Lambrini Girls talk politics, punk, and debut album 'Who Let The Dogs Out' for DIY's Class of 2025 • Cover Feature • DIY Magazine

Content warning: the following interview contains material relating to eating disorders.

It’s the 6th of November, a few hours since America has decided to vote a convicted sex offender into the most powerful position of office in the world, and Lambrini Girls aren’t surprised. “If I was in an American’s position and I had to vote for a psychopath convicted felon who’s a rapist; who’s also extremely pro-genocide, who’s racist, homophobic, a misogynist who wants to erase trans people, then of course you’re going to do anything you can not to get that person in,” says vocalist and guitarist Phoebe Lunny. “But then to vote for someone who is representing the Left but your beliefs and values don’t correlate, that does [just] feel like the lesser of two evils.” “You can see the rise of the Far Right all over the world, in the Netherlands, in Germany; with our government, the Conservatives have been going further Right,” nods bassist Lilly Macieira. “It’s fucking devasting to wake up to this result but I was anticipating it; there’s such a rise in hatred throughout the world that it doesn’t shock me. The future is looking really bleak.”

The world that Lambrini Girls are casting their incendiary gaze on might be feeling bleaker by the day, but in the four years since they formed, the Brighton-based duo have set about using their punk-shaped musical bombs as a force for good. Visceral, funny and no nonsense, but also fuelled by empathy and with the emotional and political intelligence to back it up, Lambrini Girls aren’t just another band of sloganeering young upstarts: they’re the real deal at a time when we need it the most.

Sitting down with the pair over pints and cigs, a chat with Lambrini Girls involves buckling up and strapping in. If the tracklist of January’s forthcoming debut LP ‘Who Let The Dogs Out’ reads like a firing line of society’s ills, from the police brutality of ‘Bad Apple’ through the workplace harassment of ‘Company Culture’ to the gentrification of ‘You’re Not From Round Here’, then in conversation the two friends are just as revved up. Over two hours, they aim their crosshairs at TERF Twitter ringleader Graham Linehan (“a fucking horrible man”), Matty Healy (“a prick”) and the financial elitism of the London music scene (“it makes me angry and it makes me sad”). They’re rightfully frustrated but they’re also determined to do their part in calling for change.

“When I started [doing music] it was very much just like, ‘I want to be in a cool band’. But then from 16 onwards I got really invested in politics and it then became apparent that maybe I could marry the two together,” says Phoebe. “You can really get people’s attention through art. It’s about expression and showing your frustration but it’s also such a good tool to make people turn their heads. If you’ve got a message then it’s the perfect accessible medium for it, and then if you can do well enough, you can get in front of audiences that weren’t designed for you and ruffle some feathers and I think they’re invaluable spaces to be in. The majority of people might be pissed off, but maybe it’ll make one person question it.” Lilly picks up: “Our ethos is that we want to be in places where people don’t agree with us. We’ve said it from the get-go - we don’t want to be screaming into an echo chamber; we want to use our platform to change minds.”

“ “We want to be in places where people don’t agree with us; we don’t want to be screaming into an echo chamber.” — Lilly Macieira

Entering the breach of these conversations hasn’t been without its challenges for the duo. At a Hamburg headline date, they were met with an aggressively negative reaction to their chants of “Viva Palestina”. “A quarter of the crowd joined in and the rest of the crowd kicked off at us,” recalls Phoebe. “There was real anger so our instant panic reaction was to meet that with anger. We said, ‘If you are not pro-Palestinian this show is not for you so get the fuck out’, and the room ended up going from 200 people to about 30. From an educational standpoint, maybe it wasn’t our best moment but it was a learning curve.” Meanwhile the band have, on more than one occasion, felt the wrath of the online TERF brigade for their vocal support of trans rights.

Last summer, at a festival show supporting Iggy Pop in Crystal Palace, Lambrini Girls performed in front of a flag bearing the slogan ‘Trans Lives Fucking Matter’. Soon after, they found themselves receiving hundreds of messages, private DMs and emails, instigated by Linehan and his followers. “I got really paranoid and really scared from seeing this stuff because it was just constant, with people sending you really weird, violent, aggressive messages,” Phoebe remembers. “I was genuinely terrified that some cunt was gonna come to one of our gigs and molotov cocktail us.”

When a quote from a subsequent interview with Kerrang! in which the vocalist declared “I will scrap any TERF, any day, in person” was then picked up online, the band were keenly aware of dealing with the matter correctly - not just for their own safety, but for that of the community they were trying to advocate for. “I didn’t want to put it on Twitter because it would be inflammatory and like shaking a bunch of wasps in a jar,” says Phoebe. “I think it’s really important to be vocal about trans rights, but as two cis-presenting, AFAB, white, blonde girlies, we’re coming from a lot of privilege. So it’s very easy to go online and say ‘Fuck you TERFS’ and hit them with a load of statistics but I have the privilege to then close my phone. It’s really important that when you say something, you’re not just setting it on fire and then walking away because you have a responsibility there.”

One of the bands at the forefront of this year’s festival boycotts, which began with SXSW due to its ties to the US military, Lambrini Girls even found themselves facing the wrath of their own community when logistical issues (their Visas meant they needed to enter America before they could cancel the show) required them to take a couple of extra days to pull out. “I saw the same people that were coming for us and trying to cancel us for being performative even after we explained our situation celebrating Kneecap who pulled out the day after us. And that felt like it was because we were women, if I’m being honest,” says Phoebe. “We were held to a much higher standard because we are women and our existence in the music industry is inherently politicised,” Lilly nods. “It was glaringly obvious that we were being held to a much, much higher standard by these people, and that felt really unfair.”

“ “I was genuinely terrified that some cunt was gonna come to one of our gigs and molotov cocktail us.” — Phoebe Lunny

Riled up and pissed off, it was with a self-proclaimed “fire under [their] arse” that Lambrini Girls then headed into the studio to lay down their debut. “I think recording the album was like walking into a room with two middle fingers up,” says Phoebe. “If you don’t like this I don’t care, because this is what we’re doing.” With only two weeks to get the job done, slotted in between touring, for Lilly the speedy process was a lesson in trusting her gut. “We want to be taken seriously as musicians but really we don’t need to overthink it so much to show off our musical skill,” she says. “I know our skill level despite the fact that we get underestimated all the time and our musicality gets overlooked a lot. I know that me and Phoebe are great musicians and I’ll say that with my chest.” “We get called a three-chord punk band and we use at least seven chords!” laughs her bandmate. “Come on!”

The combination of speed, instinctiveness, a wealth of built-up frustration plus a hefty store cupboard of booze worked wonders; ‘Who Let The Dogs Out’ is a firecracker of a mission statement that trades equally in anger and heart, gags and very real gripes. Though Lambrini Girls might have not had, as the old saying goes, a lifetime to make their debut, they did have a lifetime of shit experiences at the hands of the patriarchy to pull from. When, on ‘Company Culture’, Phoebe sings, “Smile and ignore that my boss wants to fuck me”, it’s based on a very real boss at a very real job.

“One job I had was for a big company, and on my first day there my coworker showed me a picture of his dick,” she recalls. “The line about my boss is satirical but I have done that because I was backed into a corner where I was reliant on that job so I smiled and I nodded because I had no other option. That song is a very visceral take on the experience of being a woman in the workplace and I don’t think any of it is exaggerated whatsoever.”

On ‘Big Dick Energy’, the band rage at performative “white knights” asking for pats on the back while women still walk home fearing for their safety. “By the time I was 21, I’d already been stalked and sexually assaulted on multiple occasions, and that’s not a shocking statement because it’s the same for all of my friends,” says Phoebe plainly. “I don’t know a single woman that hasn’t been assaulted,” says Lilly. “It’s a universal experience, and that’s 50% of the population. Being a woman is not being a minority.” A particularly important moment comes, meanwhile, with ‘Nothing Tastes As Good As It Feels’: a wry, self-lacerating look at the struggles of living with an eating disorder that gives a voice to a topic so often shrouded in secrecy and shame.

“It’s crazy how much of a role shame plays in it when it’s literally the entire world shoving it down your throat your whole entire life,” says Lilly. “Eating disorders are a psychological and societal issue and there is no sensitivity around it. I’d been discharged from hospital for bulimia because I’d gotten so unwell they thought I had brain damage, and I explained to my GP that they’d told me I had quite a high BMI and my GP agreed. I wanted to hang up the phone; it was so triggering, and there was no sensitivity whatsoever.” “I just wanted that song to make people feel like they’re not on their own with it,” nods Phoebe, “because I don’t know any friends who are girls or queer people who haven’t suffered with it in some way.”

“ “I don’t know a single woman that hasn’t been assaulted. It’s a universal experience.” — Lilly Macieira

For all their justified fury at much of the systemic lot that’s been dealt to them and the groups they stand with and for, perhaps Lambrini Girls’ greatest strength is in their ability to critique their own place within it. While Phoebe grew up in Brighton and went to a “bang average state school”, Lilly moved from Germany to Portugal to England, and attended private school. “It’s really important to be transparent about these things; I would never sit here and say I didn’t grow up privileged because I did,” she explains.

When her dad passed away, Lilly was able to put a lump sum of inheritance money into funding Lambrini Girls’ 2023 EP ‘You’re Welcome’: something the band readily admit was instrumental in getting them to the buzzy position they currently find themselves in. “If I didn’t have the money from my dad passing away to put into the band at that exact moment, it would have taken us a lot longer to get here,” she says candidly. “Being a musician takes so much work and time and sweat and tears; for any band starting out, it’s not self-sustainable. Things have gone quickly for us because we had this money that we were able to put into the band when it was the right time to strike. And there are so many bands that don’t have that to dip into.”

‘Filthy Rich Nepo Baby’, Phoebe explains, isn’t about saying ‘eat the rich’; instead it’s a critique of an industry that only allows access to people who have the financial backing or connections to be able to weather the crippling costs of initially making their name. “Success is bought. We wouldn’t be doing this interview now if we didn’t have a press person that City Slang, our label, is paying for,” she says. “You need money behind you, or nepotism, and it’s no coincidence that bands like Inhaler are doing very well and that’s fucking Bono’s son.

“If we hadn’t had that £6k to put into the EP, if Lilly wasn’t in this band, I wouldn’t be in a band that was doing well because I don’t have the means. You can be the most talented cunt. You can be the most engaging musician who is doing something quote-unquote important. You can be all those things and still be fucking slept on because in order to be a successful musician you have to give every single bit of the essence of your being; all of your time needs to go into this thing. And unless mummy and daddy are paying your fucking rent, you can’t do that.”

“ “It’s no coincidence that bands like Inhaler are doing very well and that’s fucking Bono’s son.” — Phoebe Lunny

‘Who Let The Dogs Out’ is a debut that should position Lambrini Girls on the frontline of young British punk. Championed by Bikini Kill legend Kathleen Hanna, recently taken on tour by Amyl and the Sniffers and IDLES, and with their star rising across the Atlantic as well as on home turf, they’re a band - on record, on stage, in person - to believe in.

As their debut clicks to a close though, there’s an altogether more freewheeling parting message that Lambrini Girls leave us with. A ravey party-starter entitled ‘Cuntology 101’, the track comes on like a manifesto for IDGAF feminist hedonists throughout the land. It’s all, well, very ‘Brat’ tbh… “It wasn’t meant to be ‘Brat’! When we wrote that, ‘Brat’ wasn’t released yet. I actually freaked out a bit because then ‘Brat’ came out…” Phoebe says, gritting her teeth. “Nah, it’s different though,” counters Lilly as a glint enters her eye: “It’s Brat but it’s completely different but it’s still Brat.”

10/10 gag aside, the bassist actually makes a very solid point. Instead of model-filled parties and buckets of cocaine, ‘Cuntology’ champions a far more relatable kind of freedom where “doing a poo at your friend’s house” and “shagging behind some bins” are the ultimate acts of self-love. Like Lambrini Girls themselves, it’s funny and loud and messy, but also full of empowerment and questioning the status quo; sticking two fingers up to how girls ‘should’ behave.

As we enter into the unknown of 2025, Lambrini Girls’ visceral wares and vital words - their calls to accept yourself, fight the oppressors and be kind to each other - feel more than ever like ones that bear repeating. “We’re at a point where we’re starting to break through now, and so the point of this band is to garner as much of a platform as we can,” says Phoebe. “We want to shout this shit from the tallest tower and maybe change some minds.”

‘Who Let The Dogs Out’ is out 10th January via City Slang.

Tags: Cover Features, Features, Class of 2025, Class of…, December 2024 / January 2025, From The Magazine, Lambrini Girls