H Is for Hellgate’s Jamie Henkensiefken wants more girls to join the forces of rock

By Katy Henriksen
Published: December 5th, 2008 | 10:25am

Country was the first musical love for Jamie Henkensiefken, the 30-year-old force behind the Seattle-based, indie-prog band H Is for Hellgate, whose sophomore release, Come For the Peaks, Stay for the Valleys, is out today. Raised in Wyoming and Montana by parents she described as “rednecks big into country,” Henkensiefken was obsessed with the mother-daughter duo the Judds as a young girl. “I had this childhood fantasy,” she confesses via phone from Seattle. “I was like: I might be a long-lost Judd child. I invented this ridiculous scenario; I was pretty sure the two of them would come pick me up, and I’d start touring with them.”

As an only child, Henkensiefken occupied herself by daydreams of going on tour and becoming a professional musician. By sixth grade, she began composing country songs on a guitar she was given for Christmas. It wasn’t until high school — when she’d watch MTV at her best friend’s house, because the Henkensiefken’s didn’t have cable — that Henkensiefken began her foray into rock. “I didn’t understand there was this whole world of music out there,” she says. “So seeing Nirvana on TV was mind-blowing and awesome. It was aggressive but catchy. I remember having my mind blown by rock music after listening to so much country music and being bored by it.”

Her tastes had changed, but her determination to be a musician had not. In college at the University of Montana in Missoula, she founded the all-girl band Switchless, and played guitar in other bands during college and after she had graduated. Because she wanted to make it as a musician, Henkensiefken moved to Seattle in 2002 to immerse herself in the thriving scene that would eventually help her craft the distinct sounds of H Is for Hellgate.

With endless shifts in time signatures and layers of intricate guitar filtered heavily by pedals against an onslaught of driven bass and drums, H Is for Hellgate is definitely first and foremost a proggy band. But there are also slower, folkier moments, tinges of grunge, and homages to riot-grrrl sounds.

When asked to describe H Is for Hellgate’s sound, Henkensiefken doesn’t have a simple answer and is pleased when she hears that others have a similarly difficult time, because she doesn’t think the band’s sound is derivative. “The fastest comparison that people will draw is Liz Phair, which I don’t really understand, because I never really listened to her,” she explains. “I began realizing that people — because it’s female-fronted or because there’s a female singer — think that the comparison needs to be a female band. I don’t know of every band out there, but I really can’t think of another female-fronted band we sound like or are even similar to. So whenever I give comparisons, I say dude bands, because that’s a lot of what’s out there, and a lot of what I listen to.”

Henkensiefken, who prides herself on not being just a pretty face singing vocals and strumming a few chords, hopes that more young ladies join the forces of rock so that she’s not such an anomaly. “I don’t want to be like, ‘hey girls come out and play.’ I want it to be a non-issue. I want it to be four people playing in a band, and [I want people to] judge musicianship just on their playing and not on the fact that there aren’t a lot of girls that can play guitar like I can,” she says.

In addition to keeping pace with the boys through her shredding, Henkensiefken also volunteered at the Rock Camp for Girls, where she saw girly girls, not just tomboys, embracing what has stereotypically been defined as masculine sounds. “It made me hopeful that rock will stop being such a dude thing and that the aggressiveness that goes along with rock music will be embraced and not seen as an anti-feminine thing,” she says. “It’s okay for girls to rock out and have that edge. It’s not a masculine trait; it can be a feminine trait too.”
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zenzi (over 3 years)
Jamie's songwriting skills amaze me! I haven't had a chance to hear the new trio, but I know they will be great. Can't wait to get my copy of ther new CD "Come for the Peaks, Stay for the Valleys." Hooray!