Heidi Shepherd reflects on taking over full vocal duties in Butcher Babies

Butcher Babies frontwoman Heidi Shepherd discussed what it was like to be the band’s only vocalist after Carla Harvey left in 2024 during an appearance on the most recent episode of Knotfest’s “She’s With The Band,” a program hosted by Tori Kravitz with the goal of elevating the voices of women on stage, backstage, and in the industry, as per Blabbermouth. Heidi partially stated this.

Being a co-lead vocalist, I think that each of us had our own identities in this as well. I think that I learned so much in all the years of the give-and-take. I’ve run this band, this business out of my living room for the last almost 20 years. And so it kind of really was just the next step, taking all those lessons that I had learned in the past and just kind of like putting it all in. But it’s been fine. And I feel comfortable. And I’m so lucky that I have my team.

This isn’t just me, Henry [Flury] has been in this band from the beginning, and my team has been here forever. My lawyer has been my lawyer for almost 17 years now. And so this is so much bigger than just two singers in a band. This is so much bigger than that. There are people that feed their families off of what we do. There are people who, their jobs are coming on tour with us and helping our show be as successful as it can be day in and day out. So when it came to moving into the shoes of just the sole lead in this, there’s a responsibility to keep it going for these people. And I think that I am also grateful for them for wanting to keep going as well. So this has been a group effort. And here we are three years later, feeling good, [with a] new album coming out, and it’s just, to us, the next step.

Heidi made this statement when Kravitz pointed out that many of the comments beneath the video for the Butcher Babies song “Sincerity” — the group’s first single since Harvey’s departure—have been overwhelmingly favorable.

Oh, really? I didn’t read them. [Laughs] I don’t read comments … but I can tell from people’s reaction live that it’s been a good reaction. The shows have been really fun. It has been so fun. There’s just such a fire in this band right now. And it’s not [just] me — it’s our drummer, it’s our bass player, it’s Henry, our guitar player, our tour manager, our manager, agents, everybody. Our lawyer — our lawyer’s fired up… He’s been the backbone of this band from the beginning… Our whole team has just this incredible fire right now. And so I feel, when I am a little overwhelmed or I feel a little bit of doubt or anything, I have my whole team to back us up. So it’s been a ride. But that roller coaster’s fun.

Shepherd was also questioned about how her perspective on “public perception versus reality” was impacted by her experience as the Butcher Babies’ lone lead vocalist.

Well, that is actually something I had to tackle in therapy. That was the initial thing, is, ‘People, are they even gonna believe in me? I’ve been the lead vocalist of this band for 20 years, but are they gonna think that I can still do it?’ I’ve been doing this, but now I just do a couple extra lines, lyrics on stage — I sing a couple extra lines on stage. And that was something that I’m, like, ‘What if people think that I can’t do this? What if people think that, ‘Oh, it’s gonna be horrible,” and blah, blah, blah. And [my therapist] told me, she’s, like, ‘But that’s a story you’re making up in your head. That’s something you are making up in your head. And then you’re gonna believe it.’ And I’m sure that there are those people out there, and that’s totally fine. I don’t mind having something to prove. In fact, that’s how this band became successful in the first place. So that’s how I’ve always lived my life. I’ve lived my life by the ‘no’. When people tell me ‘no’, I say, ‘Actually yes.’

So, doubt me. I want to feel like I’ve got something to prove, so that’s fine. But [my therapist was], like, ‘This is something that you are portraying yourself. This is something that you are telling yourself. So why don’t you tell yourself that people are gonna rally for you, that people are gonna be excited for you, and that people are gonna love what you come up with next? Why don’t you think that people are going to look forward to this new chapter instead of closing the book?’ And I was, like, ‘Oh, okay. You know what? That’s how I need to think.’ And granted, that’s an everyday — that’s a process every day. I still have to tell myself, ‘I need to think this way, I need to think this way, I need to think this way.’ Of course, every once in a while I’m gonna run across a shitty comment or someone’s gonna say something to me, but I have to not let my day be ruined by those little things.