A Q&A WITH GIGI BARWALD OF T@B GRRRL: RIOT GRRRL, DEBUT EP & 2025 PLANS

photos by Sydney Frost

—

Marisa Whitaker: How many of there are y'all? 

Gigi Barwald: There are four of us [vocalist Gigi Barwald (she/they), bassist Nico Mac (she/they), guitarist Amy Harris (she/her), and drummer Malachi (she/they)].

MW: You're the only riot grrrl band in town that I know of.

GB: It’s very much queercore, I’d say. Riot grrrl gets lumped into the queercore community a lot, as we should, because it’s like the non-cis-head spaces. After we came out with “stick it,” we categorized ourselves as queercore. There’s also a really big transcore community that I didn’t really know about that I got pulled into once I had two trans members in my band. People just started reaching out to us. I’d say we’re a part of the riot grrrl, queercore, and punk rock scenes. We get asked to play a lot of rock shows, and we’ll also get asked to play a total queercore lineup, which is awesome. 

MW: I love riot grrrl. The ‘90s, Kathleen Hanna, Bikini Kill, all that. You just don’t hear about riot grrrl bands these days, as much as back then. 

GB: I didn’t want to start a band until I found riot grrrl. I’ve always sang and thought about being a lead singer in a band, or something like that, obviously, like any vocalist, I think, does. I didn’t want to start writing things and putting stuff out until I found it. Riot grrrl was exactly how I was feeling. I discovered the platform and outlet they’re using, and then I understood why I had so many doodles and little scribbles of writing. They were supposed to be in a zine or a song. 

MW: How and when did you find riot grrrl? What really enticed you about it?

GB: I was still a teenager when I found riot grrrl. I think that was a big part of it. In high school, I was getting titled bullshit, like “the social justice warrior.” But in reality, I was just a feminist and activist and cared about other people. I cared about women's and queer issues. I was a big advocate for safe sex and getting tested. I was very political, I guess. With riot grrrl, I started with zines, not music. 

MW: How’d you find them?

GB: TikTok. Fully. I came across one. It was this really raw piece of art. This person talked a lot about Kathleen Hanna and Bikini Kill. Their experiences, their lyrics, even in terms of grief, but [mainly about] all these parts of growing up as a teenager. Like learning that you are sexualized from a young age, that you don't have the autonomy that you wish you could, that people aren't going to take you seriously because you have boobs, all these things. We grow up and learn, when our brains are cognitive enough to realize it, that this was all the stuff that they were talking about. From there, I bought this riot grrrl collection book, of all these zines from the ‘90s. I did my research, read, created, and wrote. I started my zine in 2020, so it took a year or two for me to even think about doing music. I was in school, studying political science and journalism, doing photography on the side. I was always a physical creator. I would collage, paint, draw, and write, and it never freaking occurred to me that those were lyrics. 

MW: What I think is so unique about you is this obsession with riot grrrl. This niche that was, and is, so important. 

photo by Sydney Frost

GB: That’s what I loved. It was a genre, but it was also a social movement. That’s what I think I  connected with most. I was like, “Ohhhh. This is everything that I’ve been feeling and trying to do.”

MW: You posted a really cool and interesting post highlighting intersectionality and the sista grrrl riot submovement and genre on the band account. Tell me about it. 

GB: The riot girl movement has some not so slay parts that people like to criticize. Those aspects, though, weren't intentional. A few years into the movement, people realized that there's not a lot of trans women at the forefront of this. Some of the bands were playing terf shows and not really speaking out against them. They didn’t really include trans people. So, there was a lot of terfy behavior, number one. Number two, it was predominantly white by accident. They weren't like, “Oh, we're a bunch of working class white women. Let's bring in some other people.” Maybe they did, but from the outside, [their efforts] didn't do the most. So by the end of the movement, people of color were like, “This is not for me. I don't identify with that.” I think that's really important to recognize and talk about because we can't be doing that. We have to grow from that. Kathleen Hanna talks about it a lot. She’s said that she wants people to criticize what the movement did; to take what they like, and fucking burn down the rest. Make something new out of it. That’s why I'll continue to talk about it because we need to realize that we're not just latching on to some old movement. We’ve created part two, I guess. It's evolved entirely. That’s what I wrote my whole thesis on. We need to be able to adapt with the times for the social movement to stay effective. That's why it's more than just a genre of music. It's about what you do with it. You have to amplify other voices, talk about the past, and show actions for the future. That's step one – is bringing awareness to it. 

MW: I was walking here (to Gigi’s apartment) and listening to y’all’s debut EP, T@B GRRRL. It’s so sick. How did it come to be?

GB: When I started the band, I picked up playing guitar. I taught myself, but I didn't feel comfortable enough writing a song by myself, so those songs and the EP were really a collaborative effort. I’d have these lyrics or an idea of a song, and Elijah helped me out with instrumentals. This was in college. T@b grrrl had just started, and Elijah and I were in songwriting class together. “O.F.I.T. (oh fuck, it’s tuesday!)” which we recorded the other day, was the first song I wrote on guitar in class, but that was after we had written “so what.” “grrrltopia” I wrote in the bathroom of a show. I got really drunk. My friend took me to Pathetica’s show, another riot grrrl band. I watched them perform, and then I went into the bathroom and wrote the lyrics. “stick it” is a song that I had written while I was still in DC after I decided to start the band. We wrote it over the summer. Kie (Antone) wrote that part on guitar, and they were our drummer at the time, and they just picked up the guitar and wrote this part, and we took it from there. And then that happened with “so what.” In our songwriting class, we were told to take a classic song, fuck around with the chord progression or something, and make it our own. We took “So What” by Miles Davis, and we turned it into “so what” by t@b grrrl. And then “anarchy grrrl” was really different because I wanted to write my riot grrrl song. I wanted an anthem song. I came into it with that purpose. The zines that I was telling you about, that I had written, I gave the band the pages, and told them this is where I wanted to take from. I remember the guitar being very feeling-based. We wanted to capture whatever the emotion was. Then we all collaborated on the lyrics. Some lyrics we pulled exactly from my zine: “This little girl wants anarchy / Fuck you and your patriarchy.” Those are titles of two of the writings that we pulled from. 

MW: What’s your zine called?

GB: Hot As Hell.

MW: Along with “O.F.I.T.,” what other songs are you dropping this year?

GB:

“O.F.I.T. (oh fuck, it’s tuesday!)”

In songwriting class, we were told to write a song about Tuesday on a Tuesday. Our professor told us to use the whole three-hour class period to stay home and write it. I was like, “What the fuck are you talking about. I can’t do this.” That’s why the first lyrics are: “I wonder what it’s like to be so musically inclined / That you can write a song as the day goes by.” He told me I sounded like Pavement on the song. I remember being really offended. I wanted to be like Bikini Kill, ‘90s, riot grrrl. But now I take it as a compliment.

“i love lucy”

I wrote that song in a day. I had just gotten out of a really toxic relationship with this girl. I got a spine injury during that time too, and it was a really toxic, overwhelming time. It was like shell shock or whiplash. Then I wrote this song. It was a little slower at first. But it has really fast strumming. I had a weird lick that I could only do with my thumb. I couldn’t do it with a pick. My band was telling me at that time, “Gigi, you need to learn bar chords.” I was like, “No! It rocks! We just gotta figure it out!” In that song, I unlocked a new scream. It’s a very falsetto, like, screech, but it has my rasp. I really don’t know how to describe it. I didn’t even know it could come out of my body. And it only comes out for “i love lucy.” It’s such a new sound. It makes me wanna get into more hardcore vocals. 

“wetbangz”

I wrote “wetbangz” the summer after I came home from my graduation trip. I went on this six-country Europe trip for a month. My mom got injured on the trip and had to get surgery. It was a really big deal. On the other side of that, I met this boy at the hotel who I ended up staying with. He took me around on his Vespa, and we fell in love. It was movie. I had this literal Lizzie McGuire, Cheetah Girls-type summer. It was really crazy, and it was my first trip there, so it was very special. I got home, and I didn’t have a place to stay for a few months at the end of the summer. I was a nomad staying with friends, crashing here and there. Any chance I got, I’d pull out the guitar. For the song, I used the same chord, Dm7, that I used with “O.F.I.T. (oh fuck, it’s tuesday!),” and did random things with it. By the end of the day, I had a song. The lyrics are very telling of the time. This girl had slid into my DMs, pursued me, and we hung out. I thought it was going well. The day of our plans, she ghosted me. Also, I had a misunderstanding with this friend of four years. So the opening lines are: “Don’t go wasting my time / Because I don’t have very much time in this transient life.” I still think about that, and I think about it more because now I’ve had a friend pass away, and so much bullshit has happened in my life. You don’t deserve to deal with any of that shit. Only do what makes you happy and what serves you. Be around the people who are gonna uplift and serve you. It was very much that kind of song, about my feelings, the whole summer, anybody who I’d met, lessons learned. The chorus goes: “I cut my hair into the sink this morning while I think.”

MW: What is “wetbangz”? It’s also your Instagram name. 

GB: Me and my friend from college, McKenna, knew a band in our college town. They all had a house together in Jersey, and she lived with them. It was a gnarly little frat house, but none of them were frat boys. They were the most sweet, wholehearted music bros. One day, McKenna and I are drunk as shit after a night out. I think she had just bought a Dyson blow dryer, and she's talking about blowing out her hair. Next we're talking about literally having wet bangs. The process of making your bangs look good and getting them wet.

MW: Tell me about it. (I have bangs.)

GB: Right? And then McKenna was like, “Oh, wetbangz. That's a good band name.” I wrote it in my notes app. A while later, I’m looking at my notes app, and I thought, this is a good little Instagram name. I texted McKenna and asked her if I could use it. 

MW: What are the 2025 t@b grrl goals?

GB: I want to release these three songs. They’re in the mixing stages right now. I’d love to get writing on a new project, like an EP or something. I also want to release two music videos. The real goal is getting up to date with all the YouTube stuff. There’s some live videos I wanna have out. We have our whole TV Eye show on video that just got sent to us. The filming is done for one music video, so I think “wetbangz” will come out first. Teaser: Torture (Anna Kunz, of Torture and The Desert Spiders) is gonna be on the cover. 

photo by Sydney Frost

…

GB: I was doing t@b grrrl when I was in school. Then I was working on the band while also working at a law office and Trader Joe’s. Then I was just doing t@b grrrl because I got a back injury. That time gave me a taste of what that could be like. I realized then that this is what I’m supposed to be devoting my time to. I think we’re gonna see a lot more little details and things that I have more time for now. Would I like to have a team eventually help me with the weird, creative stuff? For sure. Do I want someone to sign us? I don’t know. I don’t think so. I meant to say this earlier, but that’s why you don’t see riot grrrl at the forefront. We’re not looking to get signed. We’re not looking for commodification. I think that’s why we’re a subsection, but I like it that way. Somebody asked me if I feel represented. In the larger New York scene? No. In our little subsect? For sure. And that’s ok. I don’t need to play with Sid Simmons. (She pronounced it Simmons, not Simons. Lol.)

MW: If you can make an impact in the community of which you are a part of, that's what's most important, I think. With no matter what – music, social causes, friendships. What's important is you impact yourself and those immediately around you. 

GB: Exactly, yeah. I think that's a big part of t@b grrrl. Bringing awareness to things and bringing people together. 

MW: When do y’all play next?

GB: We have so many shows lined up over the summer. We’re playing three festivals, all in the New York-greater area. In May, we're playing a festival at Our Wicked Lady, it's not announced yet. Then in June, we're playing Punk Island, very excited for, which is also not announced yet. Punk Island is really cool because they display all of New York in a really cool way. They have a transcore stage, bipoc stage, and lots of others. It has every subsect, which you don't see a lot. We’re also playing a festival called She Shreds. That’s a fully femme-centric one. And we have a tour coming up in June. For one week, we're gonna hit up Montreal, Syracuse, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, and Chicago. Then we’ll have our return-to-New-York show.

MW: What is the most riot grrrl thing about you?

GB: The most riot girl thing about me? I don't think that riot grrrl is about the way you dress or the way you look. I think it's about the way you think and the way you see others. I think the most riot grrrl thing about me is the fact that every day I work to be the most authentic version of myself. 

MW: What is most misunderstood about riot grrrl?

GB: I think there's two answers to this. I think in modern day, right now, it's that we're clinging onto something that once was. This is part two. This is an extension of the beginning. The misconception that we might be fucking terfs or racist or non-inclusive. My biggest thing, and what will always be my biggest thing, is intersectionality. I also think another misconception of riot grrrl is if any woman is playing an instrument or singing in the front, then she's a riot grrrl. I think a lot of bands have a lot to say about this. Kathleen Hanna was telling me that Bikini Kill and L7 used to beef back in the day because everybody would lump in L7. L7 didn’t consider themselves riot grrrl. L7, not picked a fight, but distanced themselves from this whole scene that was actually very inclusive and awesome because the media and the bigger person were like, “Oh you’re all girls, so you have to be riot grrrl.” You have to self-proclaim. It’s about identifying with the movement and the manifesto. Girls can make just as good music as men, and even better. People are going to make good music, point period blank, regardless of gender. Some people make bad music, some people make good music. We should all be put in those boxes. Not in the, “This is a guy, and he plays awesome. This is a girl and she plays ok. This is a guy and he’s mediocre.” You’re mediocre, you fuck, or you suck.