I think that half of us feel fraudulent in our lives anyway. There's that strange disconnect of not really knowing what we're doing sometimes, or why it matters. It's our existential crisis.

She later said "he lived in the neighborhood next to mine so I would just walk my guitar over to his house. Other work
Brownstein and former Helium guitarist/singer Mary Timony recording as The Spells released The Age of Backwards E. They formed Sleater-Kinney as a side project and released the Free to Fight split single with Cypher in the Snow.

Since 2010 Brownstein has sung and played guitar for the band Wild Flag; they released their self-titled debut album in September 2011. Brownstein stars with co-developer Fred Armisen in Portlandia a sketch comedy show which began airing in January 2011 on the Independent Film Channel.