Corin Tucker

At 51 years old, Corin Tucker has this physical status:

Starting in 1991, Tucker has been a singer, guitarist, and songwriter in a number of rock bands. In 1999, Esquire wrote that Tucker "has been the most interesting singer in pop music since 1991, when she first opened her mouth in public, in a two-woman drums-and-guitar punk band with the wonderful name of Heavens to Betsy."

Tucker is usually the front person and lead singer. One reviewer noted, "Her voice is enormous, with a natural swing--the sort of swing that neither Tina Turner nor Mick Jagger has ever had, the ability to take a note and ring it like a bell in a tower."

Tucker was a founding member of the influential riot grrrl band Heavens to Betsy along with Tracy Sawyer, a longtime friend from Eugene, Oregon. Tucker played the first public show of her career when the band performed at the International Pop Underground Convention in August 1991. Heavens to Betsy recorded a split single with Bratmobile, and a number of singles for independent record labels. The band released a self-titled demo in 1992, the four-song 7" record These Monsters Are Real in 1992, the album Calculated in 1994, and the 7" four-song Direction in 1994. The band broke up in 1994. Rolling Stone wrote, "Heavens to Betsy [was] one of the standout acts connected to the riot-grrrl movement."

Heartless Martin, was Tucker's "one-off collaboration" with Becca Albee of Excuse 17. Heartless Martin released a five-song EP, Tonight. One reviewer noted, "This EP is a definite stunner with heart breaking simple songs and lyrics highlighting Corin’s voice as it cuts through the lo-fi recording and lands square in the middle of your chest."

After Heavens to Betsy split in 1994, Tucker formed Sleater-Kinney with Excuse 17 member Carrie Brownstein and friend Lora McFarlane. Tucker wrote most of the lyrics, sang lead vocals, and played second guitar to Brownstein's lead, with the duo collaborating on music. Janet Weiss eventually replaced McFarlane on drums. In 1999, Esquire said Sleater-Kinney was "the best band in the world." They released seven albums over the span of eleven years before going on hiatus in 2006. On August 12, 2006, the band played what was supposed to be their final show at Crystal Ballroom in Portland. However, the band reunited and recorded No Cities to Love in 2015, followed by The Center Won't Hold in 2019, and Path of Wellness in 2021.

During her time with Sleater-Kinney, Tucker worked on a side project, Cadallaca, with organist Sarah Dougher and drummer STS of The Lookers. In 1998, Cadallaca released their first album Introducing Cadallaca. They released an EP, Out West, on Kill Rock Stars in 2000.

In April 2010, Tucker announced she was recording a solo album for Kill Rock Stars. Unwound's Sara Lund and Golden Bear's' Circus Lupus and Seth Lorinczi assisted Tucker with this project which was dubbed The Corin Tucker Band. The album 1,000 Years was released on October 5, 2010, and was streamed via NPR. The album's eleven songs were different from other Tucker projects—many of the songs were slower folk and Americana, and Tucker played acoustic guitar. Tucker said the album is "definitely more of a middle-aged mom record, in a way. It's not a record that a young person would write... There's some sadness, some reinvention, some rebirth." She sited post-punk acts like the English Beat, The Raincoats, The Slits, and Sinead O'Connor's The Lion and the Cobra as influences for 1,000 Years.

Most reviews of the album were positive. Rolling Stone wrote, "She's not shredding the awesome vocal cords so much, but she gets fierce in other ways, trying on cellos and piano ballads. When she finally cranks it up Sleater-Kinney-style on 'Doubt,' it feels earned: a cry of self-determination, as inspiring as ever." Pitchfork said, "This album's strengths—its intimacy, its containment, its subtlety—are not the qualities that made Sleater-Kinney great, but it would be ungenerous to dismiss this because it's not as thrilling, confrontational, or exuberant." However, an Entertainment Weekly reviewer wrote that the album's songs "sound scrapbooked from other ’90s-centric acts (Liz Phair, Pavement) but never take on a form of their own." The band toured on both U.S coasts to support 1,000 Years, in addition to a few festival dates in other parts of the country.

The Corin Tucker Band's second album, Kill My Blues, was released on September 18, 2012 and contained twelve songs. In an interview, Tucker said, "For this record, we really bonded, the four of us, being on tour and playing music together, so in writing this record, we all worked together in the practice space, writing these songs and just enjoying the writing process and everything that came out of it." The resulting songs cover "the finite nature of existence, the stalemate of our political climate, a moment in the transition from girlhood to womanhood…[and] love of different kinds." This album also sounded more like a Sleater-Kinney album than 1,000 Years. One reviewer wrote, "This album harks somewhat to the glory days of the Riot Grrrl Olympia scene of the late ’90s, but it’s by no means retrospective or reactionary." However, another reviewer correctly predicted Kill My Blues "will inevitably go down as one of the most underrated albums of the year." This album was also supported by a nationwide tour.

Alt-rock "supergroup" Filthy Friends is another side project for Tucker, with Tucker on lead vocals and R.E.M.'s Peter Buck on guitar, along with other musician friends rounding out the band. The two met when Tucker's husband worked on a film project with R.E.M. Formed in 2014, Filthy Friends has released two albums: Invitation (2017) and Emerald Valley (2019). On both albums, Tucker wrote the majority of the lyrics to match Buck's music.

On Emerald Valley, she played Buck's Fender Musicmaster guitar. Tucker said, "It's a smaller-sized Fender guitar, and I love it. It's really different, and it makes me play differently in this band, because I usually play a Gibson Les Paul and I'm usually a rhythm guitar player, almost a bass player, in Sleater-Kinney."

Tucker has worked on a variety of other musical projects. She sang back-up vocals on two of Peter Buck's solo albums, including Peter Buck (2013). She sang a duet with Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam for the title track of John Doe's EP The Golden State in 2008. She also provided vocals for the song "Hard Sun" on Vedder's soundtrack for the 2007 film Into the Wild. In 2013, she covered the title track "Shine On," for the album released by The Jim Henson Company as part of the Fraggle Rock's 30th anniversary celebration. In addition, her songs have appeared in the soundtracks of ten films or television shows.

Tucker has also dabbled in television and film. She appeared in two episodes of bandmate Carrie Brownstein's television show Portlandia, portraying a member of the fictional band Echo Echo. In addition, Portlandia was first filmed at Tucker's house and she was the camera crew.

Tucker is in the following films portraying herself: The Punk Singer (2013), Burn to Shine 03: Portland, OR (2006), and Don't Need You: The Herstory of Riot Grrrl (2005), as well as an episode of the television show The L Word (2006) and the web series Sound Advice (2015).

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