Lothario is the fierce solo project of Naarm/Melbourne musician Annaliese Redlich, a bold and unapologetic artist who channels her emotions into punk, born from restless nights and raw energy in late 2022. Exploring themes of rebellion, desire, and conflict, Lothario’s music exudes both vulnerability and defiance. Annaliese’s lyrics capture moments of catharsis as she sheds her skin, becoming who she is and who she wants to be. Initially composed in her living room, with only her beloved cat Gene Parmesan as a witness to the exorcism of old ghosts and dreams. Lothario has now evolved into a full band for live performances. They’ve quickly gained attention with sold-out releases and a rollicking US tour in 2023. Now, with her highly anticipated debut album Hogtied out, Lothario is gearing up for a European tour this October/November. Grab her record and catch a show if you can!

ANNALIESE: I’m totally floored by how much love and support there is out there for Lothario! My cup is fucking full with love and I want to keep focusing on that because that’s such a gift. I feel vulnerable around this record, but that’s what I wanted it to be. I wanted it to be me. I wanted it to be the first thing in my life that wasn’t attributed to a man. 

It was so important to see this through as much as possible by myself, with the wonderful contributions I requested from my amazing friends on drums and my amazing brother for mixing. I really wanted to stand on my own feet and spend time staring in the mirror, asking, ‘Who am I? Do I like what I see? Do I back who I am?’ Yeah, I fucking do! So when that comes out, you do have that ‘oh shit, I’ve got nowhere to hide’ moment. The senses are heightened, the joys are heightened.

The questions in your own mind, is what ‘Hogtied’is about. It’s me asking all those questions of myself: 

If I squeal like a pig would you let me win, roll me up tight like a second skin?

If I take the crown and kill the king would it wipe the doubt that lies within within?

And if I make you a lover would it take all the trouble that terrified double life, cries in the night that haunt me?

And the knives come out when the lights go out, when the lights go out, would you steal them from me?

It’s the ongoing questions. It’s a work in progress. It’s super important for me to back myself. 

Last time we spoke for Gimmie, you said that you felt that like your life was going at warp speed; has that changed? 

A: No, absolutely not! Although this year I’ve tried to slow it down a bit. I was burnt out at the start of this year. I put the first single, ‘Drunk Fuck’ / ‘Black Hair’ out in June last year. I ended up putting two other singles, ‘Doggy’ / ‘Missing Person’ and ‘Hogtied / King Rat’ out last year, finished the year off doing a US tour, and started this year, recording and getting all the rest of the tracks done for the album. 

We’re getting ready to launch the record in Naarm/Melbourne, and then we’ll go over to Europe for a month and a bit. So it’s been wild!

That’s so exciting! We’re so happy for you.  How do you feel both you and your creativity has grown in the last year? 

A: I feel unbridled joy. I feel anxiety. The nurturing of my creativity up until this point has never been… [pauses]… I’ll try and speak in positive terms. It’s always felt like it’s come in unpredictable seasons. While I’m really comfortable with that idea of creativity ebbing and flowing, and it being a season—not worrying too much if it goes away because it will return—having felt so creatively enriched in the making of this record, that sense of burnout at the start of the year did panic me a bit.

I was like, ‘Oh gosh, here we go again. Have I rung it dry? Have I emptied the well?’ And it’s like, no, it’s still there, but you have to slow down—the warp speed wasn’t something that could keep going like that. It’s almost like a bit of mania, in a way. I need that space to sit down, go into my cave, and record to flesh the rest of the songs out. But it’s felt incredible. It’s felt like the awakening of this thing in me that’s always been there, but now I have control and animus over it—this guiding hand, kind of directing it and making it happen. That’s the most important feeling in my life. 

We’re so happy for you! And, proud of you!

A: We all have fantasies, right? Of what we could do and how amazing we could create—how many records we could make or books we could write if we didn’t have to work for ‘the man’ or do whatever. But I think the most productive times for me in the early Lothario days were when I respected my own time. It was knowing when I had to work and do my job, and then knowing when I would be creating and purely doing that. Knowing when I needed to go exercise—it’s all part of a full, varied diet. I was in my state of flow.

What part of the process of making the album did you enjoy the most? 

A: Writing the songs, coming up with riffs, layering them together—every part! [laughs] Sitting down and challenging myself with guitar solos, layering those into the mix, and seeing the songs take shape. Feeling, particularly with the ones that are more deeply personal, like I’m excising trauma or anguish or pain—committing to putting those words and thoughts down on paper, voicing them, and hearing them in a song.

There’s so many parts I enjoyed, like working with the amazing Sorcha Wilcox from band, Aardvark, for the front cover. 

It’s a stunning cover! It really stands out, and is really memorable. 

A: I’m visually driven as well. It’s a strong part of Lothario, the visual unity with the sound. That was actually a bit of a stressful point for quite a while. Everything I was trying just didn’t feel right. But then finally, in April, I had this flash of idea, and I’d seen the cover for Aardvark’s record, and since then become friends with those guys, Sorcha is their guitarist and a photographer.

I loved her ideas about art and photography. I was really drawn to her, so I called her up. I had this idea and told her about it, and she was like, ‘Fuck yeah, I want to work on that.’ I’d seen Chains Of Metal, the amazing Sydney-based maker of fetish wear, on Instagram and messaged her. She hand-makes exquisite pieces of wearable art, but I couldn’t really afford to buy them—they’re expensive but totally worth it. I threw it out there: ‘Hey, can I borrow this for a shoot?’ She wrote straight back, and I thought we would have to go through a negotiation or something. But I had already given her my address, and she was like, ‘It’s already in the mail for you. Just send it back when you’re done.’

Sorcha was ready to take the photo, and my friend Baker lent me the dagger. As soon as that idea came together, it felt so strong. It was like the feeling of all the songs coming together, and this project—a wonderful state of flow.

What’s the newest song you wrote for Hogtied? 

A: ‘G.E.N.E.’, ‘Panter’, and ‘Suckhole’. ‘Suckhole’ was the final one, and definitely the narrative’s the most terrifyingly honest. Like, here’s my experience, and fuck you! 

Was that one hard to write? 

A: It scared me to write it. It wasn’t hard to write. Once I tapped back into that experience and feeling, it flowed out. It took on its own thing. And I was like, ‘Whoa, okay. Shit, do I really want to make that public?’ I mean, it’s still a story, a creative expression; it’s not a diary of my day-to-day. But I was like, ‘Oh, do I want to own that publicly?’ I was like, ‘Yeah, I fucking do. I really, really do.’ In this process with Lothario, I’ve learned that this is probably where the important, nourishing, life-building stuff is for me. If I can learn how to be openly vulnerable, strongly vulnerable, and truthful in my experiences, that’s going to help me and hopefully resonate with others who have had similar experiences or are drawn to it for whatever reason.

Since the record came out, a few people have told me they really identified with that song. They’ve messaged me or the song’s been talked about in reviews of the record, and it was really pretty overwhelming and moving for me to hear it talked about, as a song about relationship abuse or domestic violence. Calling it that, I was like, ‘Whoa, whoa,’ and then I was like, ‘Yeah, yeah.’ I don’t know why it’s such an overwhelming feeling, but I guess it’s the externalisation of internal stuff. That process is pretty magical and amazing to me, and empowering and scary.

I’m sure a lot more people will relate to it as your record gets further out there in the world. As scary and vulnerable as it can be, it’s important that, if we’re feeling comfortable enough, we can share our bad experiences, not just the good. I went through a similar process while putting my book (Conversations With Punx) together. Some not-so-great things I’ve experienced came out in my writing and some of the conversations I had, and I had to decide whether or not to share them. I wasn’t ready to share all of them, so some got edited out. But now I’ve started to talk about more of those things, like in an interview I did recently (Future Waves zine). Seeing strong women like yourself and Amy Taylor speaking up makes me feel a little braver. You sharing your experiences in ‘Suckhole’ might help a listener realise what’s going on in their own relationship and might help them get out of a bad situation too.

A: With that song, it’s about, you think you’re standing on one solid bit of ground, right? You think you’re on one bit of territory when you start out in a relationship. And even though you’re smart and you know, you can see what’s happening, you discount that. And then the next minute you’ve slipped a bit further in and then the next minute you slipped further in. And then when you look back, you’re right in the fucking hole. In the verses it’s:

Lock jaw, sink pit, worried sick, terror fit, deaf, dumb, blind, broken down to the bit

Pinch myself but I’m not there, all the cuts are just the cost of care, right?

Broken down but gritted teeth, my eyes start to see

Snap lock break bits finally, you’re fucking dead to me 

It’s like, I’m starting to see, even in this state of no strength. I’m feeling, and I’m seeing, and I’m knowing, and I’m fucking taking this back, and you’re done. Whatever that experience and pattern and trajectory is, it’s very different for everyone, but I think that realising you’re lost means you can find yourself again and get out of whatever the situation is. I don’t want to make any definitive statements about this stuff for other people; I’m sensitive to that…

People can always take what they want from a song. Once it’s out there, it’s sort of no longer yours in a way. You can’t control how people perceive it, because everyone’s going to bring their own lens and their own experience to it. You might say it’s about something, but then someone else hears it and thinks it’s about something totally different, and that’s fine. That’s the beauty of art.

A: Yeah. For that song, I really wanted a.. obviously ‘My Pal’ by God is one of the great Australian rock songs, and stuff like Radio Birdman and The Saints, and I really wanted to wrap it in that vibe of the classic male Australian rock thing, but have this message about losing yourself and the salvation that you can find as a person in the depths of despair. I wanted it to sound like despair, but there’s also a sign of hope and cathartic. We’ve played it once live at a secret small show last week. When we played it, and when we practice it—I get really emotional.

Listening to it, you can feel that emotion. Did you get emotional recording it?

A: It’s always like that for me. When I came up with the words, it just came out that way. A big—fuck you!

Where do you tend to write most of your lyrics? 

A: Everywhere. I can be walking around and have a riff in my head or have something and my first stage is recording voice memo notes in my phone. Then, I’ll either come up with words because I’ve got a pattern that I want to fit into something, but often there’s just sentiment that comes of an experience I want to write about. 

With ‘Suckhole’ the tune felt really desperate to me and it felt dark, but then ultimately it should have redemption.

I have lots of dreams with really strong themes. ‘Hogtied’ was a dream but also based on experience. ‘King Rat’ was about a dream and a series of visions I had around a certain time. Rats kept coming up in my life.

I saw a dead rat on the beach. It was really beautiful; it was bright blue, and it was after a storm. I was like, ‘Am I hallucinating? Wow.’ I was in a really bad situation in a relationship, and I went out in the middle of COVID, in winter, to the beach down in Melbourne, to the surf, and I got a wetsuit. I was winter swimming a bit at that time to shake myself out of a funk. I’d gone for a swim around Brighton, and there was so much crap in the water and flotsam and jetsam along the shore.

I was feeling devastated and was walking when a bright turquoise-blue thing caught my eye. I thought it was a bit of plastic, but it was this big, plump, dead rat on the edge of the water. It had no fur and was beautiful and grotesque. I felt so sorry for it; I felt this sense of grief for it. I left, wondering why I kept thinking about this rat and why it looked so beautiful. It was this alien, beautiful thing in the midst of rubbish, leaves, and stuff.

Rats are so maligned and regarded as dirty in Western culture, whereas, in other cultures, they’re not. In Chinese culture, they’re in the horoscope; I’m a Year of the Rat baby. They’re cunning, smart, clean, and such social animals. They’re actually so smart and beautiful. And just the symbolism of the rat—this poor dead rat that was shining like a beautiful diamond along the coastline amidst the garbage where no one would see it, but I saw it.

I have periods of intense deep dreaming. I feel like i’ve had less this year than usual, which makes me a bit sad. It’s more just a sign of that burnout and putting my head down and getting through stuff.

Was there anything in particular that had you burning out? 

A: The US tour last year was pretty full on. You have to be careful of the people you have around you and make sure that they’re like family. I’ve never done anything more than just a couple of days with a couple of shows, chilling with mates. It’s always been really family like. You’re doing this really big, difficult thing together with not much money and who knows how much payoff. You’ve got to make sure that everyone in that group is playing their part, helping, being supportive, and respectful. My live band—Shauna Boyle (Cable Ties, Leatherman), Elsa Birrel (Shove), Jay Power, and Al Hall (Cutters)—and former members who contributed to the project’s early live shows—Billiam, Sarah Hardiman (Brick Head, Deaf Wish, Lou), Moose (Rat Bait, The Uglies), and Lach Smith (Revv, Billiam and the Split Bills)—are amazing.

Every day, there were amazing, mind-blowing people showing up. People offered us to stay at their places. We played a show in Pensacola on Halloween, which is at the top of Florida, an hour from the border with Louisiana. It was an all-ages house show at a place called the Bug House, with an age bracket mostly between 12 and 20, and some parents. There were kids running Halloween stalls, zine stalls, and everyone had costumes. One person was doing tarot readings, and there were food stalls.

A girl and a non-binary tween grabbed me after the show and were like, ‘Oh my god, we have so many questions for you. We need to know: How do you do this? How did you start this? What do you do? How did you start playing guitar?’ I just let them talk at me super excitedly. They said things like, ‘We want to play guitar,’ ‘I was playing in a band with my male friends at school, and they were like, “I don’t like them”’ and ‘Nobody wants to do what I do, and I’m so frustrated’ and ‘I want to do what I want.’ The other one said, ‘I don’t play an instrument, but I really love this. I love this and want to be part of it.’

Good stuff like that, connections like that, makes it all worth it!

A: Yes! We shut everyone else off and sat down in a little huddle to talk about my experience. I told them, ‘Don’t worry too much about it. It will come, and you will find your people. Don’t feel pressure. Keep doing your thing. But also, if you need to stop doing it for a bit, that’s okay too. Don’t judge yourself for not having the resources around you right now to actualise the thing that you ultimately want to be. If you want to be involved in shows but don’t play an instrument, maybe you could organise shows, make flyers, or be someone who goes to your friends’ shows and tells other people about them and promotes them. You could take photos. Try a bunch of things. You’ll start to make friends and find what’s right for you.’ It was just a tremendously special conversation.

Another cool moment was when we played in Detroit with Timmy’s Organism, and having Danny Kroha from The Gories in the front row watching me play guitar and writhing around on the floor screaming! I was like, what the fuck?Oh my god!

I love America because of that crazy pendulum swing of existence there, for the good and for the bad, for the scary and for the beautiful—it’s a cartoon world in a lot of ways. That appeals to me. I’ve met so many Americans in the punk scene who are so open and so heart-on-their-sleeve friendly.

You mentioned the two young people who came up to you at the Halloween show. Was there someone when you were growing up, that you had an inspiring chat with, like you did with them?

L: No, which is why I recognise the importance in doing that. When I was growing up, you and I have talked about this before in our chats, going to shows when we were kids, and sadly we didn’t see many women on the stage. The ones you would see, would blow you away.

Adalita from Magic Dirt was one of those for me.

A: Yeah, and who didn’t want to be her? She is just a fucking goddess! you know, and 

I know that you’re close to your parents; what’s do they think of your record? Have they heard it? 

A: They have, they love it! They don’t like punk music. Obviously the aesthetic and narrative of the record is not necessarily something that my parents would choose, let alone choose to see their daughter excising. But they’re so proud. Dad and mum actually made it to a show when they were working in St. Louis. Mum had seen us play a few times. Dad had never seen us play. Dad’s a classical music guy, but he was cheering and losing his shit!  He was proud as punch. All these younger punks were coming up to him and having photos taken with him.

The themes on the record are pretty universal to the human condition. But, I’m a female and they’re my experiences of the hypocrisy of the patriarchy and treatment of women’s bodies. My mum’s a big one for words and she’s asked me about a lot of the songs. She is really proud and amazed that I can access and articulate my own experiences and excise my feelings and express his stuff. When she saw the cover, she was like, ‘Whoa, that’s powerful! So that’s, It really is. 

That’s awesome! I see that the record is pretty much sold out everywhere already! Congratulations.

A: I should be getting the records tomorrow from the States—I cannot wait to see it! They’ll be some available at the launch, if there’s any left over they’ll go up on the bandcamp. 

I’m sure you’ll sell all those at the show. All of your previous releases, the 7”s have been long sold out.

A: I’m always amazed and thrilled that happens!

You’re such a sellout! In the best way possible. 

[Laughter].

A: Yeah, unashamedly so!

You’ll be doing a European tour soon; what are you most looking forward to doing in Europe, besides playing shows?

A: Wild Wax that’s bringing us over asked is there anywhere particularly you want to tour? I was like, ‘I don’t care, anywhere that will have us.’ I love seeing places when I’m making music or DJing or just meeting music communities. I can’t wait to cruise around after the tour is finished. I’ve always wanted to go to Spain, so I’m particularly pumped for that. It seems so beautiful and romantic. My best friend’s coming over at the end of tour and we’re going to Turkey and Greece for a bit. 

I’m also looking forward to seeing my friend Marion, who is Fuzzgun, and he plays in Autobahns and Lassie, he does guest guitar on Panter too. They were out here in January doing a tour, and they stayed with me. He’s gonna be in our band in Germany because our guitarist Al can’t come. We’re’ landing in Leipzig and we’re gonna hang out at Marion’s place, he lives in a squat with Jules from Autobahns and Marion’s beautiful partner Tati. I’m looking forward to seeing what a European gas station is like too [laughs]. I’m sure we’ll see lots of them. I just can’t fucking believe I get to do this—it’s it’s a thrill for sure! 

Hopefully we can wrangle a US tour next year and maybe a bit more Europe. I don’t really want to stop. I want to keep going as long as we can.

We’re interested to see where Lothario goes next creatively. All your releases have been in a way are inspired by certain challenging life stuff, it’s cool to imagine where you might go now you’re in a better place.

A: There’s a song that I don’t have a title for yet, it has a catchy pop-ness like ‘Black Hair’, but even more so. I was really surprised when I wrote it. People I’ve shown it to have given it Joy Division comparisons, and Jay Retard. It has a post-punk meets edgier punk feel too. Maybe I’m leaning into that a little bit. I’m really excited.

My brother, is an amazing music producer and is one of my biggest supporters. He creates really polished music for other people. I don’t want to do that with this, but he was talking about how he’d love to record stuff for me; I recorded the other stuff all myself. I am equal parts totally keen and absolutely don’t want to do that. I don’t want to change the vibe. I don’t really want to overthink it too much. 

Anything else to share with us?

[Annaliese’s cat appears]

A: I wrote a tribute song to my cat Gene Parmesan [‘G.E.N.E.’] I imagined him as a street tough, a punk walking the night, being tough—a wild cat! just, He was my omnipresent producer in all the sessions. I’d record in the living room and he’d start to do zoomies and I’d be trying to ge a guitar take, and he’d run over the top of my lap and I’d fuck it up at the last minute [laughs]. He’s been my rock in my, in my darkest times. 

Follow: @xlothariox. Find the music HERE.