Butcher Babies
Butcher Babies join the Soundwave 2015 line up offering something unique to the heavy metal rockers out there with two female vocalists. After talking to Carla Harvey it is easy to be impressed by their hard work ethic and commitment to being the best they can be. Carla gives an insight to the band and what lies ahead in terms of the next album.
Congratulations on being announced in the first round of acts for Soundwave 2015. It must be really exciting for the band?
It’s obviously our first time to Australia and we are really thrilled to be going. Even if it was just a vacation we would be excited and we get to play this huge iconic festival which is awesome. You know what else is special was that as soon as we were announced we got so many messages, tweets and everything from our Australian fans which was really great that we do have a really good fan base out there and people are excited to see us and asking for us – we are beyond thrilled to be a part of it.
Is it pleasing as you said with the increased interest in the Butcher Babies and fans wanting to find out how to get their hands on your music? Are you surprised with that level of interest already?
Um, to be honest we are really surprised. Last year we did our first European tour and was surprised with how well that went. You just never know, we’re working all the time, always on tour, always doing something and we don’t have the time to check back to think about where we’re at as far as fan base wise. We don’t know what level we’re at or what people are asking us about as we’re really working not really thinking about it. It is surprising when we find out that people have been asking for us and are so excited to see but it is a great feeling.
For those who have been living under a rock how would you describe the Butcher Babies?
We’re just a heavy metal band out of Los Angeles with difference being we have dual female vocals. Heidi and I started the band together, we’ve been playing music together for about seven years starting off playing in a cover band together. We wanted to do original music and we wanted to be in a heavier band after being in a punk rock band which was fun but we were both metal kids so we put this project together about five years ago. It’s just heavy metal!
What inspired the name?
Obviously, Butcher Baby is a song by The Plasmatics who were hugely inspiring to the cover band Heidi and I were in. We used to cover that song and we moved further with our own band and in the beginning it was like an ode to Wendy O. Williams that Butcher Babies would be the perfect name. She was one of the first women in rock to have that really I don’t give a shit attitude and we wanted to take that with us in our career. Not enough people in their careers have that attitude as everyone is so careful about what they do. All we wanted to do was play music with our best friends and not go out to please everyone or be politically correct but rather just get out there and make noise with our friends.
2013 was a huge year for the band, has 2014 carried on in much the same vain?
Yeah, it’s crazy! From our very first tour we’ve been on fire, we did great on our first tour with Opeth then we got a Manson tour then Danzig tour, Mayhem Festival and the names keep getting bigger and bigger. It’s great that we have been touring with our legends, our idols, we’ve been keeping up with them. Every time we would go on tour with these people we would get an even bigger fan base. The numbers keep growing so it was a huge year and we’ve been home for a couple of months now. It’s crazy just to be at home living our normal lives.
Is it hard making that adjustment to being off tour and knowing that a certain time you would be on stage or about to be on stage?
It definitely is, at first I didn’t know how I would be able to handle touring. As tough as we are we still like our coffee in the morning, going to the gym but when you get the road you get in to auto-pilot mode and surprisingly easy to ease in to that lifestyle. We’re trading up to a bus this year so we’ve been used to living in our RV’s (recreational vehicle) for the last couple of years and you would be surprised how easy it is to live with six or seven other people inside a tiny RV for a few months at a time. When I come home I think I get more irritated living with one husband as I do with six band mates. It’s a strange life but we do love it.
Do you get the jitters knowing that at this time you would on the way to the venue, this time you would be on stage and so on?
I think when you come home there is a little bit of a mild depression even though you are happy to be home, happy to see your significant other, your pets, your home but there is that let down every night because you’re right, you’re meant to be on stage nine or ten o’clock each night. That natural high you get every night from doing that is not there anymore. I say the first couple of weeks that you’re home does affect you mentally.
Have you had any thoughts about what lies ahead or what’s next?
We’re always thinking about what’s next working ahead to the next goal. We already have next year planned out already. I think you have to be that way to be part of a successful machine, you have to keep working, you have to keep focused. It would be nice to sit back and think about where we are and take in the moment and we try and do that as much as we can but at the same time we need to stay focused and stay working hard because we know that it is fucking great right now and that we’re having an awesome time but we need to keep going up from here. The level that we’re at if we were to stay at it you either move ahead or fall behind.
Is there a lot of pressure on you to deliver another great album?
Things have definitely changed a lot and we’re writing our second album right now. We’re hoping it will be out early next year. As soon as we come back from our headlining tour in October we will be back in the studio finishing up that album so we can get it out. It has to come out as people have such short attention spans these days nowadays that you have to keep bombarding them with stuff. It has to be quality and it can’t just be stuff.
Butcher Babies play Soundwave 2015, for tickets and full lineup: http://www.soundwavefestival.com
Whether it is rummaging through vinyl at record stores such as Clarity and Title finding hidden gems to scouring the internet to find that album by the next big thing or chasing bands to get that elusive autograph and photo his passion is music all the way.
- Aversions Crown - January 27, 2017
- Sick Of It All - January 19, 2017
- Refused - January 11, 2017
