Lambrini Girls Have Plushies Named "Mr. Piss" and "Homicide"
And that's just a start.
Welcome to mixed feelings’ Hyperspecific, a profile series of increasingly intimate questions in which we ask our favorite artists, scientists, musicians, and the like to unveil their innermost selves — their weird existential musings.
I don’t know what I was expecting upon meeting the Lambrini Girls — an artist duo based out of Brighton known for their inclusive riot grrrl-esque hits like “Cuntology 101,” “Filthy Rich Nepo Baby,” and “Terf Wars” — but it wasn’t this scale of full-tilt conversational romp.
I learned about these two bold and brash women (meant utterly positively) through Teen Vogue’s equally punk-rock profile by Lex McMenamin. Phoebe Lunny and Lilly Macieira have proven time and time again through their music that they will always stand up for what they believe in. And what they believe is: TERFs suck, feminism has evolved to include everyone other than cis men, and F*ck Trump, among many millions of other things, (as you can see below).
Wildly unserious until they’re required to be otherwise, Lunny and Macieira left me with my sides split. In between condemning sh*t behavior from political leaders through music that’s meant to be listened to twice over to catch its real meaning, it’s nice to occasionally chat about the beauty of having a cocktail and a cigarette on the beach.
And this is exactly that. The unserious world of Lambrini Girls is yours for the taking.
LEVEL I
Something you’re always hoping people bring up in conversation when you first meet.
Phoebe: What’s my favorite dinner food?
Lilly: Lasagna.
Phoebe: It’s got to be made really angrily. I want my lasagna to taste like the first time I fell off my bike as a child.
Lilly: Made with anger, not love.
What’s a positive trait people always tell you?
Lilly: I get told that I give good advice, and yet I very seldom follow it.
Phoebe: People tell me that I make it easy to be themselves around [me], which is lovely. But I think that's just because I make myself look like a massive fucking idiot, so you don't really have much to live up to.
One destructive trait you know you possess and wish you didn’t.
Phoebe: I can sink a lot of pints, to my detriment, and I'll never stop. Probably because it's fun.
Lilly: I really struggle to connect with people, so I tend to isolate myself a lot, and that means that I don't get to connect, which is silly. Self-isolation is probably my most destructive trait.
If a bodega were to name a dish after you, what would it be? (Be specific.)
Phoebe: Fuck salad.
Lilly: Yeah, it’s got to be fuck salad. What else would you need, apart from a fuck salad? Yeah. It’s got to be a staple in your weekly shop.
Phoebe: Bon appetit.
MF: Does it come with a drink?
Lilly: No.
Phoebe: No. Dry.
Lilly: You got to buy that separate.
Phoebe: Yeah, that’s extra.
One song that makes you feel understood.
Phoebe: There's a British band — I think they're from the nineties — and they were called Chumbawamba. And they did a song, called “Tubthumping,” and that's a banger. “He drinks a whiskey drink, he drinks a vodka drink, he drinks a lager drink, he drinks a cider drink.” That is a great song, and I love a night out, so that makes me feel truly understood. Thank you. Chumbawamba.
Lilly: Yeah, I think that one, and “I Got Heaven” by Mannequin Pussies. One of Phoebe's favorite bands. And now mine too.
Something you think is wildly underrated.
Phoebe: Red pandas. They're the best. They're the cutest fuckers I've ever seen and nobody's talking about them. So, red pandas are very underrated. We actually…Can we talk about bands that we think are underrated? Our friends are in a band called CLT DRP, and they're literally, they're like queer new metal. They're probably some of the best musicians we've ever met, and we've had the privilege of being able to have them on tour with us before and they are the most slept-on band in the music industry.
Lilly: Yeah, they're amazing. That's one of the things where I'm like, I don't understand this industry or this world because they are so unbelievably good. Super unique in what they do, as well, and I've never heard anything like it, and it's so moving. I don't think I've ever watched them and not teared up. There's so much power. So yeah. CLT DRP.
Phoebe: Get them to America.
LEVEL II
A movie/tv show you watch when you want to self-soothe.
Lilly: Pride and Prejudice. 2005.
Phoebe: You watch it, like, all the time. After every tour.
Lilly: Every time I get my period. Every time I'm about to get my period. Every time I come back from tour. Every time I'm hungover. Yeah. So, it's on permanent rotation in my house. I love it.
Phoebe: Cars 2. Great film. The cars become spies.
Lilly: Oh, Shrek 2 is great as well.
Phoebe: Shrek 2 is great. Shrek 3 is fucking awful. Absolutely. Sorry, Justin Timberlake, you were shit in that. Shrek 4… I don't like it. Lilly loves it.
Lilly: I love it. It’s my favorite of the Shreks. It's great. I'm not going to get into it. If you want to talk about it, give me a call.
Phoebe: “Do the roar. I love you Daddy.”
Your problematic fave artist/actor/musician/character (dead or alive). And why?
Lilly: That is crazy.
Phoebe: That is crazy. I can tell you who my least problematic– I mean, like, problematic, anti-fave.
Lilly: Me. Me. I'm slightly problematic behind closed doors, as we all are, whilst I'm working shit out.
Phoebe: Björk! Björk. Yes. I will stand by it every time she wants to punch a photographer in the face. I’ll back her. Fuck yeah.
Lilly: Yeah. That wasn't problematic.
Phoebe: No, it wasn't. That photographer was a prick. But I guess you could maybe call punching photographers problematic.
What is the first fandom you lost yourself in…
Lilly: Tokio Hotel. When I was little, I grew up in Germany, and they were massive there, obviously. I was just completely, utterly obsessed with them. I went to [my first concert] on my ninth birthday. My mom took me and I watched Tokio Hotel and they were my favorite band for many years. That was the first proper obsession.
Phoebe: I'm trying to think of an actual fandom opposed to just bands I liked when I was younger. You know what, I'll say it. I fucking loved One Direction. I pretended like I didn't.
Lilly: [My favorite was] Harry. But also Niall because he's Irish. Big up. But yeah, I fucking loved One Direction when I was younger.
MF: What was your favorite song?
Lilly: Kiss You. The music video? It's fucking great.
What is something you bought recently after LOTS of research?
Phoebe: I bought a point-and-shoot recently. I don't take pictures on my phone. I'm really bad at it and I have awful memory. So we'll go on amazing tours and we'll do all these amazing things and I can't remember anything. I literally can't remember shit. So I've been doing that now, which is great. And because I'm useless, I needed a hand on actually researching what to get. So we've got that now.
Lilly: I got a new tattoo recently… And it always takes me a really long time to commit to a tattoo, obviously. [My most recent one is from] Amy, her Instagram's @alleycatzaps. I think she lives in Brighton and does her tattoos mostly out of Brighton or London.
What is the most random thing you have in your home that requires explanation?
Lilly: I have this weird little – it's like a stuffed toy [with my] boyfriend's face, because we are both musicians and we go on tour a lot. So, he got me this little stuffed version of himself for when he goes on tour, and it's quite disconcerting and a little bit unsettling. And every time people come into my house, they're a little taken aback by it. There's just a really big face and a tiny little body…on my couch that has my boyfriend's face on it. That's always a big, “Whoa. What's going on there?”
Phoebe: I didn't have anything like that. [I guess] I have a stuffed panda toy called Derek.
Lilly: Oh yeah, shout out Derek. Sorry I didn't take you with me to America. He's going to be mad, but I dunno. I feel like someone in their late twenties probably shouldn't have a cuddly toy.
Lilly: How dare you?
Phoebe: Well, not for me, but I'm saying from an outsider's perspective, people might be like, why have you got that? Answer is: Derek's fucking sick. And he's a legend.
Lilly: I have two little Guinea pigs, stuffed Guinea pigs, not real ones. One's called “Mr. Piss” and the other one's called “Homicide” and I take them everywhere with me.
LEVEL III
What’s an anecdote you usually tell to describe how you were as a kid?
Phoebe: I don't know. I used to, like, chew electrical cables. I used to make things called mud pies. I don't know if you — do you have mud pies in the states? Basically, you dig a hole and you get all of the mud and you put it back in the hole. And then I used to piss in it as well. I used to chew for electrical cables. I used to bite people. I was very sporty. I used to bite people in sports and football…I was goalie. If you came near? *mocks biting* Nuh! I had a great time. That's kind of what I was like as a kid.
Lilly: I was the complete and utter opposite. My mom was really into rollerblading and I hated anything like that and she always made me do it. And I grew up in Berlin, which is a super green city. We were rollerblading down this street [that was] basically a street straight through a forest. And apparently, I just kind of stopped rollerblading and just waddled over to the forest and found a tree stump. And I sat on it and I was just like, “Mommy, look at the forest. It's so beautiful here.” And then she was like, okay, this child is not going to rollerblade. Let's go on. Yeah, it was very Lilly-coded.
What is your low-key hell and actual heaven?
Phoebe: Being hungover on a tube, a.k.a. the subway, with loads of noise going on and chundering everywhere…But yeah, I'd say that would be my hell. And then my heaven would be, I dunno, being around lots of people I love and then playing a sick show and having all of the food I want.
Lilly: A busy street in the city center is a nightmare for me. Any major crowd, actually, unless it's a show, is kind of hell. I don't like it. I will not stand for it. Heaven: I guess, like, sitting on the beach with a cocktail and a cigarette, and the sun's shining. Yeah, that's pretty much as good as it gets, I think.
Phoebe: 1 million ciggies = heaven.
What is your most unhinged coping mechanism?
Phoebe: Backflips.
MF: You can do that?
Phoebe: I could do it right now. I could backflip out of this window if I wanted to. I feel like it would be a bit of a safety hazard, so I'll spare you. But yeah, that's what I do when I get stressed.
Lilly: I can’t. She’s lying. [Laughs] I just have weird ones. When I get really anxious, I have to eat something really sour, so I always have a little anxiety pouch with, like, propranolol. I have Tiger Balm. I’m really into Tiger Balm right now. It helps so much. So that, Tiger Balm, sour sweets, propranolol, and just anything that I can, like, smell.
Phoebe: Hair dryer as well.
Lilly: I do blow dry myself for hours, just to soothe myself. [It’s] a very expensive habit, but boy does it work. Yeah, actually, low-key heaven is just me in bed with a hair dryer and my book.
What is one random thing you hate so much for no apparent reason.
Phoebe: Swans. I hate swans. I fucking hate swans. Every time I see one at the park, I'll give it one of these [middle finger], because, number one, they were all owned by the queen. She's gross. Whole royal family is. Number two, they attack babies. Number three, if you get too close with a swan, they will break your arm. They're arrogant. I've seen them do some dodgy shit. So I hate swans, I despise swans.
Lilly: Hate a lot of things. I'm a very hateful person. Swans are definitely up there. I really hate, like, I think it's less about things and more about people who do certain things, you know? I really hate loud noises — as in loud noises that I'm not making.
Phoebe: That's so fair.
Lilly: Yeah. Hate it. Sucks. I wish everyone would be quiet except for me.
Phoebe: I stand by that.
How you exit a party.
Phoebe: [I] Irish exit. Always.
Lilly: You Irish goodbye it?
Phoebe: Yeah. I love it. Like, there's too many people to say goodbye to. Get an Uber. Get myself a kebab on the way home.
Lilly: I like to kind of just slide out, create a little water slide situation, get some washing-up liquid on the floor.
Phoebe: Yeah, I’ve seen you do that, to be fair. I saw you do it belly-first once.
Lilly: Can someone get the door please? And I’m there like, “Here I go!”
Phoebe: Slip and slide.
How you wanna go (either un-seriously or seriously).
Phoebe: I’d like to be shot out of a cannon. I've thought about this before, quite a few times. I'd like to be shot out of a cannon…in my late 60s, specifically 69 would be fantastic. What a way to go. And I want fireworks in the cannon. So when I'm out — when I'm blasted up there into the sky — the fireworks go up and I'm like, “Fuck.” And all my kids and grandkids, they're like, “Bye bye!” That's it. Genuinely. That's how I’d like to go. Or maybe get cremated and then someone scatters my ashes.
Lilly: What? Get cremated alive?
Phoebe: No. Scatter my ashes on the moon. But not in an elitist, Katy Perry way. In a way where someone just happens to be on the moon, and then they, like, gaffer tape my ashes to the moon floor for a laugh.
Lilly: I want a very elegant death. Most likely, it'll be me wanting to go into an aquarium or something. Probably my last wish would be, “Can I please go in that aquarium right now?” And that's how I go. I think. I love aquariums. I love fish. Actually love them. I went to an aquarium on my birthday by myself this year.
MF: To be clear: How are you dying in the aquarium?
Lilly: I'm getting in.