Kristin Forbes

For more than fifteen years, Kristin Forbes has worn her nom de guerre Lady Hatchet like a suit of armor, fearlessly following her muse and love of Jamaican music into the many musical projects and places it has taken her. Since 2009, she has led the Baltimore punky reggae crew The Scotch Bonnets as they toured the United States extensively and, on Jump Up Records, released two albums of her songwriting (an infectious blend of Jamaican-inspired grooves mixed with American rock and R&B stylings), as well as numerous singles and an EP in collaboration with HR of Bad Brains. She spent a month on the Vans Warped Tour in 2011, playing with Fishbone’s legendary frontman Angelo Moore; that collaboration became the 2015 album, Ska Do Au Ska Don’t. She is also a multi-instrumentalist who, in a pinch, has played guitar, bass, and even keyboards for some of the most established American ska bands (The Slackers, The Toasters, The Pietasters). Lady Hatchet, who is proudly sponsored by Reverend Guitars, has played in Baltimore’s premiere ska-reggae band The Players Band since she moved to Charm City in 2008 and is now their full-time bass player. In 2019, she became the lead guitar player in an all-female lineup of Strykers Posse, a Baltimore foundational roots-reggae crew. During the pandemic, Lady Hatchet helped to start the all-female ska supergroup Rude Girl Revue, which features members from some of the hottest ska bands on the East Coast (Stop The Presses, Hub City Stompers and more) and is now an outlet for some of her most feminist songwriting yet. She also produced solo Lady Hatchet singles, 20 episodes of a livestream variety show called A Slice of Hatchet, and developed her acoustic act which, along with new international attention generated by the livestream show, lead to a solo European tour in 2022, as well as a Midwest solo tour and her first Nashville showcase in 2023.