About Henning

Henning is a singer, a songwriter, an multi-instrumentalist, a producer, and a performer.
He makes albums on his own and with his band School for the Dead.

He also records and performs in The Fawns, Sitting Next To Brian, Bourgeois Heroes, and Goldwater.

Past bands include Humbert, The Aloha Steamtrain, The Greenbergs, and The Gay Potatoes.

Henning has been a touring player with Winterpills, Spouse, Chris Collingwood, Polaris, and Mark Mulcahy.

Henning grew up in Massachusetts as one of three sons of a mother from Denmark and a father from Germany. Earliest musical memories include impersonating Elvis Presley by singing Hound Dog on his friend's front steps, hearing The Lonesome Loser on the radio while playing with Legos, watching concerts by Victor Borge on PBS, memorizing the School House Rocks lessons, singing Forever In Blue Jeans while his brother played the old beat up piano in the basement, taking piano lessons from an ancient woman in a stuffy apartment, and buying and playing a five dollar Stella guitar with three strings until his fingers peeled.

In his Junior and High School years, Henning formed a band with friends called The Shrugs. Though they only played three live shows, they practiced regularly and wrote and recorded multiple cassette albums on their borrowed four-track recorder or on two tape decks if the four-track was unavailable. Henning played the Korg Poly 800 keyboard in this band, his fellow band mates Han and Gary Wang both continue to create music today, Han is in the San Francisco band Invisible Cities and Gary travels the world with his acoustic bass.

In his college years, Henning, dove head-first into the acoustic guitar and the world of songwriting. He played countless dorm hours every day and night for years, eventually pursuing a degree in music and music recording. HIs focus was always on writing, arranging, and recording his own songs.

In the mid nineties, Henning, moved to musical songwriting mecca, Northampton, Massachusetts where he quickly became a bass player and maintained long term roles in Humbert and The Aloha Steamtrain. He traveled around the country performing and recorded multiple albums with these two bands and others. During this time he also continued to record his own solo projects and ran a long running weekly open mic night at the now legendary Baystate Hotel.

In the early 2000's, he put together a band for what was supposed to be a one-off performance of songs from his new solo album Henning's School for the Dead. The band was received so well that they continued to perform, eventually dropping off the name Henning and becoming simply School for the Dead.

Not long after this, Henning also began the band The Fawns with fellow School for the Dead members and singer songwriter Lesa Bezo. Both School for the Dead and The Fawns are actively touring and recording new material.

Don't forget The Gay Potatoes, a short-lived country side project with Chris Collingwood, Lloyd Cole, Philip Price, and Brian Marchese. Henning played bass for this band and also wrote a third of the songs.

Around this time, Henning also took part in the arranging of and performing of the Rosenbach Company by Ben Katchor and Mark Mulcahy. This illustrated sung-through pop-musical has been performed now multiple times to great critical acclaim in NYC, San Francisco, Boston, Northampton, Amherst, and for week run in Philadelphia at the Philly Fringe Fest.

During all this time, Henning produced and recorded many projects in his Rub Wrongways Recording Studio. 

In September 2009, a School for the Dead cover of Mark Mulcahy's I Just Shot Myself In The Foot Again was released on a tribute album with tracks by such folks as Michael Stipe, Thom Yorke, Frank Black, and The National.

In 2011 Henning released "Henning Goes to the Movies" an album of songs about films.

In July 2012, Henning contributed a song to a Woody Guthrie Tribute Album called "Keep Hoping Machine Running".  His track was "Little Black Train".

In August 2012, Henning joined the band Polaris for a reunion show for the television program "The Adventures of Pete and Pete" at the Orpheum in Los Angeles.  Also performing with Polaris that evening were Rain Phoenix and Syd Straw.

In late 2012 and throughout 2013, Henning has been on the road as part of the Mark Mulcahy Band.  They've played a number of sold-out shows in the U.S. and the U.K. and have performed with special guests such as Chris Harford, J. Mascis, and Pat Sansone.