Currently on their first ever full UK tour, Butcher Babies are proving to be the surprise hit of The Defiled’s No Place Like Home Tour. Rock Sins had a chance to chat with Carla and Heidi, the bands two vocalists.
You’ve been in the UK before, but this is your first full tour, right?
Carla: Yeah, we’ve done a few shows before, Download festival, a show in London and a show in Wales, but this is our first proper tour, we’re doing 11 dates this time.
How have the shows been so far?
Heidi: Great, they’ve been packed and the kids have been so incredible. the Defiled’s fans are so open to the other bands. We’ve also got a lot of our fans here to which is exciting, this is the first time since our album came out that we’ve been able to meet the kids here who are into our music. it’s a really neat experience.
How has it been touring with The Defiled and The Killing Lights?
Carla: We’re all good friends already. the guys are all a blast to watch, so much energy on this tour.
Heidi: We were already friends with the guys from The Killing Lights, it’s great to finally get to tour with them
Before you left for this tour, did you hear anything from other bands about what playing in the UK was like?
Heidi: We had an idea, because we’d been here before. But we knew it’d be very different because our album is out now, last time we’d barely put out an EP. So that wasn’t the best indicator of what crowds would be like. No one really pulled us aside and told us what to expect, we just expected to come over and rock and have a good time. We’re used to winning crowds over, we’ve had to do that from the very beginning so, even if they don’t know our music, by the end of the set we’ll try to make them our fans.
Are you happy with the reception the album has received?
Carla: For sure! You can tell people like the album when they are singing it back to you from the crowd. it took us four years to make this album, so we’re pleasantly pleased with the results.
Heidi: When it was released in the US, the first week sales came out and we did great. We were number one on the Heatseekers chart. It felt like a huge pat on the back, like ‘alright, good job’ because, as Carla said we’ve been working on it for years but at the same time we have a lot of heart in the album and it’s been doing really well. Hopefully we keep that train going.
A term that’s thrown around a lot with bands like yours is ‘female fronted metal/rock’. Does that annoy you, as it doesn’t really say anything about your music?
Heidi: It’s pretty stupid. I guess people put a lot of things into sub-genres and label things because it makes them feel comfortable. For us though, we don’t consider ourselves a ‘female fronted metal’ band, regardless of what we’re known for. We’ve got two females in the band, I don’t care. We’re a metal band.
Sexism must be something you’ve had to deal with in the industry?
Heidi: Absolutely, I mean, it’s a male dominated industry and any female that takes a chance and puts themselves out there is gonna be looked at and told things and pushed around, but there’s also gonna be a lot of good things that come of it too. Maybe you’d be given opportunities that you wouldn’t have been given if you were a totally male band… Just because there’s so many, there’s so many bands that just all guys. All of a sudden there’s girls in a band and it’s like ‘oh, wait a second, let’s take a second look’. Whether that second look is in a positive light or a negative light… At least they’re looking!
Is there any advice you’d give to girls that want to get involved in heavy metal?
Carla: Just don’t give up. Both of us have worked our asses off our whole lives to be where we are today. There were a lot of people who told us no. That goes for boyfriends, family… even best friends. Your best friend would turn their back and say ‘no, you can’t do that’. Don’t listen to people, believe in yourself and just keep going. Never give up.
Heidi: it’s never too late. Everyone in this band had other careers prior to this, all of us have been in other bands. But we all wanted this as the end result of our dreams, but over the years you get sidetracked by making money and doing other things and you lose focus on the music. But y’know, we formed, we had a hair brained idea and ever since then it’s just been go go go. but we’re not kids, we had other careers, we gave up those lives to do this.
Carla: I can’t imagine, looking back now, Heidi and I have been working together for six years, I can’t imagine not meeting her and I can’t imagine giving up completely on music… Life is so good right now.
What would you like to achieve with Butcher Babies in 2014?
Heidi: We’ve got tours booked for the whole year, it’s only February just now but we’re booked throughout the whole year. We’ve got a lot of festivals in the US and then we have two GINORMOUS tours that we’re really excited about. Any downtime between tours will be writing a new record.
You can check out a review of Butcher Babies with The Defiled in Glasgow on the link right here. You can also follow the band on Twitter at @ButcherBabies.
