“I'm a musician out of Bay City, Michigan. I’m the front man of my band, ‘Henry Walters’, backed by my older brother, Sid Walters on drums, and Dante Schoof on bass. We started officially in 2019, so it's coming up on five years this spring.
I grew up in Bay City. My family has always been involved in music and my dad is a musician. I started to take it more seriously when I joined the marching band in middle school. I joined the drum line and that’s when I met Dante. I had been playing guitar for a few years, and I had written a little bit, but nothing I was satisfied with. By the time I was about to graduate though, I had a set of songs I was pretty proud of, so I started talking to local venues and that’s how I got my first show at Electric Kitsch here in Bay City.
From there, I never stopped writing, and the more I wrote, the more proud of my writing I became. We formed the band officially in 2019, and we just went by ‘Henry’ at that point. That’s when Sid and Dante joined, and our first show together was opening for a local metal band. From there we just kept getting asked to play shows, it got bigger and better as we went on.
I like a lot of classic rock: The Beatles, The Who, and The Rolling Stones. But I like trip hop and techno too: Gorillas, Beck, and St.Vincent. I like Bob Dylan and modern indie artists like Foxygen and The Lemon Twigs. I also like jazz and hip hop, Easy E is a huge influence people may not hear in my music.
Studio experimentation is a big part of what we do in the band, and that stems back to that Beatles influence. I love listening back to Revolver and Sergeant Pepper and hearing stuff that was original at the time, and now it's so ingrained that we take it for granted. I like to think of the time it was released, and people's reaction of ‘What is that SOUND?’. So I try to mix things up and do things I haven't seen other people do.
We record and produce our own music. When you're a working artist like I am, you don't always have that extra cash to go into a professional studio. We've been lucky enough to work with some college radio stations, recording in their studios, but right now I can do more experimenting at home. When you’re producing your own music, you don’t have to contend with somebody else's vision. If you have an idea in your head, you can learn what you need to do to achieve that sound. And luckily, my band mates are just as interested in the engineering part of recording as I am. There’s a mix of interest in musicianship and production.”
“My new album, Hot To Trot, contains a lot of influences and experiences I got while playing out with the band these last five years, my experiences traveling around the state and going to gigs. I’ve also been reading more philosophy, trying to expand my horizons, and those ideas are on the album as well. Things like ‘collective unconscious’ and a recurring theme that ‘less is more’.
The biggest gig we’ve had just happened in October. One of my favorite bands, The Lemon Twigs, had an opening act that canceled because their car broke down. I got the call asking if we could fill in, so we packed our gear and hurried down to The Magic Bag in Ferndale, and it was such a good time.
It was my first time at a bigger venue, playing for a bigger crowd. It’s something I had been working towards so I was really happy to do it. I’ve never played a show like that, the crowd was in the dark and the stage was so bright I couldn't see anyone I was playing to.
We’ve had several shows recently at the ART DEPT. in Bay City, including opening up for JW Francis.
That’s also where we did my album release party for ‘Hot To Trot’. I like being able to see the crowd when I play. I like them right up close.
As far as what I’d like to achieve, if I were paying my bills by playing gigs, that'd be it for me.”
–Henry Walters
