Lothario is here! And we couldn’t be more stoked. A new solo punk project from Naarm/Melbourne-based creative Annaliese Redlich, who is also the host of 3RRR radio show Neon Sunset; producer of podcast All Ears – exploring the ways music challenges, comforts and connects us; she’s also a DJ; AND she’s so much more as you’ll find out reading this conversation. 

Lothario debuts with 7” single ‘Drunk Fuck / Black Hair’ – a vulnerable and agitated, raw expression of wildness. We’ve been lucky enough to also hear a sneak peek of her up coming full-length album, which we can attest, is filled with sharp-edged raucous expressions of love and personal power. Heavy underground hitters – Ishka aka Tee Vee Repairmann and Rob Craig aka Buck Biloxi feature on tracks. There’s all kinds of legends in her current live band too.

Annaliese recently stopped by Gimmie HQ for a long yarn about her world. There were tears, joy and laughter, as she shared her story of how she got to where she’s at and where she’s going next. 

What’s life been like for you lately? 

ANNALIESE: It’s a really wonderful place to start. I feel like life has been at warp speed for me lately. I’ve been finally feeling like so much stuff in my life has been opening up and calling for action from me, in ways and places that will just keep growing. My biggest desire as an energetic person, is to follow through on all of those things. I’m also finally learning a bit of rhythm with my creativity, I’m getting to understand the libido of my creativity. Before, it used to be this thing that kind of jumped through the window and surprised me or affected me at certain times in my life heartbreak and loss. Now it’s its own existing creature that is very active. So, life lately has felt very fast but good, not out of control. 

Isn’t it great when creativity comes, almost like a calling, you get this feeling, and you just feel compelled to do it. You have to!

A: That situation has allowed me to be my truest self. I’ve often questioned it, but I’ve just done it anyway, and it’s kind of alarming. But it’s also really good to know that this little thing is stirring inside of you like a magnet, pulling you through all of your own layers of bullshit or self-understanding or terrible narrative towards the thing that is most important for you to do, even if it’s kind of scary or ugly or concerning, or doesn’t often look like it’s going to be the most amazing thing you’ve done. But then a while later you’re like, oh yeah, my compass was working. That was good. 

Yeah, previously you’ve mentioned about how you sometimes might have an opportunity, but you realise that it’s not the right time.

A: Yeah. You could say that with relationships too. Timing is everything. If you’re talking about getting something in your life from A to B, if a journey or an experience has got to be linear like, that, cool, I started here and I ended up there; I don’t think life really works like that. 

I know in my creative life, in my journey of self-understanding, it’s like it’s all about creating new neural pathways. Maybe it won’t be by the time that I reach that endpoint or reach that next phase that I wanted to, but something else really fucking cool or interesting will happen on the way that will inform me about a whole other landscape that I need to be a part of. You got to be philosophical like that.

You’re originally from Meeanjin/Brisbane? 

A: Yeah. Born in Brisbane, moved to Melbourne to finish uni and to just feel a closer connection with music at my fingertips. I hung out in various punk scenes there. I’d go to The Art House all the time, seeing every possible show, and DIY shows across Melbourne. 

The first kind of biggest unconscious pull for me, well, other than going to Melbourne, was starting to volunteer at Triple R radio. I loved listening to the radio but I had zero interest in being on it. In terms of having any kind of on air engagement, I was terrified actually. Even going in and volunteering to help out on phones, because I was like, oh, there’s going to be all these cool music people there, and everyone’s going to be probably a wanker, just too cool for me. whatever, let alone any thought about doing on air stuff. The second that I got there, not only did I feel completely comfortable, but in the most sort of surprising way. I was around so many different kinds of people, all with this common pull to this great place that allowed a diversity of being and expression. They were just like, do a read on air and do a graveyard slot. And I was like, no, okay, they kept harassing me. I felt very lucky to be asked to do that stuff, but had zero self confidence with it. Then I was like, wait a minute, I’ve always collected records, I’ve always played music. I did some DJ nights in Brisbane with my rock and roll records. I thought, oh, wait, why can’t I do it? Why not me? Yeah, sure. Not many people get that chance. Not many people get that level of egging on. That turned into a year of a radio show, then two years of a radio show. Now I’m up to nine years, through a few different time slots, which is wild.

Now I’m a podcast producer, it’s shape me now as an audio producer. I have just learned how to multi-track through that and produce the 7” single for Lothario.  I’ll be putting out a full record at the end of year, too. It all comes from that, so it’s wild.

We’re really excited for it. I was listening to the Lothario tracks you sent through and I’ve seen some live vids online stuff. It feels like it’s a really powerful project for you. It seems like you’re really stepping into yourself and your own power. Lothario has a real hypersexual-vibe that’s coming from a place of empowerment and self-definition…

A: And, hyper-aggression and hyper-vulnerability. It’s great to hear you say that. It really feels like that for me and that’s not something that I actually anticipated or thought about. The fact that anyone else would pick up on that or care about it means a lot. That was a really beautiful insight. 

When I first started this, I had a flood of music ideas at the end of the year last year. I always had this dream to do it. I love playing in bands. I love the energy of other people in the way that, an idea that I might have, when I play it with a group of people or someone brings in a part or mishears it and it changes; it turns into this beautiful other thing. Collaboration, has always been so important to me. But I’ve also just always wondered what it would be like to take something 100% on my shoulders. How maybe that process could happen in myself; what would it feel like to be actually in control of the tool that you’re using and create what it was that was in your mind. I never thought I could do that. 

I always wanted to do this kind of multi-tracked, very organic, not kind of clean or clinical in a production sense, but create something with samples or live guitar and vocals. I just always reach this point of I can’t figure it out; I can’t finish the song. Or I finish the composition, but I can’t fucking make it how I want it. I’ve done one guitar track. I’d managed to do some bass in there, but I can’t do the drums – it was this gaffer tape and rubber band situation that did my head in and I gave up. My creative process got totally stifled and the libido got crushed out of it. 

When I sat down to have another crack at it, and I wasn’t even consciously doing it, I was like, I’ve got this riff. Cool. Oh, well, I can use Pro Tools now, and I know how to do that because I’ve created podcast series. I thought surely I can give it a go. I don’t know drums, so I’ll just like, bang on the table to do a metronome for it. Wait, I got an idea for a vocal line plugged in. And it’s like, oh, cool. That feels good.

I got talking to my friend Rob Craig in Louisiana, who’s a musician called Buck Biloxi, he’s sort of a (I will say this in kind of hilarious inverted quotes) “elder statesman” of New Orleans punk. He’s a kind of one man band situation himself, but has had a lot of groups Buck Biloxi and the Fucks and Giorgio Murderer. He was like, ‘I’d love to hear your music.’ And I was like, oh, I can’t. No one’s hearing it. It’s very private. I can’t play drums. He’s like, ‘You can figure it out.’ 

I sent him the tracks, and I was just like, oh, my gosh. Because while he’s a mate, I really hold him in very high esteem. And I was just going through this point in my life where my inner narrative was like, everything you do sucks. Don’t hide your vulnerable self from the world. Do you know how that works? How about you try the other thing? I was actively going through this thing of, yes, but maybe I’ll do the opposite. I thought he was probably going to hate them. Oh, my god. 

He wrote back straight away and was really into it.He said, ‘Can I record some drums for you? Would you like that?’ I was like, yeah! He did, and it just worked. Then I was getting flooded with these ideas and had this set up in my living room.

Lothario is a character. I’m not just hypersexual. I’m not just hyper-angry. I’m also vulnerable. I’m all of these things. I’m not hiding, I don’t want to hide anymore. I don’t have like an instrument to hide behind either [laughs]. 

I’ve done lots of musical projects, mostly in the punk, garage, rock and roll realms, but also, at the same time as doing that, I was the front woman for a late 50s to mid 60s soul and R&B-style band, singing like Etta James. We were called Anna-Lee & the Double Lovers. I did that from 2000 – kind of a foundational Jamaican ska and rocksteady classics thing, not so much Motown. I started it with a bunch of guys that I knew who were all professional players. But we’re all these record nerds because I love collecting 45s. I love that music! There’s all of these amazing tracks, like B-side tracks that nobody knows and they’re the most heartbreaking, gut-wrenching, incredible songs. And we all had these records and I was like, oh, let’s get together.!

I love that idea of putting on a glitter gown and creating a show. I would do my hair in a beehive. And the guys had the right gear, the right amps, and we really worked on the sound. I love performing a show and playing a character. Having nowhere to hide because I was just out the front was really challenging. It was about becoming a better singer. It’s hard work. I love getting physical and being present. I feel I do struggle with the guitar, so I feel a little bit hogtied. So doing this is kind of a bit more freeing. All these Lothario songs, it’s the most exciting, most validating or satisfying thing I’ve ever done.

The live band is Billiam and Locke, who plays with Billiam a lot. Moose from The Uglies is going to play bass and Sarah Hardiman wants to join on guitar for a couple of shows. And, Steph Crase (Skid City, Fair Maiden, Batrider) from Summer Flake. I’ve looked up to them for so long. While I really want to build a relationship, I love these people and I love having people want to be involved in making music with me, particularly this music; I love the idea of it not being the way I started this. Why do we have to be wedded to the same players? It’s important to get the right mix of people. I might even get to play love with my mate Rob from Rob New Orleans that I mentioned. What an honour. How exciting. We’ll see how Lothario evolves.

It must be really liberating to have project that’s so fluid!

A: Yeah. I am going to the States for a couple of months at the end of the year and I already have an American touring band. We’re going to do some dates there, probably in the southern parts. I have mates in LA and New York that could do some shows or I could do some shows, just me, OG Lothario.

Once I realised that the worst demons are the ones that you carry yourself and nobody probably says things bad about you as you bad  as you say about yourself… once you can fucking sit down and take a good hard look at that stuff in you, that’s haunting you and holding you back, or can reframe that in good directions for you, then the rest, is pretty easy.

Yeah, you have to do the work. if you look at yourself and you do it honestly (I’ve done that myself in the last few years) and you work on that doubting self-talk and things that haunt you and a finally live your life in the truth, all the best things start to happen for you. There’s a confidence that comes with truth, there’s no my truth, only the truth.

A: It really does. It’s so true. I see a counsellor. I thought I was living in my truth. I was always looking for that truth. There’s a level of confusing shit that you have to go through sometimes to figure out which way your compass points.

I’m always in awe of many of the musicians that we know and love through Gimme that you highlight that are in great bands that really resonate, especially younger people. It’s not about popularity, it’s about, these people are in their skin. You can tell that they’re in their creative skin really early.

I’m always impressed by passionate people, especially those that find what they love young, dedicate themselves to it, and stay the course. A lot of people in life don’t even know what they’re passionate about, if anything. What made you choose the name, Lothario? 

A: It’s kind of a joke! I’m aware that “Lothario” is an attractive man who swindles women out of whatever they have that they want, ruthlessly and in cold blood. I’m interested to know why there’s the double standard of women in music, of the way that our sexuality is presented (I can’t believe we still have to fucking talk about this, by the way) but the fact that if you’re up on stage and performing publicly you’re in the gaze, but you’re not doing it for the gaze. So many things are asked, and are expected, of women and people presenting as women that aren’t even questioned with men. I guess I’m taking stock of my own sexuality and sexual drive. Sometimes people are well-meaning but other times dickheads come up to me, and ask me, ‘Oh, did you write all of that?’

That’s just gross. People would never go up to a male musician and ask if he writes all the songs.

A: Yeah. It’s like thanks for the compliment, you’re essentially saying that you like the riffs, you like the song, you like the chorus. That’s cool, but would you say that to a dude? You fucking wouldn’t.

You’ve told me in previous bands you’d mostly write about love and heartache; is that still the case with Lothario?

A:Yeah. I was going through a tremendous amount of heartache and writing about it. Processing soul crushing heartbreak stuff, and also the potential spark of love again. 

I may call my LP this, Loser Songs For Lovers or Love Songs For Losers. It’s not an entirely original idea, but the record is like a trajectory of heartbreak from, like, holy fuck, I don’t even know who you are in a relationship anymore, and where did you go? Then the crushing devastating loneliness and sadness, grief. And, I’m going to go out hook up and crush a beer can against my head. I was kind of leaning into that character of the stupid bloke that you see out in the street on countless strip malls, in countless capital cities every Friday/Saturday night, just charging around, fucking and fighting. I found I have a fair bit of that in me [laughs]. I’ve never fought people, but in my own level of intensity and energy, gone out and destroyed myself. It’s like, oh, gosh, here I am in this incredibly emotionally vulnerable state, and I go out with my couple of my mates, just out all night doing naughty things, but kind of hurting ourselves. What if I made that into a character and it’s just even questioning in myself, am I questioning that because I’m a woman and I shouldn’t be doing that? What if I was a lad, a bloke? I’d be fucking celebrating it. I’m going to fucking fight tonight. Yeah, all right! You just need that no nonsense anthem to charge to, which is a bit of what this is about.

What was the first song that you totally followed through on and finished?

I finished ‘Black Hair’ and ‘Drunk Fuck’ pretty much at the same time. Those songs will be a 7”. It was important to me to pair those because it was a prolific period.

‘Drunk Fuck’ is: Six ft-something with nothing to say / But Saturday night it’ll be okay / Bored and horny, getting dumber by the day / It’s Saturday night in the USA / It’ll be okay / You look all right in the blacklight / Come on and touch me up and give me that drunk fuck. Just fucking take, take, smash, smash!

‘Black Hair’ is about being shut down and shut off, and then seeing that very unexpected spark with someone. Like, whoa! What was that? Do I trust this? No, I don’t trust this. I’ve been here before. Fuck. I don’t want to, but could this be it? Could this be it? It’s a sign. That door is starting to open. And maybe you’re letting that light in a little bit. It was funny to me that I wrote those both at the same time because they were both things that were happening and they’re still both happening. 

So you’re still working on tracks for the full-length album;  the ones I’ve heard  are demo versions? 

A: They might not even be. I’ve got another six, so I don’t know. There’s offers to put out 7”’s on other labels, then I’ve got Under The Gun I’ve just confirmed for an LP for around the end of the year.

That’s so exciting. You put a snippet up on your instagram of song ‘Doggy’, which we love.

A: Originally I was going to call it ‘Good Dog’. Ishka from Tee Vee Repairmann plays drums on that one. 

Awesome! Ishka is the loveliest and so talented. Do you have a favourite song you’ve written?

A: One of my favourites on the album is labelled as ‘OD’  or ‘Overdrawn’. ‘Overdrawn’ is: Headed out tonight, won’t stop till the daylight / Pretend that you are dead, wish we’d never met / Overdrawn and I’m outta my head an dI feel like shit.It’s really about self-punishing. There’s no libido in that, actually.

A lot of the narrative of the album is about self-loathing and punishing yourself; is there a moment where things change for the positive? 

A: Yeah. Kind of stuff with ‘Black Hair’. It’s a bit sweet, but there’s still a whole lot of jdark.

Song ‘Hogtied’ is musically quite dark, it’s all about breaking up with the self. It’s looking inwards. Although, it’s named because my best friend and I sing the Hog’s Breath Cafe theme song to each other a lot, and we were talking about Hogs Breath Cafe. But really, it’s looking inwards and asking; what do I have to do to be enough? What do I have to do to if I do this? If I do that? If I break the crown and kill the king will that wipe the doubt that lies within? 

It’s about a dream that I had ten years ago where it was actually, this whole aesthetic of Lothario. I went to sleep one night and I woke up differently the next day. This huge thing in my consciousness had shifted with it, and I wrote it out. It was about the most gruesome gory battle that I had to face of killing the king, who was like my beloved father. I was small and not the same grandeur as him. I pulled out this little tiny knife and I just ended it. There was a lot going on for me at that time, but it’s the insight that I’ve gotten at different points in my life. My dreams are very important to me, and very powerful.

Very much like the dreamer! Proud of you and this project, Lothario, Annaliese. Oh, and FYI just in case you’re still wondering—you’re totally enough, now and always.

A: Awww thank you. I love you.

Lothario’s ‘Drunk Fuck / Black Hair’ 7” available to preorder digitally HERE and coming soon on 7” via Italian label Goodbye Boozy Records. Follow @xlothariox.