Carrie Brownstein

Carrie Rachel Brownstein (born September 27, 1974) is an American musician, actress, writer, director, and comedian.

She first came to prominence as a member of the band Excuse 17 before forming the rock trio Sleater-Kinney.

During a long hiatus from Sleater-Kinney, she formed the group Wild Flag.

They recorded their first self-titled album in early 1994 during a trip to Australia, where the pair were celebrating Tucker's graduation from Evergreen (Brownstein still had three years of college left).

It was released the following spring.

They recorded and toured with different drummers, until Janet Weiss joined the band in 1996.

In 1997, Brownstein graduated from Evergreen with an emphasis on sociolinguistics and stayed in Olympia, Washington, for three years before moving to Portland, Oregon.

While attending Evergreen, Brownstein met fellow students Corin Tucker, Kathleen Hanna, Tobi Vail, and Becca Albee.

With Albee and CJ Phillips, she formed the band Excuse 17, one of the pioneering bands of the riot grrrl movement in the Olympia music scene that played an important role in third-wave feminism.

Excuse 17 often toured with Tucker's band Heavens to Betsy.

The two bands contributed to the Free to Fight compilation.

With Tucker, she formed the band Sleater-Kinney as a side project and later released the split single Free to Fight with Cypher in the Snow.

After both Excuse 17 and Heavens to Betsy split up, Sleater-Kinney became Brownstein and Tucker's main focus.

Brownstein and former Helium guitarist/singer Mary Timony, recording as The Spells, released The Age of Backwards E.P. in 1999.

Also in 1999, Brownstein, Lois Maffeo, and Peter Momtchiloff released a single ("The Touch"/"Louie Louie Got Married") on K Records as The Tentacles.

Critics Greil Marcus and Robert Christgau deemed the band one of the essential rock groups of the early 2000s.

Following their eponymous debut, they released six more studio albums before going on indefinite hiatus in 2006.

In 2006, Brownstein was the only woman to earn a spot in the Rolling Stone readers' list of the 25 "Most Underrated Guitarists of All-Time".

Brownstein began a career as a writer before Sleater-Kinney broke up.

In summer 2009, Brownstein and Weiss worked together on songs (produced by Tucker Martine) for the soundtrack of the documentary film !Women Art Revolution by Lynn Hershman Leeson.

In September 2010, Brownstein revealed her latest project was the band Wild Flag, with Janet Weiss, Mary Timony, and Rebecca Cole, formerly of The Minders; according to Brownstein, about a year earlier, "I started to need music again, and so I called on my friends and we joined as a band. Chemistry cannot be manufactured or forced, so Wild Flag was not a sure thing, it was a 'maybe, a 'possibility.' But after a handful of practice sessions, spread out over a period of months, I think we all realized that we could be greater than the sum of our parts."

During this period, Brownstein wrote and appeared in a series of comedy sketches alongside Saturday Night Live alumnus Fred Armisen which were developed into the satirical comedy TV series Portlandia (2011–2018).

The series went on to win Emmy and Peabody Awards.

Sleater-Kinney eventually reunited; as of 2023, Brownstein was touring with the band as well as in support of her new memoir.

Brownstein was born in Seattle, Washington, and was raised in Redmond, Washington.

Her mother was a housewife and a teacher, and her father was a corporate lawyer.

They divorced when Carrie was 14, and she was raised by her father.

Brownstein has a younger sister, Stacey.

Her family is Jewish.

She attended Lake Washington High School before transferring to The Overlake School for her senior year.

Brownstein began playing guitar at 15 and received lessons from Jeremy Enigk.

She later said: "He lived in the neighborhood next to mine, so I would just walk my guitar over to his house. He showed me a couple of open chords and I just took it from there. I'd gone through so many phases as a kid with my interests that my parents put their foot down with guitar. So [the instrument] ended up being the [first] thing that I had to save up my own money for – and maybe that was the whole reason that I actually stuck with it."

After high school, Brownstein attended Western Washington University before transferring to The Evergreen State College.

They released a self-titled album in September 2011.

In 2011, they toured for a second time and played at CMJ Music Marathon.

In a 2012 interview with DIY magazine, Brownstein said that Sleater-Kinney still planned to play in the future.

On October 20, 2014, Brownstein announced on Twitter that Sleater-Kinney would be releasing a new album, No Cities to Love, on January 20, 2015, and would tour in early 2015.

At the same time the announcement was made, they released the video for the first single from the album.

The single, "Bury Our Friends", was also made available as a free MP3 download.

In 2015, Stereogum Chief Editor Tom Breihan called them the greatest rock band of the past two decades.