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MTV: Are you comfortable about being considered icons? Or don't you see yourselves that way?
CT: We do feel a sense of people looking up to us... young women searching for a role model in this culture and not being able to find many [who are] based on character rather than image. But I think that it's dangerous to say that you're a role model... you have to act a certain way, you know.
We're just a band. We're just human beings, and we'll make mistakes and do stupid things too, but hopefully we're acting with a sense of truth about us. We're trying to stay true to the music 'cause that's why we're here, I guess.
MTV: Do you regret your sexuality coming out in the mainstream?
JW: Has that gotten mainstream attention?
CB: Well, I think one thing in terms of categorizing our music is that we haven't limited ourselves to one genre of music like "queer," "girl," "punk," "rock," so it sort of falls into that. We don't really talk about our personal lives. We are inclusive of all people at our shows. It's only an issue, I guess, in terms of politics and not necessarily in our music or songwriting, but we really don't talk [about] too much of that in our music.
MTV: What are you listening to these days?
CB: There's a great band from Olympia called The Need that is sort of a post-punk, almost progressive, mouth-rock. Two women: Radio and Rachel. Just very dynamic, interesting performers and they have a record out on Chainsaw, which is run from Olympia.
CT: I've been listening to this woman Cat Power a lot, and I think she is really amazing. She's really different, and I like that.
JW: There's also a woman, Edith Frost, from Chicago, who's made some great records. [She's] really an inspiring songwriter and explores quieter textures as far as instrumentation, and she's really honest and pure, which is nice to hear.
MTV: Did you find any female musicians to look up to when you were younger?
JW: I think when I saw X when I was young, I was just completely blown away when I went out and bought their records and saw the lyric sheets and just the handwritten, sort of journal-like style of this music and of these songs and seeing inside this woman's perspective.  | Carrie Brownstein
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CB: I think listening to Patti Smith changed a lot of things for me, and watching Beat Happening with this woman, Heather Lewis, and she was amazing. And later bands like Bikini Kill, who were totally one of the more empowering bands I'd ever seen, was a very incredible experience.
CT: For me, Kim Gordon of Sonic Youth was a big inspiration, because she was part of one of the greatest bands [of] the past few years, and she was a real musician. You know, you could tell she was really there just for the music and was really serious about it, and I think that was really inspiring.
MTV: Where do you see Sleater-Kinney in terms of the artists and music on the charts right now?
JW: Everyone's got their favorite bands, and it doesn't matter what they do, you want to hear them. You want to listen to what they have to say. And I hope that we're one of those bands [and] not a band that will not be satisfying in two years because we'll be doing the same thing. Which I think a lot of commercial bands are.
CB: Yeah. It seems like people are really split right now. When we're in periods of uncertainty in our culture or society, people either want to listen to people singing about important political issues, which is sort of happening now... [and] there's the other people who want to forget about it and listen to the Backstreet Boys. It seems that kind of pop music exists in times of uncertainty and fear. And definitely, as we reach the millennium, people are reaching out. It's sort of divisive right now.
JW: Pop music has seen better days, that's for sure. The days when the Kinks and Sly and the Family Stone and Jimi Hendrix were at the top of the charts all together are sadly in the background. I don't think there's room for a band like us, and sort of happily so. In a different time, we would be sort of honored to be on the charts.
MTV: Do you think there will be a time when Backstreet Boys fans become Sleater-Kinney fans?
All three: No.
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