“He has a million voices telling us lies
Describing your fate to your face while scripting your demise
He uses fear as his favorite play while hiding his eyes
For the calm and innocent who wreak of surprise”
From “Burn the Straw Man” by Butcher Babies
In the late 1970s, the punk-rock and heavy-metal world got a jolt in the form of the Plasmatics and their incendiary singer, Wendy O. Williams.
In a genre that already boasted the outrageous antics of legendary artists, such as Iggy Pop, Alice Cooper, and Alan Vega of Suicide, the Plasmatics further pushed the envelope. Not only was the Plasmatics’ music raw and uncompromising, but their live shows also often featured Williams — called the “Queen of Shock Rock” — wearing only underwear and nipple tape, blowing up cars and destroying guitars with chainsaws. Their first studio album, New Hope for the Wretched (1981), was described in People magazine (you read that right): “Transcending the normal bounds of wretchedness, the Plasmatics reach a new plateau of raging infantilism and epic depravity . . . They’re the amphetamine hit the fading punk movement needs.”
Years later, as the Plasmatics and Wendy O. Williams continued their assault on the world, Heidi Shepherd and Carla Harvey — the singer-songwriters who would later form the band Butcher Babies — were leading parallel lives that would eventually be brought together by their mutual admiration of Williams.
Growing up, Shepherd and Harvey describe living through several experiences that slowly filled them with rage — a rage at feeling controlled and being unable to express themselves fully. “I grew up a Mormon kid in Utah . . . it was a lifestyle I never believed in, but it was forced upon me. And I think I carried the anger from that into early adulthood,” Shepherd told me. “I was abused as a child, and that was something I didn’t approach until our second album.”
Harvey explained how growing up without a father and facing prejudice for being a biracial child left her frustrated. “I never really got over my dad leaving and not coming back for years,” Harvey told me. “And I also grew up biracial in a very racially divided city. And so I had a hard time growing up and trying to be who I wanted to be.”
Perhaps in search of a more rebellious and free environment, both Shepherd and Harvey eventually worked in different capacities for Playboy. But what they found was the opposite — a repressive and controlling environment that fueled, rather than subdued, their respective rage.
Harvey described her experience working as a Playboy reporter. “I signed a contract that said I had to have blonde hair, and I had to keep my weight a certain way and look a certain way and wear certain things,” Harvey recalled. “And I was going through old pictures of that time of my life . . . and I was miserable. Because I thought I wanted to be a part of that world — I hated it. And I hated the control they had over me — trying to package me in what they wanted me to be, their agenda.”
Shepherd had a similar experience working for a Playboy radio channel. After being hired, Shepherd said that she was pressured to perform the show topless, causing her to quit. “I started working for Playboy radio. And they did this ‘Topless Tuesday’ thing, and they wanted me to be topless. And I was like, I’m on radio, I don’t need to take my top off,” Shepherd explained. “And they’re like, ‘You’re ruining the show!’ And I’m like ‘You guys are so stupid.’”
Eventually, Shepherd and Harvey fund each other, and found that they shared a common interest — Wendy O. Williams. Suddenly, they had a role model who demonstrated how to express their rage in a raw and uncompromising way.
“When I think about Wendy, the first time I heard her song — it was “Butcher Baby” — an ex-boyfriend played it for me. And I was floored. Because she was not just a musician, she was art. She herself was art . . . she was up there doing what she wanted to do and being living art. I was really impressed by that,” Harvey explained. “It was the first time that I had seen a woman put on so many stage antics. Before, women had a different attitude onstage — even if you were a rock and roll singer . . . You had to be kind of proper. And she just did what she wanted to do. And that was hugely inspirational to me — more so than the music. I was a fan of everything about her — the power she exhibited onstage.”
Shepherd had also been enthralled by Williams. “Wendy O. Williams — the first female of heavy metal . . . The woman who went out there and really paved the way for artists like ourselves and any other female in this industry really to take a stand and make some noise,” Shepherd explained. “And she was wearing that against the repression of women . . . where they tell you what you’re supposed to look like, what you’re supposed to sound like. They try to dictate everything about you. And she went out there and was like ‘F*ck that sh*t. I’m going to be who I want to be and sound like I want to sound — just to spite you.’ And it was a message and a movement.”
And so Shepherd and Harvey wanted to strike out and create their own band, aptly named Butcher Babies — a direct homage to Williams.
“We started this band, it was basically an ode to Wendy O. Williams. What I really love about the movement that Wendy started was that it was OK to be yourself. If you feel a certain way about yourself, write about it, sing it, be it,” Shepherd described. “Her outfit choice was what our outfit choice was. For us, we really stood by what Wendy started. It was like, ‘F*ck that, I’m going to look like I want to look, dress how I want to dress, be how I want to be, make the music how I want to make it, sound how I want to sound.’”
Just as Williams’s choice of outfits drew a great deal of attention, so did Butcher Babies’ choice to dress like Williams — particularly their initially performing live and in videos scantily clad, wearing nipple tape. But while some viewed their outfit choice as an expression of sexuality, Shepherd and Harvey explained that the choice was one of anger rather than sexuality. It was a chance to strike back on the years of feeling under the control of others.
“Fast forward when me and Heidi started Butcher Babies and wore the nipple tape, it was a different feeling. It wasn’t like I was a packaged blonde Playboy girl with no brain. I was using the tools I wanted to use my whole life,” Harvey said. “We were writing music. We were getting out all of the anger we had, all the emotions we felt, and it was a very cathartic experience. Even going up there with nipple tape on, it was very cathartic for us to perform and be ourselves for the first time in a lot of ways.
“It was a liberation from being what everyone else wanted us to be for years.”
In fact, Shepherd described the outfit choice as being a statement against feeling sexualized by others. “With the nipple tape and that attire, it was never about being sexy. In fact that was just the opposite of the energy we had onstage and the energy Wendy had and the message. It was never about being sexy,” Shepherd described. “It was f*ck you — don’t tell me what to do.”
Despite not intending to portray a sexualized image on stage, many people reacted to their outfits by focusing entirely on their sexuality. “It was suggested one time that we go into a pool and come out in wet T-shirts with nipples penetrating through the shirt. And we’re like, yeah we’re not going to do that,” Shepherd recalled. “When we started, I got asked by a casting director if we would do a topless scene in a TV show. And I said absolutely not. I’ve never done anything like that — anything nude. And her response to me was, ‘Well, you’re wearing that tape onstage.’ It’s not about that. It’s totally different. And with the general public, they don’t see the difference there, as maybe they didn’t with Wendy . . . But I did — I saw the difference. We weren’t onstage shaking our t*ts. It was nothing like that. We were up there putting on the same show we put on now — head banging and thrashing. And the only difference was the attire. And it was never about a sexy show.”
“Everyone finds different things sexy . . . If a guy has a foot fetish and I wear sandals around him and I didn’t know, I’m not trying to arouse him,” Shepherd said.
In line with Williams’s commitment to self-expression, Harvey explained that she and Shepherd did not resent others’ reactions to Butcher Babies — even if they missed the point. “We can’t help what people think. But we also can’t get angry if they do think that . . . We’re putting ourselves out there,” Harvey explained. “At the same time, we have to be open to every single thing that comes back at us. Some people will get it. Some people don’t. When you make choices like that, you have to be OK with just getting it out of your system and just doing it for yourself and not anyone else.”
Tragically, in 1998, Williams committed suicide. Years after she had moved away from the public eye, she had been a vocal supporter of freedom of speech and self-expression. It is this enduring legacy that has in part helped Shepherd and Harvey heal emotionally.
“When we both started this band, we were young and angry. And you can see it on our faces onstage. We were screaming into the microphone. You could hear it in our music,” Shepherd said. “Things are definitely changing. We’re happy girls. We get on stage, and we’re happy and smile at people. Our fan base has been great about growing with us. If they don’t want to listen because we’ve grown up, that’s fine. As long as we’re doing something meaningful, there are people who will latch onto it.”
Shepherd and Harvey hope to keep living and creating music true to Williams’s spirit. And they encourage others to do the same.
“Being the most authentic version of who you can be is always a good start,” Harvey said.
Spoken like a true Wendy O. Williams devotee.
Photo credit: Shawn Murphy
An earlier version of this article originally appeared in Psychology Today on May 11, 2018.
