COVER STORY | Lambrini Girls Let Loose
The riotous Brighton duo talk about their debut album Who Let the Dogs Out, being inspired by Kim Gordon and eating Tuscan bean soup with Trevor Horn.
Photo by Jessie Morgan
The crowd at Iceland Airwaves could barely catch their breath during Lambrini Girls’ head-spinning, pulse-racing, beer-drenched set. Lead singer and guitarist Phoebe Lunny led us in a series of chants: “Free Palestine,” “ACAB,” and, slightly less politically, “Craig David” (singer of the Y2K hit “7 Days”). One moment, she and bassist Lilly Maceira would be on their knees, playing to each other, and the next, Lunny would be crowd surfing or parting the audience à la Moses and the Red Sea. I grinned during the entire set until my cheeks hurt. Punk rock’s not dead, and this duo are living proof.
Lunny and Maceira first met in the Brighton music scene, initially playing together as part of a group called Wife Swap USA, which Lunny lovingly describes as a “six-piece, three-chord punk band.” Maceira, who was more of a singer and piano player to begin with, sort of fell into playing bass. She was working at Fender at the time and wanted to join in with her co-workers who’d noodle around when things were quiet. Maceira borrowed a bass from work, “and then lockdown hit, so we never actually went back into the office, which meant that I had a bass at home, and there was not much else to do,” she tells me.
She also found herself inspired by Sonic Youth bassist Kim Gordon’s memoir Girl in a Band. “I was reading it around the same time that I was actually learning bass, and so that really influenced the way I think about playing bass, because I don’t really know how to play bass in a traditional sense. So like, if someone were to tell me to play a note on it, I would have to sit there and figure it out for a second. I really like that approach of, it doesn’t matter how you get there, the only thing that matters is what comes out of the speakers,” Maceira says.
While their time in Wife Swap USA “was very fun, Lambrini Girls started doing a bit better,” Lunny explains. “And there were multiple lineup changes, but basically we needed a new bassist, and asked Lilly, because we very much had the same work ethic as each other, and just got to be best pals.” When I ask what that work ethic is, she’s as refreshingly blunt as the pair’s songs: “Get the fucking job done.”
Lambrini Girls’ music is just as zig-zaggingly heady as their live shows. It’s both full-throated fun and blood-soaked catharsis. Or, as Lunny puts it, “Every song sounds like the first time you fell off your bike as a child.” And she’s dead right: From her buzzing guitar and vigorously shouted vocals, to Maceira’s effects-laden bass, to the chest-rattling drums, their music is laced with an exhilaration that borders on terror. By the time a song’s finished, you feel a slight sting. Whether you’re singing along about sexist co-workers (“Company Culture”) or glorifying in all things cunt-y (“Cuntology 101”), you’re left with adrenaline pumping, blood coursing through your veins, and you’re ready to get back up and do it all over again.
The band signed to City Slang—home of HEALTH, Sprints, Jessica Pratt and more—after the label saw their show at London’s Moth Club, during which Lambrini Girls started a small electrical fire. “Like attracts like,” Lunny explains. “We’re crazy bastards, they’re crazy bastards, so they were like, ‘Signed!’”
Lambrini Girls’ debut album, released on January 10 via City Slang, was written on an Oxford farm over a week in February and another in April. Fueled by cigarettes and booze—including the pear cider they’re named after—and under the pressure of an impending deadline, they wrote the songs that later became Who Let the Dogs Out.
“A lot of it was just kind of shitting it out in the moment, out of pure panic,” Lunny recalls. “But we did it, and it was good. We work well under pressure, and I think sometimes—”
“We only work under pressure,” Maceira interjects (and as a perennial procrastinator, I can relate).
“Yeah, we don’t really work unless we have to. But I think when you’re out of your comfort zone is when you write the best stuff as well. So I’m really proud of what we did,” Lunny concludes.
Most of Who Let the Dogs Out was conceived of in the first stint in Oxford, but actually written in the second—and the songs transformed massively in that time, partly due to the fact that they were working with different drummers during each writing session. Recorded at Echo Zoo Studios in Eastbourne with Gilla Band’s Daniel Fox (known for his work with Silverbacks and Sprints) and mixing by Seth Manchester (Battles, Model/Actriz), the album itself features Ditz’s Jack Looker on drums. With their headbang-worthy, dynamic arrangements, Looker’s band provided a sonic touchstone for Lambrini Girls, as did Gilla Band’s effects-heavy barrage of noise.
Maceira cites Brighton DIY group CLT DRP (pronounced “clit drip”) as an inspiration for the sound of opener “Bad Apple,” specifically their use of a ring modulator. “Bad Apple” pokes fun at the notion of the police’s wrongdoing only being the product of a few misbehaving actors. How can there only be a few bad apples in an institution that—in the U.S., at least—is historically rooted in slave patrols, seems intent on suppressing free speech and consistently amplifies systemic violence? The track starts off with a siren that’s then echoed by blaring guitar—an alarm warning us about impending danger from these so-called keepers of the peace. (As a quick aside: Like many of us, Lunny doesn’t like answering calls from unknown contacts—but in particular because she’s afraid it might be the police. Thankfully, though, she picked up the phone last year and it turned out to be Iggy Pop’s manager, and as a result she went to Trevor Horn’s house and played guitar on “Personal Jesus.” The lesson? Pick up unknown calls sometimes, so then you can eat Tuscan bean soup with Trevor Horn.) One of the song’s best elements is the thrumming, roiling mass of sound that immediately follows Lunny’s sarcastic, “Officer, what seems to be the problem?” We know the answer to her question: It’s the officers themselves.
Lunny’s guitar seems to climb higher and higher on “Company Culture,” ratcheting up the tension on a track all about leering managers and condescending colleagues. Maceira’s bass growls throughout, punctuated by pummeling bursts of drums. The high, stormy distortion after Lunny declares, “Michael, I don’t want to suck you off on my lunch break,” sets our nerves alright, reminding us of just how exhausting and anxiety-inducing life is in a sexist workplace. And yet, at the same time, Lambrini Girls’ dark humor helps us get through it: “Blondes have more fun / In company culture.”
It’s apparent on all the songs on Who Let the Dogs Out, but “Big Dick Energy” in particular showcases just how impressive Lunny’s vocal performance is. Between her sing-shouting and motormouth delivery, her vocal stamina is mind-boggling. I’m always wondering if she’ll run out of breath, so I ask if there’s a trick to it. Her response is shrugging: “Not really. I know to shout through your diaphragm, and I figured that out because I Googled how to do it, so I watched it on YouTube.” She says a friend in Los Angeles asking her the same question, and easily slips into an American accent as she recounts, “‘How do you, like, scream like that? Like, it’s just amazing. What are your techniques? What’s your warm up?’ And I was like, ‘I’m just shouting as loud as I can.’” “Big Dick Energy,” a frenetic indictment of bro culture and toxic masculinity, kicks off with a punchy back-and-forth between Maceira’s muscular bass and Lunny’s quicksilver guitar. The very end of the song, when you’re about ready for things to wind down, provides one of the album’s best bait-and-switch moments as Lambrini Girls double down on the feminist rage to see us out.
Maceira considers “No Homo” one of her favorite songs on the album because it’s “fucking sick, it’s also a bit of fun and it’s ridiculous.” Chugging bass and drums back Lunny on the verses as she tells us about her crush in some of the Lambrini Girls’ most romantic, flowery lyrics to date: “Dressed like a daydream / I’ll get down on one knee / Ethereal reflection / The sun rises just for her.” But don’t worry about it veering into cheesy territory—Lambrini Girls would never let that happen. “I like your face but not in a gay way,” Maceira and Lunny sing together, ever-so-slightly reminiscent of The Waitresses, before the latter reminds us: “No homo!” And, for the record, Lunny absolutely shreds on the bridge here.
Lambrini Girls lampoon Kate Moss’ famous motto (“Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels”—which she popularized but didn’t originate) and dig into the horrific realities of eating disorders on “Nothing Tastes As Good As It Feels.” Over aggressive, angular guitar, Lunny shouts the song’s title before detailing how trying to live up to patriarchal norms ends up destroying your body: “Standing in the doctor’s room / And he’s telling me I’m wasting away / You see that my skin’s pretty dry, hair thinning out the sides / And my bones are getting ready to break.” Lunny shares this all with her signature vim and vigor, but by the end, words fail her and she just screams until her voice peters out. I’ve struggled with disordered eating in the past, but find it difficult to talk about; it’s serious and emotional and everyone comes in with their own baggage. There’s something so appealing, then, about the irreverence and lack of fucks given as Lunny not-so-jokingly adds at the end, “Kate Moss ruined my life.”
“You’re Not From Around Here” delves into gentrification—not of any particular place, but as a general societal scourage. “I wanted to play on the concept, sort of like flip the idea of what it means when you hear the phrase, ‘You’re not from around here,’” Lunny says. Instead of that sentence being hurled at immigrants or people in desperate situations, Lambrini Girls aim it at those who actually ruin communities: “the rich, upper class, our government.” Lunny’s explanation of gentrification on the bridge seethes with venom as guitar buzzes through.
The entire album can be described as noisy, but Lambrini Girls’ infectious clamor reaches its heights on “Filthy Rich Nepo Baby.” The vignettes here are funny, but also depressingly real, like the son of a label exec pretending he’s poor in order to get some rock n’ roll cred. I ask them about their favorite and least favorite nepo babies in real life: Lunny favors Rashida Jones and Maceira likes Sabrina Carpenter (her aunt is Nancy Cartwright), and they both detest Matty Healy of the 1975 (“He’s disgusting, like, actually revolting. He makes my skin crawl away from itself,” Maceira says).
Both Lunny and Maceira deem “Special Different” one of their favorite tracks on Who Let the Dogs Out, with the former explaining that “a lot of the time what we do is point the finger at other things, and we’re being very observant. So it was nice to point the finger at myself.” Lunny sings about being neurodiverse on “Special Different”—which wasn’t a topic she was always comfortable talking about. “I found that very cathartic,” she says of the song. “And it was nice to sort of package something in a way which felt very true to me.” The song grows quieter on the bridge, still humming with an underlying unease, as Lunny wonders, “Why can’t I just fit in / Why can’t I just sit still?”
Fuzzy, effects-soaked guitars and robust drums overwhelm on “Love.” Maceira’s bass is a harbinger of doom, and you can hear Lambrini Girls’ full noise rock potential here. The sheer wave of sound bowls you over on what is also one of the most vulnerable tracks of Who Let the Dogs Out; Lunny declares that “True love is nothing more / Then the wrong hill to die on.” Everything falls away for dreamy, lo-fi guitar and soft, buoyant percussion on the bridge. Lunny’s voice echoes, full of regret as she admits: “I’m so sorry / For you letting you down.” It’s a tender moment on what’s otherwise a party of an album brimming with bravado.
And because this is Who Let the Dogs Out, Lambrini Girls see us off with the short and sweet banger that is “Cuntology 101.” They lay out the syllabus for this course, backed by buzzing synth: “Having cum on my shirt is cunty / Setting boundaries is cunty / Respecting others is cunty too.” Maceira recalls, “We were all just in a room together, kind of pissing around, and then by the end of the day, we had the slam hit ‘Cuntology 101.’” From their sing-song spelling, to the call-and-response second verse, to the Super Marios-esque synth ditty on the chorus, this is a pure joy to behold.
Writing that Lambrini Girls are the type of band we need right now feels like putting a lot of unasked responsibility on them. They’re just speaking out about what’s going on in their lives and the world at large: feminism, police violence, gentrification, general cuntiness. However, I will say that at this moment, Lambrini Girls are exactly the people we need to listen to and be inspired by. We’ve got a rapist in the Oval Office. We’ve got a genocide ongoing, in spite of a ceasefire. We need some raw rage right now, otherwise we risk becoming numb and apathetic. Lambrini Girls will make you feel. Lambrini Girls will keep you moving in spite of all the bullshit, and you’ll have a hell of a good time along the way, too.
Clare Martin is a cemetery enthusiast and Paste’s associate music editor.