Los Angeles has cranked out its fair share of metal acts over the years, but possibly none as unique as the Butcher Babies.
This band, co-led by singers Heidi Shepherd and Carla Harvey brings a pair of screaming women front and center for some face melting action. Shepherd and Harvey prove that the girls can rock just as hard, if not harder than the boys at their live shows and Heidi Shepherd takes a few minutes to talk with Backstage VIPs about the struggles she faces being a frontwoman in a hard rock band as well as how she keeps sane with Harvey on tour.
Backstage VIPs: Hello!
Heidi Shepherd: Hi! How was your day?
BSV: Good! How was yours?
HS: I’m good, thank you.
BSV: Okay, so let’s just right into it. Introduce yourself, tell us what band you’re in, and what you do in it.
HS: Hey, this is Heidi from Butcher Babies and I am one of the vocalists. I’m the co-lead vocalist, I guess you could say [laughs]
BSV: What have you found is the biggest challenge that comes with being an attractive woman in hard rock?
HS: Well, I mean, attractive or not, I think the biggest challenge is just being taken seriously. I think that’s been something that all women have had to deal with in rock. It’s not just us, or any girl doing it now, but women in general, especially with heavier rock. I think it’s been a huge challenge, but also kind of a double-edged sword, because it can also be a benefit. Because people are intrigued as to what it might be like and since it’s such a small club and such a small group of girls that actually do it, I think that people are interested to see what the girls can bring to the show.
BSV: What have you found are some of the major advantages?
HS: The major advantage? I think there aren’t very many. I think a lot of women are afraid to pursue their dream in rock because of the boy thing of “you don’t belong” and “you’re not supposed to be here,” so there aren’t very many of us, but I think that’s a big advantage. So with there not being very many of us, those of us that are in it, we stick together, we band together. Kind of like I said, there’s a Girl’s Club and we support each other.
That’s one thing that I definitely didn’t expect getting into this is that all of the other women, we work together and we support each other. When it comes to In This Moment, Lacuna Coil, The Pretty Reckless, Halestorm, Eyes Set To Kill, all these girls, we all support each other, New Years Day is another one… It’s not this catty, high school thing that a lot of people would think it would be. It’s actually really fun and really nice to have these girls behind my back and vice versa.
BSV: Yeah, that’s awesome.
HS: Yeah, it’s pretty cool. We’re like a cheerleading team! [laughs]
BSV: Do you find that your audience is more men, more women, or is it pretty mixed?
HS: It’s actually very mixed, it’s probably right down the middle. We definitely didn’t expect that. We didn’t know what to expect, how about that? We didn’t know what to expect when our audience started to form. We didn’t know if it would be pervial men, or young guys that just wanted to see chicks, or what the case would be, but as it turns out, it’s been a lot of females. Our front row is usually predominantly females singing along and screaming along.
One of the things that was missing when 
I was a kid was a positive female role model in the rock world. Besides Gwen Stefani – she was in the ska, punk, rock world sort of – but other than that, there really weren’t many, in the metal world, female positive influences. So I think a lot of young girls nowadays were looking for that and they found it with our little Girl’s Club that we’ve made and it’s neat to see the girls in the front row, the women in the front row empowering each other. I can’t really say that we have a target market though, but I definitely didn’t expect it to be women [laughs]. So it’s nice.
BSV: Is there any specific age range or does that also vary?
HS: That varies as well. There’s not really an age range, there’s not really a stereotype, and it’s not like young girls who I guess we could call “Warped Tour Age.” There are a lot of older women who are excited there are other females who love the music they do. Then there are a lot of young boys who want to just go out there and crowd surf and have a good time and older guys who want to do the same thing. It varies.
BSV: So with this age range, have you ever had someone get a little too handsy on you at a show?
HS: I think for the most part, people have been really good with me. I think I kind of just give off this persona onstage of “Don’t fuck with me,” so they don’t [laughs]. I think they’ve been pretty respectful for the most part. I can only think of one instance ever that someone’s been handsy at a show. It wasn’t with me, it was with Carla. She took her microphone and beat the shit out of him. So I think people learn that we get up there and we’re rocking out just as hard as the boys and we’re a force to be reckoned with on and off stage. I think people are realizing that we can’t be messed with [laughs].
BSV: Yeah, that’ll definitely do it. Do you remember where that show was?
HS: Yeah, it was in Johnson City, Tennessee and it was in a smaller club. We were on tour with Black Label Society, but it was an off day and we were playing a show with the band Devil You Know. He was a kid, he was young, probably like 21 [laughs]. And Carla looked at him like “How dare you?!” and then hit him right over the head with her microphone.
BSV: Oh wow. Did he kind of retreat back into the crowd or did he just stand there like “Woah” afterwards?
HS: Oh, he got straight up kicked out.
BSV: Alright, that’s good.
HS: Yeah.
BSV: So you recently dyed your hair all red and went away from the blonde and blue that you usually have. Was there any reason for the change or did you just get bored with it?
HS: Yeah, I’ve been blonde my entire life. I was in pediatric commercials for a long time and I was only able to have regular blonde hair and look like the girl-next-door, because that’s what I got booked with, that’s what paid my bills. And as soon as the band started taking off, I was able to venture out with more colors. I’ve always wanted to do my hair different colors. [laughs] This sounds really dumb, but I would always use whiteboard markers and I would color my hair sometimes and just add streaks here and there. I was in high school, you know, I wanted to do stuff like that [laughs]. And then, when I got older, I would clip in those extensions with different colors to add a different spice to my hair.
But then, as soon as I ventured away from the acting scene, I was able to kind of come into my own and do my own thing and I’ve always wanted to have stop light, bright red hair, so one day I got off tour and I decided, “You know what? I’m doing it!” And I love it, it’s fun, it’s a great way to express yourself. Especially since I don’t have a lot of tattoos, at least I can play with my hair color.
BSV: Yeah, and that’s not permanent!
HS: Yeah, exactly. Like, I couldn’t even get a bunch of tattoos because what would I get? I can’t even live with one hair color for very long [laughs]
BSV: So do you think that you will start dying your hair different colors more now because you just decided that you feel like it?
HS: Yeah, I already have my next color that I’m going to do, but I’m going to wait a little bit.
BSV: You want to tell us a preview or do you want to keep it a secret?
HS: I’m going to go green. Not a lime green, but a lighter green.
BSV: You used to wear a black eye bar across your eyes onstage. How did you get the idea for that?
HS: I think, for me, that was kind of just a throwback to Marilyn Manson and David Bowie, it was kind of just the war paint. Actually, I started doing that in a band I was in 2007 and 2008 and I just continued doing it in this band and it kind of became my staple for a long time. And then I got really tired of it.
BSV: Did it sweat into your eyes or did you just not like it anymore?
HS: I just wanted to try a different look. That also came when I dyed my hair and having a whole different look. The band even took a different turn then. The boys would wear make-up and Carla would wear different make-up and we just decided as a band for our next look for our EP that we wanted to go no make-up and just look like normal human beings. But who knows? Maybe it’ll come back, sometimes I miss drawing that eye bar. I think it just became ritualistic for me to sit in front of a mirror before a show and that’s how I knew it was show time – drawing on that eye bar. It subconsciously put me into a frame of mind before a show, so I don’t know, maybe I’ll bring something back, I’m not sure yet.
BSV: So it was like your little pep talk before you started the show.
HS: Yeah exactly, a little pep talk with myself in the mirror. Mirror mirror on the wall [laughs]
BSV: You guys are about to drop your Uncovered EP on the 30th. The cover image for the EP is a front-page style newspaper clipping. How did you get the ideas for all the headlines and stories on that cover?
HS: You know, it’s funny, it is the cover of the album and we kind of took that inspiration from Guns N’ Roses and their album Lies. 
We basically just wanted to poke fun at ourselves with it. Those headlines are things that people have said or things that people have alluded to. Just funny things here and there, for instance, true story, I don’t have a belly button. I was born with a birth defect called Gastroschisis and all my insides were out and they sewed me back up and left me without a belly button.
BSV: Woah!
HS: And I like to show it off onstage as my battle wound. It’s a part of me, it’s who I am. And a lot of people speculate, “Oh my gosh, why doesn’t she have a belly button? There’s like a six-inch scar, but no belly button. Is she an alien? Did she have kids?” [laughs]. So we wrote a story that I’m an alien, we wrote a story that I’m a clone, we had a couple different stories going from that. So I think it was just an opportunity for us to make fun of ourselves since everyone else does anyway.
BSV: So beating them to the punch, that’s good.
HS: Yeah! [laughs]
BSV: So speaking of covers, you and Carla originally met because you were in a cover band together. What was the name of that band and what can you tell us about it?
HS: The band went through a couple of name changes, we were in a band called, I hate even bringing these band names up, it was Triple XXX… we went through a couple of bands together. We were in cover bands and then finally just decided we didn’t really like only playing covers and we wanted to do something original, something heavy. We both loved heavy music, that’s where our bond started. So we decided to just quit that and start something original and, bringing it back to the covers for the EP, we wanted to show our fans in between our albums, because we’re writing our next album now and we’re almost done, actually, but in between our albums, we wanted to show Butcher Babies fans what led us to this point and what were our influences growing up. Besides the obvious Guns N’ Roses, Metallica, KoRn, Limp Bizkit, things like that. We wanted to just kind of get back and do something different and something limited edition for our fans, so we’ve gone back to doing a couple of covers here and there and it got weird, but it’s fun.
BSV: Did you play any instruments in that band or was it just you guys singing?
HS: There were actually five girls in one of them and the other had seven girls. It was like Spice Girls on crack, it was terrible. That’s why I don’t even like talking about it, it was really bad [laughs] and after we quit that and we started Butcher Babies, that’s all we knew about that. That “babe” persona that we kind of kept for a minute and then we came into our own and created our own original sound with Butcher Babies. It was definitely a growing pain, if you will.
BSV: Okay, so we’ll avoid that growing pain then. As you mentioned before, there aren’t very many hard rock bands that have women in them, let alone that have two. Obviously Carla is your partner in crime and it’s got to be nice having a girl with you on tour. A lot of these bands like Halestorm and Lacuna Coil, they’re in bands surrounded by guys and it’s usually just them on the bill with no other female acts. When you go to different cities, what do you think are the advantages to having Carla there with you and not having to be surrounded by a tour full of only guys?
HS: [laughs] It’s actually really nice. I grew up with sisters, so I was used to having that high estrogen level around me a lot and Carla is like a siste
r to me. So it’s really nice having that person there that I can talk to about everything. I get to have girl talks all the time. On days off, Carla and I like to go do girl things together and I think it keeps us sane. I feel bad for other girls in bands that don’t get to do those things. We’ll walk around the mall together and it’s like having your best friend there with you all the time. Granted I would probably find someone else to walk around the mall with me if I didn’t have Carla there, but it’s really nice to have that girl partner in crime there with me at all times. We actually have another female in our camp as well, our Tour Manager. It’s kind of fun when you have half girls and half guys.
BSV: Speaking of your cover EP, are there any covers out there now that aren’t yours, but that you’re hearing on the radio that weren’t originally rock songs? Is there a favorite one of those that you have?
HS: Ooh, that’s a good question. I like DevilDriver’s “Sail” that was [originally] done by Awolnation. The KoRn cover of “The Wall,” that’s a good one. I think what these bands did, which is very admirable with these covers is they took them and they tore them apart and they made them sound completely different from the original. Like that KoRn song, it sounds like a KoRn song, it doesn’t sound like a cover. And I think that’s what we were aiming for with Uncovered as well. Which I think we did pretty [well] with; I’m pretty proud of it.
BSV: Do you have any last words for your fans before we wrap this whole thing up?
HS: I just want to say thank you for sticking with us for the past five years and it’s been a crazy five years and hopefully the next five years will be even more of a roller coaster, so thanks for taking this ride with us!
BSV: Okay, thank you very much for taking the time to talk with us.
HS: Of course! Thank you and have a good day!
