Following the 2024 departure of Carla Harvey, BUTCHER BABIES frontwoman Heidi Shepherd has taken on the role of the band’s sole lead vocalist—a transition she describes as both challenging and empowering. During a recent appearance on Knotfest’s She’s With The Band, hosted by Tori Kravitz, Shepherd opened up about navigating this new chapter in the band’s nearly 20-year history.
“Being a co-lead vocalist, I think that each of us had our own identities in this as well,” Heidi said (as transcribed by Blabbermouth). “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.”
Shepherd emphasized that the band’s success has always been a group effort. “This isn’t just me,” she explained. “[BUTCHER BABIES guitarist] 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.”
The experience of stepping into the spotlight also gave Shepherd a new perspective on public perception.
“Well, that is actually something I had to tackle in therapy,” she said. “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 s**tty comment or someone’s gonna say something to me, but I have to not let my day be ruined by those little things.”
Harvey’s departure followed a difficult period for the band. In a 2025 interview with AL.com, she described how a serious eye injury prevented her from joining a fall tour, which ultimately accelerated her decision to step away. “I couldn’t do a tour [in the fall of 2023] because I had a serious eye injury and they went and did a tour without me,” Harvey said. “Then it was, like, ‘Well, we’ll just do the band by ourselves.’ When you have put your heart and soul into something for so long and you do get kind of squeezed out of it, there’s a moment when you’re, like, ‘I can either lay down and not do anything else, or I’m not gonna let someone else tell me when I’m f**king done doing what I do.’”
BUTCHER BABIES officially announced their split with Harvey in July 2024, releasing a statement praising her contributions and marking the start of a new chapter. “Carla has been an integral part of our journey, bringing her unique talent, passion, and energy to the band. We are grateful for the incredible memories we’ve made together and the impact she has had on our music and our fans. We will miss her greatly and we wish her all the best in her future endeavors. We deeply appreciate your support over the past 15 years. We feel incredibly fortunate to keep making and playing music as our career, and we are excited for this new era of BUTCHER BABIES!”
Harvey also shared her own message, confirming she would not return and expressing pride in her legacy with the band. “Over the last 6 months you may have noticed my absence from BUTCHER BABIES posts. After 15 years of dedication, I wanted to let you know that I will not be rejoining the band for any future endeavors.”
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