ABOUT
Mrs. Henry is an American rock band formed in San Diego, CA, in 2012. The band currently consists of Daniel Cervantes (vocals, guitar), Blake Dean (bass, vocals), Jody Bagley (keyboards, vocals), Ben Pinnola (organ, saxophone, vocals), and Dakota James Henry (drums). As of 2024, Mrs. Henry has released seven studio albums, and has achieved a cult following in San Diego while performing live across the United States, Canada, and Mexico. In 2022, Mrs. Henry was awarded Best Rock Album and Best Rock Artist at the San Diego Music Awards.
Mrs. Henry’s music is inspired by a wide variety of styles and artists, including psychedelic rock, punk rock, and rhythm and blues. They have been influenced in particular by The Band, whom they’ve paid tribute to in their albums Mrs. Henry presents The Last Waltz (2019), Music From Big Pink (2023), and Rock Of Ages (2023). Mrs. Henry performs The Band’s music with their touring band Chest Fever, who received a special approval from The Band Official Estate and The Band’s late guitarist and songwriter Robbie Robertson.
Improvisation is a part of Mrs. Henry’s live performances, and speaks to their influences of psychedelic and progressive rock. They have collaborated live and in studio with several prominent artists and songwriters, including electric violinist Scarlet Rivera, the Eagles songwriter Jack Tempchin and English guitarist Albert Lee.
History
2012: Formation and Name
Mrs. Henry was formed by lead vocalist and guitarist Daniel Cervantes in San Diego, CA in March of 2012, along with drummer Dustin Schemensky, bassist Jason Areford and guitarist Kyle Areford. Around the same time, Cervantes also created the record label Blind Owl, which Mrs. Henry is currently signed to. “The initial catalyst was to create a group of equals,” said Cervantes, in an interview in 2022. “I had a goal set to put together a band where everybody respected one another musically, creatively, artistically, and personally.” The members of Mrs Henry also bonded over a shared appreciation for the songwriting of Bob Dylan, and the band’s name refers to a track called “Please, Mrs. Henry” that appears on Bob Dylan and The Band’s 1975 studio album The Basement Tapes.
Musical Style and Influence
Mrs. Henry is primarily influenced by the varying sub-genres of rock and roll from the 20th century, including psychedelic rock, punk rock, prog rock, metal, and blues. When asked to choose their three favorite albums on Apple Music, the band chose Elton John’s Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, Pink Floyd’s The Wall, and Guns n Roses’ Use Your Illusion. According to Mrs. Henry’s record label, Blind Owl, their music is composed of "spirited harmonies, psychoactive jams, and uplifting anthems.”. Mrs. Henry is also heavily inspired by The Band, and fuses similar musical and artistic components into their music, including Americana, folk music, and country. A shift in style occurred in Mrs. Henry’s 2024 rock opera Keep on Rising, the band’s first concept album that was influenced partly by glam rock and musical theater.
2013-2016: Chicken Towne,
Not the Kinda Girl, Otay, and Mrs. Henry
In 2012, Mrs. Henry released their debut EP, Chicken Towne, which was followed by their second EP Not the Kinda Girl. Before Mrs. Henry released their third album, Otay, in 2016, members Dustin Schemensky, Jason Areford, and Kyle Areford left the band, and new members Blake Dean, Jody Bagley, and Chad Lee joined Cervantes as bass guitarist, keyboardist, and drummer, respectively. Lee, who is also a member of The Silent Comedy, met Cervantes when they both played together in the band Creature In The Woods.
Cervantes joined the group Howlin Rain, a rock band created by Ethan Miller of Comets on Fire, in 2014. It was during his time in Howlin Rain when Cervantes first became interested in the music of The Band and The Last Waltz, after bassist Jeff McElroy referenced them during a recording session. “I was at his house recording guitar, and he said something along the lines of, ‘Play it like Robbie Robertson.’ And I was completely unaware of the reference,” said Cervantes in an interview with Hollywood Soapbox. “We stopped immediately, pulled ‘Up On Cripple Creek’ up on YouTube, and I’ve been a fan ever since.”
Mrs. Henry’s 2016 studio album Otay was recorded in various settings, including garages, home studios, and warehouses. The album featured past members of Mrs. Henry as musical collaborators, and was a collection of recordings from 2011-2015. Otay was assembled by Cervantes in Otay, California, where the album derives its title. San Diego Citybeat praised the album as “a celebration of rock and roll throughout the ages that will never go out of style. In 2016, Mrs Henry also released their self-titled album Mrs. Henry, which was distributed as a two-volume set. According to the band’s label Blind Owl Records, the album is described as “a true birth of the group’s Nitro-burnin’ soul” [16]. The content on Mrs. Henry was partially inspired by Mrs. Henry’s 2015 tour along the West Coast, and starts with the song All I Can Do, which is what Cervantes calls a “nine-plus minute odyssey” consisting of “the actual ocean sounds recorded cliffside in the Pacific NorthWest”.
2017-2020: Mrs. Henry Presents
The Last Waltz, “The River/ It WIll Be Alright” & Feel Free
On November 26, 2017, Mrs. Henry performed The Last Waltz; The Band’s farewell concert and subsequent documentary film that was originally performed and recorded in 1976. Like The Band, who had invited special guests on stage, Mrs. Henry also features other musicians and bands in their own concert, which they perform in various cities across North America. Scarlet Rivera, who had toured with Bob Dylan during Rolling Thunder Revue and is credited as the violinist on Dylan’s 1976 studio album Desire, joined Mrs. Henry on stage for some of their performances, along with singer-songwriter Jack Tempchin and The Black Crowes guitarist Marc Ford.
In 2019, Mrs. Henry Presents The Last Waltz was released as a 3xLP set, featuring the recording of their show at The Belly Up in Solana Beach, CA. It was mastered by Joe Bozzi, who is known for his work with Joni Mitchell and Neil Young, both of whom were two of the special guests at the original 1976 concert. In 2020, Mrs. Henry also released a documentary of their performance on Youtube, which had previously premiered at the Oceanside Film Festival in August of 2019.
Mrs. Henry released their double single “The River / It Will Be Alright”, which was recorded in San Francisco with Eric Bauer at Mansion Studio during the band’s first tour after The Last Waltz. “We had a few days off to fill in the tour schedule,” Cervantes remarked, “and I figured what better way to spend some time than recording with the band new material that had been written in one of our favorite cities in the world.” Cervantes had previously worked with Bauer during his time in Howlin Rain, and the song was partly inspired by hiking in Big Sur. “When you are on a hike, the sound of a river always gets you excited to go see it. Sometimes you meet people along the way that tell you whether or not it's worth going to. Sometimes you have to see it for yourself and sometimes it's absolutely worth it.”
2020 saw the release of two of Mrs. Henry’s live albums, Live at The Casbah, which was performed at the Casbah music venue in San Diego on the club’s 30th anniversary, and Live at the Pour House, performed at The Pour House in Oceanside, CA. Mrs. Henry also released their studio album Feel Free in the summer of 2020, which was recorded over the course of three days in the band’s warehouse bunker in Otay, CA. According to the band, the themes and content of the album offers one specific message: “I am you and you are me, where there’s a will there is a way to be free.”
The Medicine Show & A Drunkard’s Dream Festival
In 2020, when the Covid-19 pandemic put restrictions on live concerts, Mrs. Henry created a multi-media web series called the “Medicine Show”, alluding to the medicine shows of the nineteenth-century. Mrs. Henry’s “Medicine Show” was released in two episodes on Youtube in June of 2020.
The show consisted of the band members portrayed by sock-puppets, and included performances from Mrs. Henry and other bands from their label
In April of 2022, Mrs. Henry collaborated again with Jack Tempchin for A Drunkard’s Dream Art & Music Festival, a concert that took place in the San Diego neighborhood of Barrio Logan. Tempchin, Mrs. Henry, and other San Diego-based artists performed new and old material, and the festival offered a place for other multi-media artists to showcase their work. Part of the proceeds for the festival were donated to Rollin from the Heart, an organization that aims to encourage disadvantaged youth to participate in positive lifestyles.
Chest Fever
In 2020, when the Covid-19 pandemic put restrictions on live concerts, Mrs. Henry created a multi-media web series called the “Medicine Show”, alluding to the medicine shows of the nineteenth-century. Mrs. Henry’s “Medicine Show” was released in two episodes on Youtube in June of 2020.
The show consisted of the band members portrayed by sock-puppets, and included performances from Mrs. Henry and other bands from their label
In April of 2022, Mrs. Henry collaborated again with Jack Tempchin for A Drunkard’s Dream Art & Music Festival, a concert that took place in the San Diego neighborhood of Barrio Logan. Tempchin, Mrs. Henry, and other San Diego-based artists performed new and old material, and the festival offered a place for other multi-media artists to showcase their work. Part of the proceeds for the festival were donated to Rollin from the Heart, an organization that aims to encourage disadvantaged youth to participate in positive lifestyles.