be visible allies and bring those conversations into the mainstream, but they can’t revolve around us.
And if they do, then we’re not doing our job properly. We’re just taking away other people’s voices. So it’s a quite fine balancing act when you’re being vocal about these issues to make sure that it isn’t sensationalised.
And you’re just amplifying the voices of people around you that need it. As opposed to actually centering the conversation on yourself.
So that’s been quite a difficult one to navigate just because of the way the press deals with it and stuff is so glamorised, which I really hate. It’s a it’s a fine line.
It’s something we’re really cautious about. You need to be vocal about these issues, but in a way that doesn’t center it around you.
Punk is there to challenge norms and there are a lot of bands stepping up to the plate. What’s driving this punk revival at the moment?
Phoebe: If you look back on sort of the punk from the seventies and stuff, it seems that sort of was more to do with the actual presence of it. It was like a cultural thing. It was a statement. It was about dressing outlandish. Having outlandish abrasive music.
But a lot of it, if you look at like the Sex Pistols and the Buzzcocks. It wasn’t really spurred on by true activism. It was from, my perspective now being a young person looking at it, I think it was more about the statement of the culture itself.
I think now with sort of the punk revival. I think it’s quite disparate, because, you know, you’ve got some bands, who really are spurred in activism, like Pussy Riot, Kneecap, bands like that.
That’s what I personally think punk is. I think you get a lot of wanky post-punk bands from London who call themselves punk bands and it has absolutely nothing to do with punk whatsoever.
I think it is a movement and a revival. But I think within that you’ve got people who are actual punk bands, and you’ve got people who are ultimately just calling themselves punk but haven’t nothing to do with it.
Borderline will take place across two nights at The Workman’s Club in Dublin, on February 15 and 16. You can grab a one-day pass for €20, or get a two-day ticket for €25. For tickets, the lineup and more information head here.
