Bikini Kill and Le Tigre leader Kathleen Hanna is mounting a return to music after a seven-year hiatus from performing. Her latest band, The Julie Ruin, is a five-piece re-imagining of her 1997 solo bedroom project Julie Ruin, an album now looked upon as one of the first punk efforts to incorporate electronics. The group's debut, Run Fast, takes her music in a more personal direction after years spent producing feminist anthems that helped fuel the Riot Grrrl movement of the 1990s.
Hanna began assembling the band in 2010 while in the throes of a debilitating battle with Lyme disease, an illness she kept secret from fans until a documentary about her life, The Punk Singer, premiered at SXSW earlier this year.
This week, The Julie Ruin are embarking on a U.S. tour to support the release of Run Fast. To find out about the band's musical evolution, we spoke with keyboard player and co-singer Kenny Mellman, whom you might also know as one of half of the drag cabaret duo Kiki and Herb.
Read the Q&A with Kenny after the jump!
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