Kickass electropunk band Go Fallopian! formed when making the catcall track for The Glass Ceiling Games, making us laugh with its lyrics and bounce around the house to its riffs; here we ask them a bit about their process and views on smashing the patriarchy:

Thanks for doing this GF! We love working with you on this project. What inspired you to get involved and how did that end up in forming a secret punk band after the initial audio brief?

Brain: I loved the sound of the game from the start and when Hannah mentioned Le Tigre as one of the possible music references it made perfect sense to start a feminist punk band. Jimi and I both played in punk bands a lot when we were kids and Anna always had punk aspirations.

Anna: Haha. Yeah the 14 year old me in my basement with my electric guitar and my brother’s distortion pedal is extremely happy right now. I hope my song-writing and my feminism has moved on a bit since then though lol.

How did you choose the name Go Fallopian! and can you tell us what it means to you?

Anna: ​​I’ve always had a problem with all the phrases that suggest you need testicles to be brave. “Grow a pair”, or “if you’ve got the balls to do it” etc... so we started saying “you need to go fallopian on that sh*t and just do it” instead, seeing if we could get it off the ground. Obviously anyone can be brave or kind or angry or sad or whatever regardless of what genitals they’re rocking. We just wanted to get some alternative genital representation out there lol. Dicks and balls are so much less stigmatised than vulvas and vaginas. Let’s give vaginas a bit more airtime so the world isn’t so weird about them. Air the vaginas. That could have been another cool band name to be fair.

Brain: Also fallopian! sounds great when you say it loud.

You've made awesome tracks for the catcall and unsolicited dick pix levels so far; can you talk about the songwriting process for them?

Brain: We’ve employed a pretty simple formula so far. Me, Anna and Jimi hang out in the studio and we jam riffs on guitar and bass while Anna gets the rough lyrics down. Then, once it sounds like a fun, catchy punch in the nuts we develop it from there. We’re pretty keen on evolving the way we write all the time. We all have solo projects that range from electro-pop and Americana, to techno and jungle, and it’s fun to take music production and songwriting styles from each and keep the creative practice engaging. Jimi and I make a lot of music for films and commercial projects so we’re used to working to a brief. This is definitely one of the more fun ones though!

Anna: I love the brief for the lyrical content of these tracks. I also find them very easy to write because these topics are extremely relatable. Street harassment is woven into the female narrative and also the queer narrative and it’s very rubbish. Being told to cheer up because you’re not smiling whilst putting yer bins out or having your ass slapped when you’re trying to exercise in peace is just ‘normal’ but it shouldn’t be. We need to talk to kids (and especially cis boys) a lot more about harassment and respect. The other day my cousin was taking a picture of me and a prepubescent boy on a bike shouted out “you are never, ever gonna be a model, love, you’re too ginger.” This was fairly weird as I don’t have ginger hair and a factually inaccurate assumption coz there are loads of ginger models obvs but also I was just like, where have you developed the confidence already, in your 10 years on this planet, to shout at a grown woman about her appearance in public? It starts early so it needs to be tackled early. I can’t believe street harassment is only just about to (maybe) be illegal in 2021! Wtf? And don’t even get me started on unsolicited dick pics....

What does feminism mean to you?

Anna: Feminism for me is about striving for equality and recognising that all things are not equal amongst people of different genders, races and sexualities. Feminism has to be intersectional or it will only perpetuate the systems of oppression which keep certain people in positions of power and privilege. A straight white cis woman, for example, will have a very different life experience from a queer trans woman of colour. We have to recognise that those humans will face very different challenges in order to deconstruct the systems which oppress them and avoid the damaging impact of cis, white-washed, ablist feminism which leaves so many behind.

Brain: Men design, build and control things based on their own lived experience, making lots of life harder for anyone else who isn’t a man. But I’m typing this as a white man and I would very much like to see the patriarchy razed to the ground. So I guess for me it’s about constantly checking myself and my own privilege, using it to create space and platforms for others, as well as fighting for equality and recognising how much better the world is when everyone is afforded the same rights and freedoms.

Who are your feminist icons?

Anna: Oof. Where to start. Angela Davis, Munroe Bergdorf, Elliot Page to name a few.

Brain: Angela Davis, Delia Derbyshire, Missy Elliot, Ada Lovelace, My 6th form sociology teacher Vic Manley, Anna

Finally, we love a recommendation: what are you listening to right now?

Anna: Chela, Nadia Rose, SOPHIE, FFSYTHO

Brain: LCY, Anz, Violet, UNIIQU3, JakoJako, Lorraine James

Check out Go Fallopian!'s music tracks for The Glass Ceiling Games:

Catcall level music clip!

Unsolicited Pix level music clip!

Support The Glass Ceiling Games Kickstarter here!