Kathleen Hanna on the return of Le Tigre, 'gross' fans who won't mask up and the summer of Beyoncé

Never one known for her eagerness to submit to interviews, Kathleen Hanna was happy, she admitted on a recent afternoon, to be talking to anybody at all.

The veteran punk singer and activist had just completed a 10-day stint isolating in a Maryland hotel room after contracting COVID-19 while on the road with Bikini Kill, the foundational riot grrrl band that galvanized a generation with its radical-feminist anthems — and famously shunned most media beyond underground fanzines — then broke up in 1997 before reuniting three years ago.

Now, with Hanna, 53, due to fly to Poland the next day for another string of Bikini Kill dates, the singer was on Zoom from her home in Pasadena to discuss a second comeback: that of Le Tigre, the sly electro-punk trio she formed in New York in 1998 with Johanna Fateman and Sadie Benning (who was later replaced by JD Samson).

"I've been so f—ing bored," Hanna said with a laugh of her time in quarantine. "So, yeah — lovely to chat with you."

This month Le Tigre will play its first show in over a decade as part of , a two-day music festival set for Aug. 27