‘Continue that cycle’: Lincoln’s all-woman punk band fights to uplift budding musicians

Lanie Schlueter put her head in her hands. Was she tired? Upset at her bandmates? Depressed by the world?

None of the above.

That’s just how Schlueter, a guitarist and vocalist, finds inspiration.

“Every single song that I write, it’s just been like this,” Schlueter said with a laugh. “If I sit there looking pathetic enough, something will come to me.”

It was a little after 8 p.m. on a Wednesday in late November. Schlueter and the rest of her band — the Lincoln-based, all-woman surf punk group Estrogen Projection — were gathered in the basement of lead guitarist Lexi Storm’s house, where they practice and write songs. A portrait of John F. Kennedy gazed down from one wall. 

The band had just finished a playthrough of “Caligula,” a new track named for the ancient Roman despot who was killed by his political enemies at age 28. Schlueter was still sorting out the lyrics of the last verse.

“We’re gonna have to think long and hard about what works,” Schlueter said. “Tonight, I said, ‘Caligula, what happened to your head? / They f***ed up, now Charlie Kirk is dead.’”

Not every Estrogen Projection number has such a hard edge. Their style is as expansive as their creative inspirations, which range from country crooner Marty Robbins to new waver pioneers Pylon. The band, which includes drummer Amilia Breton and bassist Lyla McConnell, could reasonably be described as surf, alternative, indie and even slightly country.

This musical versatility has helped establish Estrogen Projection, which formed in 2021, as a fixture of Lincoln’s music landscape and the latest staple in the city’s long and ever-evolving punk scene. And from that perch, they have prioritized helping the next wave of aspiring acts, especially bands led by women and queer people.

“It’s important in the music community to be uplifting each other and just to continue that cycle,” Breton said. “Because, hey, if that happened to us, let’s try to do it for somebody else.”

‘Very selective’ about other bands

On stage, Estrogen Projection might strike you as quintessentially Nebraska Nice. The Lincoln Journal Star once described the band as “a long way from being threatening hardcore punkers.”

Schlueter, the band’s frontwoman, is charming, animated and quick to thank her audiences. She and the rest of the band also love a good on-stage bit. At a show in October, Schlueter polled a crowd in Duffy’s Tavern on their favorite member of Alvin and the Chipmunks. (Theodore, by a wide margin.)

“Usually, people think it’s funny. Sometimes, they don’t, and that’s funny, too,” Schlueter said. “It’s actually funnier for me when they don’t think it’s funny.”

But Estrogen Projection isn’t afraid to be a little mean. When it comes to booking other bands for their shows, they have high standards, and there are some acts they absolutely will not share the stage with.

“A lot of weird dude bands ask us to play with them, and I’m not trying to say every dude band is weird, because they’re not. There’s some really chill dudes that we really get along with,” Schlueter said. “But we don’t f*** with predators. We don’t f*** with rapists. And it’s crazy to me when they have the gall to even ask us about doing a show.”

The band prioritizes queer and women-led groups. And if that falls through, they’ll ask boy bands that they have vetted and think are cool.

“We’re very selective about who we play with,” Storm said. “Like, we’re very intentional.”

This is partly because the band feels a responsibility to create a safe atmosphere for their mostly younger fan base, Schlueter said. But it’s also because their decisions about who to platform carry weight in the local scene. 

“We’re not going to pull up the ladder,” Storm said. “We’re going to lower it for the next band.”

Lifting up young artists

Alex Hesser can remember a lot about his first concert. He knows it was during his junior year of high school, that it was a first date, and that it took place in the now-defunct Lincoln music venue HQ.

But when it comes to the bands who played, Hesser can recall only one: Estrogen Projection.

“It was really my first insight into what the local scene is like and really just what a band is, honestly,” he said. “It went over well.”

Today, Hesser is a junior studying journalism at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and a guitarist and vocalist for his own band, Joyrager. Since their debut in 2024, Joyrager has received a lot of support from Estrogen Projection, including an invite to perform with them at the Rococo Theater back in August.

“I think if they really wanted to, they could pretty feasibly go on and be a touring band and not really stay within the local scene,” Hesser said. “I haven’t talked to them personally about this, but through their actions, I can tell that a lot of the reason they’re doing what they do is they just love it.”

Charlotte Mar, a student at Lincoln Southeast High School, said her first encounter with Estrogen Projection happened after she cold-emailed to ask whether she could sit in on one of their rehearsals. 

At the rehearsal, Mar joined the band in playing their song “Worker’s Revolution.” The band later asked her to play an upcoming show with them because McConnell, their bassist, wouldn’t be able to.

“I would have been so nervous to fill in for literally any other band,” said Mar, who in 2025 formed the local band Alls.

But there’s something about Estrogen Projection, both as individuals and as a band, that helps make people feel comfortable, she said. 

“It’s just really clear that they want to see people succeed here and just grow as artists and people,” Mar said. “That’s something that I really, really appreciate about them.”

‘A good time making music together’

Estrogen Projection doesn’t downplay the fact that they’re an all-female band. You’ll find the description “all girl” or “all women” listed in most of the band’s social media profiles. But when others make a big deal out of this — well, it gets on their nerves. And don’t ask them whether the band is full of drama.

“People ask every single show without fail,” Schlueter said. “It’s just such a sexist, stupid thing to say.”

From the beginning, one of the big challenges was simply finding enough female musicians who weren’t already overbooked. At one point, the band even had to temporarily draft a guy — one of Schlueter’s roommates — for a handful of shows.

“Most of the women I know who are musicians in town are in two, three, four bands,” Schlueter said. “So finding people that weren’t already in that many groups was difficult.”

While the local scene has changed plenty over the decades, this is one problem that has seemingly remained constant.

“We were definitely the only all-girl band,” said Robin Watt, who grew up in Lincoln and helped found the short-lived punk group XXY back in the 1990s. “And as a drummer, especially, I can’t think of any other girl drummers.”

XXY started playing together in the early ’90s at the height of the underground feminist punk wave known as riot grrrl. Their first concert as a band was at the 1994 riot grrrl convention in Omaha.

“It started kind of as an excuse to just hang out after school,” said Ellie Erickson, a member of XXY who later became the bassist for Erase Errata. “Mostly, just high school girls singing about their troubles. Or screaming about their troubles.”

Erickson said her music career was shaped by her experiences playing in Lincoln. It helped her realize the importance of playing with other women. While some members of the local scene may not have taken XXY seriously, the band went on to open for high-profile acts like Bikini Kill and were platformed by other local bands like Mercy Rule.

“It was such a great gift of a place to grow up in — having so many influential bands come through town, so much support,” Erickson said. “There was something in the soil for sure in that moment in Nebraska.”

At the time, Watt said she assumed that bands like XXY existed all over the place. But she recalls that Kathleen Hanna, lead vocalist of Bikini Kill, was excited to have an all-girl band play with them, something that rarely happened on their tours.

“I just assumed every college town had their all-girl high school band,” Watt said. “But it turns out that’s not true, and we were something special.”

After graduating high school, the band members went their separate ways. None of them live in Lincoln anymore. But Watt has listened to Estrogen Projection’s music. It brings her joy.

“Part of it is just looking at them, and I’m like, ‘Oh, these girls are having a good time making music together,’” Watt said. “I think there’s a thing about being older and not going to shows where I’m like, ‘Are there any women playing any music anymore?’ And the answer is yes.”