Page 62 - ION Indie Magazine JulyAugust 2018 Issue

As I waited for Butcher Babies to take the stage at Wally’s Pub in Hampton Beach, New Hampshire, the crowd was buzzing.
“These guys are total smoke shows and they rock!” The man next to me said. Suddenly, the lights went out, “We’re the
Butcher Babies and we’re here to shake shit up!” Heidi Shepherd said, taking the stage with her co-star of the band, Carla
Harvey Coates. Two beautiful women on stage were enough to catch anyone’s eye, and once the bassist and drummer
began playing, no one was taking their eyes off the stage.

Heidi and Carla originally based the band concept off a tribute to the late Wendy O. Williams of the punk rock band The
Plasmatics, who had written a song entitled “Butcher Baby.” Shepherd and Harvey Coates view Wendy O. Williams as the
first woman to really break into the rock scene. At the beginning of their Butcher Babies career, Shepherd and Harvey
Coates emulated the way Williams dressed on stage by covering their nipples with tape and wearing nothing but panties
on stage.

Over time as their band evolved, so did the show, which included a change in their wardrobe. Heidi and Carla admitted
that breaking into an already saturated music industry has been tricky. “There are more musicians and bands than ever
before, plus music is readily available to be streamed 24 hours a day. There also aren’t many females in the extreme metal
genre, so it was difficult at first to be taken seriously. Now, we’ve evolved so much -- we’ve shown people we can do it just
as well as the men can in this industry,” Heidi Shepherd said in my phone interview the following day.

Shepherd and Harvey Coates explained that music has saved and heavily
influenced both of their lives. Their hope is that their fans use it as a tool to
get through tough times or empower themselves. Heidi Shepherd grew up
in Utah in a Mormon household. “We were told how to walk, talk, and we
weren’t allowed to listen to rock,” Heidi recounted.

Heidi used to sneak away to a nearby skate park where she encountered
punk rock and rock music for the first time. She described herself as an
“angry kid” who did not have a sense of being. “I used to sit in my closet
listening to Slipknot with a notebook, writing out the lyrics to the songs that
really spoke to me. It was therapeutic -- my house was very volatile,” Heidi
stated, explaining how she learned to use music as an outlet for her anger.

Carla Harvey Coates described using music in a similar way…to express
herself and her feelings. Carla grew up in a bi-racial neighborhood in
Detroit as a child. Once Carla discovered rock and roll as a teenager, she
recognized she could get her feelings out through music or her artwork.

Nine years ago, Harvey Coates answered a MySpace ad that Shepherd had
posted looking for a counterpart on stage. Carla and Heidi clicked
instantly. “We were either going to be best friends or mortal enemies,”
Shepherd said as she and Harvey Coates both began laughing during the
interview. “At first we were having fun, making a scene, bringing rock back
to the Sunset Strip,” said Harvey Coates. “Once we caught the audience’s
attention and gathered a following, we knew we could really make a
difference.”

When asked from where the inspiration for their song lyrics is derived, Heidi
and Carla explained they are based in basic human emotion and that it’s
important to Butcher Babies to make sure their song lyrics are relatable to
their fans. Some of their songs are based off life experiences; stories
they’ve heard through other people, or in the news. “It’s a way to capture a
snapshot in time,” said Heidi Shepherd.