Biography

After founding her influential art-punk band Throwing Muses in Providence, RI at the age of 14, Kristin Hersh has spent quality time confounding expectations and breaking rules, both hers and others. From life as the reluctant front person for the Muses to the solo career she swore would never happen, through the founding of an ambitious and altruistic non-profit to her recent foray into a successful new career as an author, Kristin, a mother of four, didn’t see much of this coming.

Throwing Muses first gained traction in the early ‘80s playing on show rosters with similarly singular artists like the Pixies, Mission of Burma and Dinosaur Jr. They signed with the highly regarded British indie label 4AD Records, the label’s first American signing, and eventually moved on to Sire/Warner Bros. After six releases the band put out their crowning achievement, Limbo, in 1996 and promptly disbanded for 7 years.

In 2003, the band reformed, recorded and released the CD, Uses. Then again in 2013, Throwing Muses returned again with their first studio album in 10 years – Purgatory/Paradise – published as a book and a CD. The art book is 64-pages of lyrics, essays, and photos and includes a 32-track CD that was entirely listener-supported thanks to Kristin’s Strange Angels.

Kristin’s solo and mostly-acoustic career spun off in 1994 with the release of Hips and Makers. The album was widely acclaimed and included “Your Ghost” - a duet with R.E.M.’s Michael Stipe. Since then, Kristin has released a steady stream of solid and distinctly individual solo albums including Strange Angels, Sky Motel, The Grotto and Learn to Sing Like a Star. 2010’s Crooked, released as her first book/CD, is an entirely listener-funded recording, written and demoed in public and in full conversation with the audience meant to consume it.

In 2004, Kristin formed the power trio, 50FootWave, releasing a series of frighteningly intense mini-albums, all available for download free of charge and licensed for sharing via Creative Commons. Their latest ‘Bath White’ EP, however, was released on CD and vinyl earlier this year on HHBTM Records. “A series of loud explosions, of velvet like dreams all intermingled at the same time; Bath White takes no prisoners.” (Ian D. Hall/Liverpool Sound and Vision)

In 2007 Kristin co-founded the non-profit Coalition of Artists and Stake-Holders (CASH Music). Over the past few years, CASH has not only completely funded Kristin’s own output, but has also powered dozens of other artist and label projects and has grown into a widely-recognized powerhouse of technical tools that enable commerce, communication and sustainability for artists — all in the open source and free of charge.

Kristin began her book writing career several years ago, beginning with essays and tour diaries which she published on her own website, and as a guest blogger on Powells.com. Since then she has published “Paradoxical Undressing” in the UK, (released as the critically acclaimed “Rat Girl” in the USA) and a children’s book “Toby Snax”, and “Don’t Suck, Don’t Die”, a personal account of her long friendship with the late Vic Chesnutt.

New Interview Here: http://www.shakenstir.co.uk/index.php/interviews/kristin-hersh-interview/interviews/32041/