A: It’s truly not unlike previous Sleater-Kinney albums, which have always been emotional. I think that’s why people are drawn to this band. It’s not new territory for us to convey a vulnerability or rawness in our music. But we’ve always allowed for that to change, you know, in a live setting. And it often does.

You can’t prescribe or predict how you’ll feel when you walk onstage or when you play a certain song. There are songs that we think of as lighter or maybe come from a place of happiness or even humor or absurdity — and sometimes those can have a darker, heavier moment onstage. It really all depends on the context.

Q: How has the songwriting process changed between you and Corin throughout the years?

A: There’s still always part of our songwriting that remains very similar to how it did in the beginning — which was the two of us in a room sharing ideas. Even back then, we would sometimes write on our own and then get together and flesh out a song in a room together.

But I think with the advent of technology, we are able to edit and toy with the songs in the writing process in a way that we couldn’t necessarily before. We can demo a song quite easily and sit with a chorus and listen to it.

Q: Technology can definitely make sharing ideas — from different locations — easier.

A: Of course, we did that early on with tape recorders and whatnot. But this just allows a deeper editorial process, which, I think, lends itself well — and is crucial — for making an 11th album, or even an eighth or ninth album. It’s not “first idea, best idea,” which you can kind of coast on for three or four albums. But the further along you get in your career, you have to be more intentional about differentiating one album from the next — which has always been our goal.

Q: Two of your early albums — 1996’s “Call the Doctor” and 1997’s “Dig Me Out” — remain true favorites for me. What do you think when you go back and listen to that older stuff?

A: Really the only time I actively listen is when we are putting together song lists for a tour. And I think now I have enough distance from those records to really appreciate them. I think there was a time, when we went from album to album, that each previous album I was critical of. Whereas now there has been enough distance, enough time that, first of all, I hear what is essential about Sleater-Kinney — what is singular about it. I can hear the language — the sonic language that Corin and I built together, in terms of how to play guitar, how our melodies interlock and intertwine, how our vocals have changed. I can appreciate that and also see how we have built off of those albums.

Q: That’s a cool way to look back at an early record.

A: Mostly, I see it as part of a narrative that’s ongoing and try not to not be overly discerning or critical. Often, I am kind of impressed we were able to make “Dig Me Out” when I was 23 years old. That seems almost shocking to me.

I think there is just a lot of gratitude, at this point, for what we’ve accomplished.

©2024 MediaNews Group, Inc. Visit at mercurynews.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.