As their exuberant debut Who Let The Dogs Out arrives this week, Brighton punks Lambrini Girls dive into the message behind the mayhem, why they want to drop the riot grrrl label, and how they’re navigating the demands of punk rock’s next big thing…
“Blind delusional ambition” was the secret to Lambrini Girls getting their band off the ground. As good a tactic as any, but they certainly wouldn't have been catapulted quite this far if it wasn't for the passion and persistence that underlies everything they do and stand for.
The Brighton-based duo, Phoebe Lunny and Lilly Macieira, have been running rings around the UK punk scene over the past three years. They’ve played countless riotous shows and fests, most recently bringing the chaos to Alexandra Palace supporting IDLES. They put out the blazing EP You’re Welcome in 2023, and managed to record a debut album, Who Let The Dogs Out, amongst the seemingly non-stop demands of their diary.
They essentially haven’t stopped working since they played their first chord four years ago. So much so, that as the pair chat with K! on a drab wintry Tuesday from under the thick clouds of their home city, they are, understandably, completely knackered.
“I like being at home more than anything,” confesses Lilly, before clarifying. “Well, it depends. I’m definitely introverted and I struggle in crowds and being social, so whenever I’m at home I’m making the most of it. Just fucking getting some nice candles on, a face mask, reading my book. Not very rock’n’roll (laughs).”
A far cry from her firecracker stage presence, Lilly is soaking in some quiet(ish) time ahead of more press engagements. Where she is a natural homebody, Phoebe revels in being around others, which is just one way the pair balance each other out. The yin to each other's yang.
When playing gigs though, they’re both as bonkers. “If I didn’t have the time on stage to go a bit crazy and to do copious shots of tequila, then I’d be a lot less satisfied with my life. I’m glad I can do both,” Lilly confirms.
Though they both wish they could get a bit more sleep, the Lambrinis are feeling pretty good about the sheer madness of their lives before the album’s even dropped. Looking back to their early gigs, did they ever picture themselves here, ready to release one of the most-anticipated punk records of the year?
“I remember [the first time] I was like, ‘Holy fuck, we actually can do this,’ was the first time we played in Europe and it was maybe two years ago when we did Left Of The Dial,” shares Phoebe. “We played this room called WORM, which was split in two. One side of the room was probably, like, 500 capacity, the other side was maybe another 150. I was like, ‘Should I set up on this side, the 150 side?’ and the venue manager was like, ‘No, you’re on the other side!’ I couldn’t fucking believe it,” she recalls.
In fact, the room got so packed that eventually they opened up both halves.
“I remember just having my tiny little mind blown that there were so many people and we weren’t even in the UK,” she adds. “But don’t get us wrong, we have played some gigs to absolutely fucking nobody.”
Ah, the old rite of passage for any band – playing for a crowd that consists of your best mate, your mum, and the same three regulars in some dusty bar where the walls feel suspiciously sticky. But hey, it’s character building.
“I think it can happen to anyone at any time,” says Lilly. Nobody is immune to a gig that bombs. “I do enjoy those shows once in a while. As long as they're not too frequent, I welcome them.”
On the flip-side, alongside those massive IDLES shows, the pair ventured to the USA and Canada during the summer for some headline gigs with support from the likes of Edging, Blossom Park, and Ekko Astral too. A number of dates also saw them open for Amyl And The Sniffers.
“It was amazing, and because of the sort of bands we were playing with, we were attracting a crowd of people who genuinely appreciated the music,” begins Phoebe. “The one thing that I do say – because it’s true and fucking funny – is going over [to America], I really underestimated how deep nationalism runs in that country.
“You can have people who share left-wing and liberal values, but they don’t want their country insulted, which I think is a big difference between the left-wing in England and left-wing in America. So when you go on the stage and you make the crowd scream, ‘Fuck the Constitution!’ you’re going to be met with a bit of blowback…”
Who Let The Dogs Out stands as the loudest, boldest introduction to Lambrini Girls on both sides of the Atlantic and beyond. Finally with a full body of songs to delve into, we can surrender ourselves to their Technicolor chaos for that little bit longer. Just as the record's confetti-covered, pool party artwork suggests, it’s as daft as it is ferocious.
Big Dick Energy challenges the ‘white knight’ mentality and performative activism, while closer C**tology 101 delivers affirmational lyrics assuring us that getting shagged behind some bins, going to therapy, or even simply doing a poo at your mates’ gaff is indeed, “c**ty”, all over an abrasive synthcore.
Elsewhere, they unpack nepotism (Filthy Rich Nepo Baby) and gentrification (You’re Not From Around Here), and even the complexity of exploring queer identity on No Homo.
“It’s basically revolving around not knowing if another person is queer, and liking them and not really knowing how to navigate it," offers Phoebe. "Like, are they just really friendly? Not wanting to cross boundaries, it’s very important, but feeling gross and embarrassed I do think stems from internalised homophobia and shame.
“It’s really hard to feel confident in your queerness at first. I’m very happy that I’m gay, I wouldn’t change it for the world. I’m very confident and assured with that, but not all the time,” she adds. “It’s really hard to be when you grow up being told that being queer is wrong. Of course you’re going to feel those things internally when you’re navigating really small things like, should I ask someone out on a date? It becomes a whole fucking thing instead of just being like, ‘Do you want to go for a drink?’ The song is about that, but it’s mainly just fun and a laugh.”
"It’s really hard to be confident when you grow up being told that being queer is wrong"
Homophobic attitudes were pretty rife in the era Lambrini Girls grew up in. The 2000s may be looked back on through a rose-tinted lens of Motorola flip-phones, baggy jorts, and the golden era of emo, but the only household name gay rights hope? Hillary Duff in that one ‘Think Before You Speak’ TV campaign.
Internalised misogyny also pressured a generation of young girls into thinking they shouldn’t be like other women, and it was near impossible to escape harmful narratives of fat shaming and diet culture throughout the media.
In what is possibly the most personal song on the record, Nothing Tastes As Good As It Feels dives into how this dangerous fascination with body shape tragically affected many young minds.
“I think most young women have been conditioned their entire life to have your total sort of idea of what’s healthy and beautiful be totally distorted,” Phoebe explains. “I think it’s also very hard to know when you’re actually struggling as well, because you’re ultimately praised and encouraged to do it more. I thought if you can hear someone singing about it albeit quite graphically, it might help you feel a little bit less alone. Maybe it [will] encourage people to feel like it’s okay to talk about a bit more. It’s very lonely, extremely lonely. People suffer and don’t reach out.”
Who Let The Dogs Out is a huge stride forwards from You’re Welcome, and an album the pair hope spotlights their instrumental work just as much as the messaging within it. Not only does it unpick a litany of issues close to Lambrini Girls, but it shatters any assumptions made about their artistry as a punk band.
Phoebe and Lilly deserve their flowers as guitarists, and their ear for crafting and producing songs is far more tangible through experimental instrumentals, deft finger-plucked motifs, and dynamics that chop and change to support the narratives they lie beneath.
“I personally want people to listen to our actual music a little bit more,” shares Lilly. “We get labelled a three-chord punk band a lot, and that irks me a little bit because I don’t think we are. I’m hoping people get more involved in the music and the songwriting. Obviously, we’re a really outspoken political band and that’s kind of at the core of our identity, but I think sometimes people forget that we’re, first and foremost, musicians.
“I think another layer to it is that we’re also two very femme-presenting people, so naturally when people make comparisons about our band, we get compared to other political bands that sound absolutely nothing like us, rather than being compared to bands that we actually sound like. I find that a little bit frustrating sometimes.”
"Just let queer people and women make music and stop differentiating it from men making music"
Since their inception, Lambrini Girls have often been touted as a riot grrrl band, taking inspiration from the era born in the '90s, and trailblazed by bands like Bikini Kill and Huggy Bear. In its time, the movement was instrumental in creating space for women in music.
Now in the 2020s, as our musical landscape is growing richer with brilliant and diverse bands, highlighting the presence of women can sometimes feel tokenistic. Bringing their gender into the conversation, Lambrini Girls feel, is counterproductive to equal representation and opportunity.
“Getting called a riot grrrl band is very much not a sign of the times anymore,” says Lilly. “We’re not a riot grrrl band, we sound nothing like the riot grrrl movement. The movement was very political so I see why people would draw parallels, but at the end of the day it does feel like we only get called riot grrrl because we’re women. I think it’s time for the genre of ‘women in music’ to be put to bed and to just let queer people and women make music and stop differentiating it from men making music.
'Female-fronted', 'female guitarist' – these are the prefixes that make the pair groan and share an eye roll.
“I’d love it if people stopped doing that and maybe compared us on the basis of what we actually sound like rather than the fact that we’re women playing alternative music.”
As our interview progresses, it slowly shape-shifts into a weird form of group therapy. Going in, we were prepared to chat all kinds of nonsense about the sense of party that is bottled inside Who Let The Dogs Out, but beneath the noisy aesthetic is two human beings.
To assume they’re always “on” in this manner would be foolish. The more we delve into the thoughts and feelings of Lambrini Girls as people behind the music, and not the music itself, a calmer energy lends itself to us, where eyes can become a little teary and a sense of compassion can be shared among the two friends.
Lambrini Girls is their greatest escapade, and one of euphoria, triumph, and chaos. Our biggest achievements are often the result of upheaval and 'the grind', but with musicianship the struggle can feel never-ending, even when you’re smashing the festival circuit or earning loads of streams.
Conversations surrounding the constant pressures put on an artist opened up on a much wider scale in 2024. In the pop world, Chappell Roan was both praised and criticised for setting her own boundaries around self care and safety as an artist. Lambrini Girls feel it’s also important that we talk about these things, and there should be no shame attached to the discussion.
“It gets really fucking hard and sometimes you’re like, ‘Am I going to have a mental breakdown? Am I already having a mental breakdown? I don’t know!’” Phoebe questions. “For me personally, the thing that keeps me going is a deep need to want to do it, and also, what am I going to fucking do? Go back and push buttons in an office? Fuck that!”
“I think it’s been really strange making the crossover from DIY to having a label. I mean, we had a label before [Big Scary Monsters], but I feel like this is kind of a different calibre now with City Slang. They’re amazing, but you do notice the difference in schedule,” says Lilly.
“You don’t see your friends, you miss all of your friends’ birthdays, you miss your partner’s birthday. You don’t see your family because you don’t have time to visit them, you don’t do any of your hobbies. That can be really difficult, but what keeps me going is that being this busy right now is a good thing, because it means people want to listen and push our music out there. That means that I’ll be able to do this for longer. I like to think it’s going to vary and dip in intensity, and the fact that we’re this flat out just before our debut album drops bodes quite well. That’s getting me through the breakdowns at the moment (laughs). We’re setting ourselves up for sailing in the future.”
Making music – be it solo or in a band – will always be one of the coolest things about human beings. It brings connection in a way that no other art form really can. Be it in that dingy bar to a mighty crowd of five or on stage in front of thousands, music is a beautiful thing. And Lambrini Girls’ willingness to be open about their challenges by no means equates to a lack of gratitude. They are living inside achieved ambitions.
“If you would [have talked to] me three years ago when I worked at a music shop and said, 'This is what you're going to be doing in three years,' I’d shit my pants,” adds Phoebe. “I’d be bouncing off the walls, all my dreams came true! But what is weird is the more this is your routine and entire lifestyle, it totally engrosses you so you don’t have room for reflection. This just becomes your new normal. You don’t really get a moment to be like, ‘Wow, you’ve done all of this. This is amazing,’ because you keep on fucking going.
“It’s very easy to see it from the outside in, but to look from the inside out it’s totally different. The 10 percent people see [is us] playing amazing gigs or doing cool interviews, being on the cover of magazines, but the 90 per cent of it is being in hotel rooms and in the back of a splitter [van] in the middle of nowhere.”
Lilly likens their careers to an iceberg. What we see is just the tip, with so much more beneath the surface that goes into playing a show or making an album. The beautiful thing about the hardships they’ve endured is the way they’ve made them realise their own strengths. So, what has being in Lambrini Girls made them realise about themselves as humans, and not as activists or artists?
“I think before I was always kind of exhausted but didn’t really know why. I was trying to push myself to go outside and socialise more and more. Being in Lambrini Girls, I realised how difficult that actually is for me,” Lilly admits. “It’s taught me to make more space for myself when I need downtime. It’s definitely also taught me the importance of boundaries, and I am getting to know myself more through being in this band, just figuring out what my limits are and what my strengths are. I didn’t know that I was quite a logistically apt person.”
“What I’ve definitely noticed about myself is how much I want to connect with people," Phoebe adds. "I think I’ve always been like that, but not really known how much I literally need that… In a society that very much teaches you that you don’t need it and to be as individualistic as possible, I think you only sort of realise how important [connection] is once you’re in a position where it’s not as accessible as it would be. That’s something I’ve learned about myself, for sure.”
A band like Lambrini Girls doesn't come along very often. From their humble DIY days to a year ahead where the pair are so busy they’ll barely be at home, their authenticity and resilience has never wavered. Diamonds can’t form without pressure, and it’s the graft that’s made them so tough.
Blind delusional ambition? Sure, it may have helped with morale. But the real key to the success story of Lambrini Girls? Sacrifice, skill, and a pinch of absurdity.
Who Let The Dogs Out is released January 10 via City Slang – pre-order or pre-save now.
Listen to Lambrini Girls on the Kerrang! In Conversation podcast.
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