Punk West #5: Lauren Butcher

Lauren Butcher began kicking around the music scene as soon as she could get into venues. Seeing local bands in Lauren’s late teens changed her life, and when she came out as a transgender woman in 2019, she soon after decided to start a punk band with Owen Bandura and Tess Crow named Lauren and The Goodfights, which focused almost entirely on the experiences of being a gender-diverse person. Many of the songs were inspired by the struggles and triumphs of the LGBTQIA+ young people she had met since coming out. She has also presented at RTRFM for the last two years on Burn the Airwaves, All Things Queer and Drastic on Plastic.

Punk West is an oral history of Perth’s punk scene. David Redding (Burn the Airwaves) talks to the scene’s stalwarts, stand-outs, and elder states(wo)men about the gigs, the bands, the venues, and the sounds.