After drummer Janet Weiss announced that she was leaving Sleater-Kinney, remaining band members Carrie Brownstein and Corin Tucker have given their first major interview since she left.

In an interview with The Guardian, the band talked going to band therapy in an attempt to keep Weiss on board, that Rihanna’s “Stay” and a failed television pilot inspired the record, and the process of recording with producer St. Vincent.
 

When speaking of Weiss’ departure, Tucker explained that they “want Janet to be happy and healthy. If someone’s not happy doing that job, it wouldn’t be good for any of us.”

Later on in the interview, Brownstein explained that after hearing Rihanna’s 2012 ballad, “Stay,” she wanted to write a song like that, which inspired “Broken.” The track is dedicated to Christine Blasey Ford, who testified in front of Congress that Supreme Court justice Brett Kavanaugh had sexually assaulted her.
 

Additionally, the album got inspiration from a television series Brownstein had been developing, which was an adaptation of Hunger Makes Me A Modern Girl, her 2015 memoir. The pilot of the show was a fictionalized tale of Brownstein and Tucker trying to find a drummer in Olympia in the mid-’90s, but it was never picked up.

Read the article in full here, and keep your eyes peeled for The Center Won’t Hold, which drops on August 16th.