“I Don’t Really Care”: Sleater-Kinney’s Carrie Brownstein’s Inspiring Perspective on Her Controversial Guitar

Sleater-Kinney’s Carrie Brownstein’s go-to guitar is a relatively controversial instrument, given the poor reputation of this particular guitar’s production year. But in a November 2024 interview with Guitar Player, Brownstein insisted that the negative buzz is largely unfounded.

The indie rocker’s perspective on her divisive guitar is an inspiring invitation for players of all kinds to focus less on the model and more on what’s really important: the playing.

Carrie Brownstein On Her Controversial Guitar

Carrie Brownstein of Sleater-Kinney fame has played many guitars over the years, but her go-to is a walnut brown 1972 Gibson SG. At face value, it’s a classic guitar that has been a favorite among many rockstars, including Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Eric Clapton, and Pete Townshend. But for guitar aficionados, the year would certainly give them pause.

Brownstein’s guitar falls into the Norlin era of Gibson electrics, a period from 1969 to 1986 when the Norlin Corporation owned Gibson. Many critics of Norlin-era Gibsons claim the instruments are of lesser quality, having poor construction with equally shoddy materials. But in a November 2024 interview with Guitar Player, Brownstein refuted these claims.

“It’s certainly a controversial era. You could easily discount it,” she admitted. However, she continued, “I like the tone of that guitar. The neck is a little bit thinner, and it makes it very playable. To me, it just comes down to tone. You can get a guitar from that era that feels like it doesn’t live up to what Gibson, and specifically an SG, is capable of representing sonically. For me, that guitar works perfectly.”

“People who tend to disparage the Norlin era are thinking of music and sonic quality in a very purist way,” Brownstein said. “Sleater-Kinney is a band that comes from a punk-rock foundation. Much of punk was about deconstructing or dismantling this idea of music purity and being unafraid to explore sounds that were grotesque.”

An Inspiring Approach To Selecting and Playing Gear

Despite the bad rap that Norlin-era Gibson guitars often get from gearheads, Carrie Brownstein is of the mind that how you play is more important than what you play. “It’s fun to nerd out on minutiae in terms of guitars, years, eras, makes, and models,” the Sleater-Kinney guitarist said. “But there’s also a part of me that does care—that cares more—about what you’re able to do with an instrument, as opposed to what the instrument signifies on its own.”

“From a more emotional, expressive perspective, I don’t really care about the arguments,” she insisted. “From a more intellectual perspective, it’s interesting and important to have historical context and to understand the reason this era sounds different from the era that preceded or followed it. Ultimately, I think I fall on the side of expressionism as opposed to anything that’s too didactic.”

Brownstein’s refusal to give into the hype that Norlin-era guitars should be avoided is an inspiring and freeing approach to selecting and playing gear. Some of the best guitars on paper will be the most finicky, and conversely, some of the cheapest axes also play the best. As the Sleater-Kinney founder suggested, it’s what you do with it that matters the most. Bad reputations aside, if the guitar works for you, then it’s a good guitar—period.

Photo by Lorne Thomson/Redferns