Allison Wolfe (born November 9, 1969) is a Los Angeles–based singer, songwriter, writer, and podcaster. As a founding member and lead singer of the punk rock band Bratmobile, she became one of the leading voices of the riot grrl movement.
Wolfe has also fronted other bands, including Sex Stains, Partyline, and Cold Cold Hearts. She was one of the principal creators of the original Ladyfest music festival in 2000. She has more recently been the creator and host of the punk rock interview podcast I'm In The Band.
Background
Allison Wolfe and her sister Cindy were born identical twins in Memphis, Tennessee, on November 9, 1969. Together with their sister Molly, they grew up in Olympia, Washington. Their parents divorced when they were all still young children, and they were raised by their mother, Pat Shively. A radical feminist and self-described lesbian, Shively founded Olympia's Eastside Women's Health Clinic in 1981. It was the first women's clinic in Thurston County, and later the University of Oregon at Eugene.
Music career
Bratmobile
Wolfe and Molly Neuman wrote about rock music's pervasive sexism in their influential punkzines, Girl Germs and Riot Grrrl. They took those themes to music when they joined with Washington, DC guitarist Erin Smith to form their own band, Bratmobile, in 1991. Bratmobile performed at the International Pop Underground Convention in Olympia, Washington in August 1991. Maura Johnston later wrote in Rolling Stone that Wolfe's distinctive "disaffected drawl" became "one of the most prominent voices of the early-Nineties riot grrrl movement".
Bratmobile recorded for Kill Rock Stars, an Olympia-based independent label, and released their first full-length album, Pottymouth, in 1992. The band ended in a rancorous onstage breakup in New York City in 1994.
Deep Lust
Wolfe later sang with Deep Lust, her first band with male musicians which she lightheartedly describes as "my boy band". they toured and released one self-titled album on Kill Rock Stars in February 2000.
Bratmobile reunion
Bratmobile reformed in 1999 and went on tour with Sleater Kinney. The reunited band released two more albums, Ladies, Women and Girls (2000) and Girls Get Busy (2002).
Partyline
Wolfe started a Washington D.C.–based band, Partyline, in 2004. The band released two full-length albums, Girls With Glasses (2005) and Zombie Terrorist (2006).
Sex Stains
Sex Stains formed in Los Angeles in 2014. The five-person group was the largest outfit Wolfe had worked with yet, and the first in which she had a companion vocalist, Mecca Vazie Andrews.
Other musical groups
Wolfe has also performed and recorded with various other bands including Alice Bag, Cool Moms, Dig Yr Grave, Hawnay Troof and its offshoot, Baby Truth.
Other works
Wolfe was one of the primary architects behind the original Ladyfest music festival in Olympia, Washington, in 2000. In later years, Ladyfest festivals have taken place throughout the world and Wolfe has appeared at many of them.
Wolfe holds a master's degree in arts journalism from the University of Southern California. In the 2000s she worked for The Washington Post, and edited the punk rock-themed manga series Nana, refashioning its basic English translation into modern vernacular. Since 2017 she has hosted I'm In The Band, a podcast on Tidal in which she interviews artists from the punk and indie rock scenes.