With vocals nearly as loud and intense as its backing instruments, Chicago band Lil Tits is fighting “girl band” stereotypes. The group’s signature punk sound has been described as everything from “Dirt Rock” to “Witch Punk.”

Lil Tits has been in the local scene for about six years, and current members include Hanna Hazard on guitar and vocals, Madalyn Garcia on bass and Karissa Talanian on drums.

The Chronicle spoke with Hazard about Lil Tits’ sound, its “equalism” philosophy and the meaning behind the title of its 2014 digital EP 7 Year Bleed.

THE CHRONICLE: Where did the name Lil Tits come from?

HANNA HAZARD: Honestly, it was a joke. We found this hat at a thrift store; it was some weird children’s play company called “Lil Bits,” and we thought it was hilarious, so we started calling ourselves Lil Tits. A lot of people thought we were a rap group. Eventually, we got really into our music, so it was like, “Well, we can’t change our name now.”

Is Lil Tits a feminist band?

I consider us an equalist band. I was at a show recently, and a girl said, “I’m all for feminism. I’m all for girls paying $1 for what guys pay $2 for.” I looked at her, and I said, “That’s not feminism. That’s sexism. That’s not equalism.” I really want to stay away from the fact that we are an all-girl band. A lot of the time we get asked, “What’s it like to be an all-girl band? What’s it like to be a girl playing music?” My rebuttal is always like, “Would you ask a twin what it’s like to not be a twin? They don’t know.” I don’t really know what it’s like not to be a woman playing music.

How do you describe your sound?

A lot of the time I say it’s loud, noisy, rough [and] raw, and it’s a circus. We like to call it an “evil circus.” We’ve gone through incarnations. We had a [different] drummer for about the first three years, and when she left, we had a record coming out, so we got a new drummer, Karissa. She’s done a couple other psychedelic rock projects, and [Madalyn and I] came from punk and metal backgrounds, so having [Karissa] come in with the psychedelic background has really made the group sound like a weird circus.

What is the Chicago music scene like?

It’s all about supporting other artists. I think it’s cool that Chicago has really wide ways of making it underground. Lil Tits has been around for almost six years now, and it wasn’t until two years ago that we finally started getting some action. The thing is, you really can’t—especially in DIY and underground Chicago—give up. I don’t know how many shows we’ve played where we’ve f–ked up or sounded like shit or nobody wanted to help put out our record. It’s a business, and once you start looking at it like that, you realize that Chicago has a really helpful community of underground spaces and labels.

What does 7 Year Bleed mean?

I was reading a book, and it said for a woman’s lifetime, if you look at how much she bleeds on her period, if you were to condense it, it would be seven years that she would be bleeding. So, we were talking about how f–ked up it is that we bleed for seven years over our lifetime, so we were like, “Why don’t we call [the EP] 7 Year Bleed?”

What does Lil Tits have coming up?

We just came out with our seven-inch [EP] that’s called Freak Flag, so that just released, and we went on tour in October for that on the East Coast. In the summer, we’ll be recording a full-length 12-inch that will come out on vinyl sometime, hopefully, in the fall, and then we’ll be touring in the spring.