Heavens to Betsy, the pioneering feminist punk duo of drummer Tracy Sawyer and singer-guitarist Corin Tucker, have reunited after 32 years. The band, which was active from 1991 to 1994, played a surprise DIY show in Portland, Oregon, in June, and have announced a US tour and a new LP titled Baby's Gone.
The duo, who were barely out of high school when they played their first show 35 years ago, originally broke up after releasing one album, Calculated. They are now in their 50s and both mothers of two.
Reunion and new release
Last autumn, Kill Rock Stars, the label that originally signed Heavens to Betsy, approached Tucker and Sawyer about a wide release for a rare 1992 demo tape. The label was able to make a new master from the cassette, and suggested the duo do a show. Baby's Gone collects that demo and two 7in EPs. The demo was recorded by Molly Neuman of Bratmobile with a four-track she checked out from the media library at Evergreen State College in Olympia, and only circulated on around 100 cassettes dubbed by the band.
“The whole thing felt like an impossible dream,” Tucker says. “I thought I had lost the physical master a long time ago.”
Enduring impact and legacy
Heavens to Betsy's songs, about body image, sexual abuse, abortion, periods, worker exploitation and defying a world that conditions women to be small, have inspired generations of musicians, including Olivia Rodrigo, who claims it as an influence. Bikini Kill will play her women-led Daisy Chain Fields festival in California this month.
“There’s a really particular voice with Heavens to Betsy, a way of writing a song that speaks to the clarity you have as a young person: This is wrong. This is not OK. I felt really energised and empowered by that voice coming back into my life,” Tucker says. “The voice of Heavens to Betsy was uncompromising, unfiltered and it never apologised for its rage and revenge-seeking.”
Baby's Gone is released via Kill Rock Stars on 16 October. Heavens to Betsy tour the US from 17 October.
