| Kat Bjelland | |
|---|---|
| Birth name | Katherine Bjelland |
| Born | December 8, 1963 Salem, Oregon, United States |
| Origin | Minneapolis, Minnesota |
| Genres | Alternative rock, punk rock, indie rock |
| Occupations | Musician, songwriter |
| Instruments | Vocals, guitar, bass guitar, piano |
| Years active | 1985–present |
| Labels | Treehouse, Twin Tone, Southern, Reprise, Sympathy for the Record Industry, Integrity Records, Rish |
| Associated acts | Sugar Babydoll, Pagan Babies, Italian Whorenuns, Babes in Toyland, Hole, Crunt, Katastrophy Wife |
| Website | www.katbjelland.com |
Katherine "Kat" Bjelland (born December 8, 1963) is an American musician who is currently the lead singer-guitarist of the band Katastrophy Wife, and is the former lead singer and guitarist of the punk rock band Babes in Toyland.
Bjelland grew up in Oregon and moved to Portland in the early 1980s, where she met and became friends with Courtney Love. The two formed several bands together and had an on-and-off friendship until Bjelland formed Babes in Toyland in Minneapolis and gained considerable critical success. In 1995, Babes in Toyland released their final album, and the late '90s and early millennium saw Bjelland working on several side projects, including Katastrophy Wife. In 2007, Bjelland was diagnosed with schizophrenia and spent a year in an institution receiving treatment. As of 2010, Katastrophy Wife has yet to release further material.
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Bjelland was born in Salem, Oregon and grew up in nearby Woodburn. Her mother was Lynne Irene Higginbotham; her father was Lyle Bjelland. Bjelland's parents divorced when she was young, and she referred to her stepmother in later years as "abusive"[1] and having a great effect on her life. In the documentary, Not Bad for a Girl (1995), Bjelland revealed this:
You know, I really hate to talk about it because she's great now, but in my childhood she was very abusive... like I said, though, it probably did help my creativity a lot. I was always grounded. I hate to talk about it because I feel like she doesn't think that she did it, but she was [abusive] and it influenced my life quite a great deal.[1]
Bjelland also said she was told to "shut up" a lot and wasn't allowed to speak, which resulted in her outspoken nature as she grew into adulthood.
She attended Woodburn High School, where she says she was a popular student and cheerleader. As a teenager, Bjelland became interested in music. Her uncle, David Higginbotham, taught her to play guitar. Her first performance was at a small bar in Woodburn called Flight 99 (now defunct), with the band called 'The Neurotics'.
Shortly after graduating from high school in 1982, Bjelland moved to Portland, where she formed a series of bands, first The Neurotics and then an all-female band called The Venarays, which Bjelland has described as "rock with a '60s edge." The Neurotics were composed of Bjelland (rhythm guitar); her uncle David Higginbotham (lead guitar); Marty Wyman (vocals); Dave Hummel (drums); and Laura Robertson (bass).
After The Neurotics I got this band together with my best friends, so it was an all-girl band. We were called The Venarays. The name came from the word venary which means actively hunting out sex! We began as a way of having fun with each other.[2]
In reality, the Venarays was not an all girl band as drummer Dave Hummel, and later, Jack Rhodes, were men. The name 'Venarays' was taken from a television character called Vena Ray in an early 1950s program called Rocky Jones Space Ranger. After the band was named, some members of the band discovered the word 'venary' in the dictionary and became confused regarding the origin.
After quitting The Venarays, Bjelland met Courtney Love in Portland, and the two started a band with bassist Jennifer Finch, called Sugar Babydoll. Love went on to form the band Hole, while Finch would be part of L7.
Around 1985, in San Francisco, Bjelland and Love formed a new band called the Pagan Babies with Deidre Schletter on drums and Janis Tanaka (later in Stone Fox and L7) [3] When Love left, this lineup played under the name Italian Whore Nuns.[4]
In the mid-1980s, Bjelland moved from Portland to Minneapolis, where she met and formed Babes in Toyland. Kat met Lori Barbero at a barbecue not long after moving to Minneapolis in the mid-1980s, and convinced her to become a drummer — something that Lori quickly became very talented at. The pair joined with bassist Michelle Leon, and Babes in Toyland was formed. Courtney Love briefly played bass in the band for several weeks while in Minneapolis, but was kicked out and returned to the West Coast.[5]
The Babes' début single, 'Dust Cake Boy' b/w 'Spit to See the Shine' was an instant hit. After touring Europe with Sonic Youth, the band recorded their abrasive début album 'Spanking Machine', which was another success. Babes in Toyland would achieve minor success in the early 1990s. Bands such as Bikini Kill, Bratmobile, and Sleater-Kinney have named the group as a main influence, while less political female bands like Jack Off Jill, 7 Year Bitch, and Fluffy have also cited Bjelland and Babes in Toyland as an inspiration. Babes in Toyland's career peaked in mainstream exposure when they performed on a portion of the Lollapalooza tour in 1993.[6] Bjelland is prominently featured in the book "Babes in Toyland: The Making and Selling of a Rock and Roll Band" (ISBN 0812920589) by Neal Karlen, a journalist for the New York Times and Rolling Stone magazine. This was the first time a hardcover book had been written about an all-girl rock and roll group. Babes in Toyland was featured on the covers of Entertainment Weekly and USA Today. [7]
Earlier in 1993, Bjelland had begun a side project called Crunt with new husband Stuart Gray (aka Stu Spasm), formerly of Lubricated Goat.[8] Bjelland played bass and Gray guitar, while Russell Simins of Jon Spencer Blues Explosion was the drummer. In February 1994, the band released a self-titled début, along with its first single, "Swine". For a time there was talk that Crunt would replace Babes in Toyland as Bjelland's main project. The band had ended by the time Bjelland and Gray divorced in January 1995.[9]
With Babes in Toyland playing only sporadically in the late 1990s, Bjelland started the band Katastrophy Wife in 2000. The band toured at venues, such as Ladyfest, worldwide. Katastrophy Wife have so far released two albums, Amusia and All Kneel; as well as a single Heart On on the Australian record label Rish in April 2007. The single was intended as a trailer for a forthcoming album, Pregnant,[10] although as of 2011 the album has not been released. Bjelland has also done some soundtrack work.[11] In an update to the Katastrophy Wife website, Bjelland reported that "Katastrophy Wife have had a few incarnations but from here on I will only re-incarnate my self."[12] She produced the album The Seven Year Itch for the band Angelica, released in 2002.
Bjelland was married and divorced twice and had a son, Henry, with her second husband. In 2007, it was reported that Bjelland had fallen into a schizophrenic episode and had received treatment.[13] Bjelland commented on the event, saying: “I don’t know how I’ve progressed musically as such but a major influence in my writing was dealing with my whole schizophrenia episode. I actually haven’t spoken to anyone much about this. Dealing with multiple personalities was extremely difficult because some days I didn’t know who I was or where I was at. I was very lucky that Adrian stuck by and helped me through it all. So obviously that was going to affect some of what I wrote about.”[13] In her 2010 episode of Behind the Music, Courtney Love reflected on her formative years in rock music in Portland, Oregon, and said, "The best thing that ever happened to me, in a way, was Kat." [14]
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