The Legend of Sweet ol' Heath

Heath Henjum, bass player for The Hopefuls and a dozen other acts, died unexpectedly in late February 2025. He was 55 years old.

One of my regrets regarding my book The Hopefuls: Chasing a Rock ‘n’ Roll Dream in the Minnesota Music Scene is that - because the Hopefuls collective is so filled with fascinating figures - I wasn’t able to give all of them the spotlight they deserve. Heath is definitely at the top of that list; I estiamate I only used about a tenth of what he shared with me when I interviwed him in 2015. So please forgive me for using the sad occasion of his passing to remedy that.

Not that Heath especially cared about the spotlight. All good bands, like all good sports teams, need a “glue guy,” someone who finds their joy not in adulation but in making everyone else around them better. Heath was a consummate glue guy.

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Heath Laurence Henjum, born in June 1969, grew up in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. His dad was a World War II veteran and a stockbroker. His mom worked as a bookkeeper and dabbled in photography. His mother was an avid music listener, so Heath grew up with her love of 1970s pop: Fleetwood Mac, Elton John, and the Bee Gees. His sister Irene was four years older, so as Heath reached middle school she introduced him to the likes of the Ramones, Black Flag, Elvis Costello, and the Replacement.

When he got the chance to take up music in school, Heath chose the drums, and would go on to drum in his high school band. When the director asked if anyone wanted to play bass in the school jazz band, Heath volunteered. From there he and his friends formed their first band, a punk outfit called Jonathan E.

Heath graduated from high school in 1987 and went on to attend the University of South Dakota in Vermillion. He was double major in mathematics and political science, with a minor in computer science but still found time to play bass in jazz band and orchestra. He also got involved in the local music scene, which was headlined by a prolific singer/songwriter named Rich Show. In 1989, Show was looking for his next musical direction after five years leading the punk band No Direction. The result was Flag With Hank, a Neil Young-and-CCR-indebted roots rock band featuring Show, guitarist Ralph Mills, drummer Lance Beier, and on bass, Heath. The group put out a self-titled album in 1989, played a bunch of shows, and built up a sizable local following.

In 1991 they traveled to Minneapolis to record a follow-up record, Weaselroni, and after Heath graduated, the band headed south to Austin, Texas to try to parlay their local fame into something bigger. Their timing was good, as bands such as Uncle Tupelo and The Jayhawks were gaining national attention and birthing the “alt-country” movement.

But dame fortune did not smile on Flag With Hank, and after a couple of years they returned to Vermillion, lost Mills and replaced him with the Marks (Romanowski and Bombara), and rebranded themselves Violet. Heath enrolled in graduate school at USD, but continued to play with the band, and traveled with them to the Twin Cities to record their debut album - Global Village - at Prince’s Paisley Park studios in 1993. The album, along with constant gigging, helped vault Violet to next-big-thing status. They released their second album, Rejoice in the Frustration, in 1994. At this point Violet had cemented themselves as the marquee South Dakota group, especially as a part of a Sioux Falls scene that centered around the legendary Pomp Room and included bands such as Janitor Bob and the Armchair Cowboys, Crash Alley, and the Harvesters. 

It was during this time that Heath gained the nickname The Legend. It wasn’t a reference to his prowess on the bass, but rather to the fact that, as legend had it, he could grow a full beard in the course of an after-gig party. Meanwhile, Violet’s rising popularity had garnered major label interest, and the band did some showcases for A & R reps, and even recorded a demo for Warner Bros. But as before, things didn’t quite pan out. Violet broke up in the summer of 1996 when Bombara moved to Seattle and Heath decided to follow his girlfriend, Laurie Buss, to Minneapolis. After reaching the precipice of a career in music twice, and falling short both times, Heath recognized that it was time to seek more stable opportunities. He got a job as a database administrator at Gelco Information Network while Laurie joined Milkweed Press as an editor. The couple would marry in the summer of 1998. Heath was not in a band for the first time in over a decade, but he immersed himself in the Twin Cities music scene. He became a fixture at places like St. Paul’s Turf Club, and it wasn’t long before he was invited to join a band. The Sycamores were a roots rock band formed in 1990 by singer-songwriter Frank Randall and drummer David Downey. They put out their first album - featuring Twin Cities luminaries Adam Levy (Honeydogs) and Slim Dunlap (Replacements) - in 1994 and their second in 1996, but had never had a permanent bassist. Heath joined in 1998 in time for the band to record a third album, Realizer, which was released the following year.

In an interconnected (some might say incestuous) music scene like the one in the Twin Cities, one thing leads to another, and so it was for Heath. Being in the Sycamores presented him with two other opportunities. David Downey also played with singer-songwriter Pete Hofmann, and brought Heath along. Heath joined Hofmann for shows all over the midwest and beyond, and participated in the recording of Hofmann’s albums Crawling Tall (2001) and Mermaid on the Rocks (2003). Hofmann and Heath would sometimes play gigs as a duo, Heath on upright bass and Pete on a wurlitzer piano. They’d travel in Heath’s Volvo wagon, dubbed “Sweet Ride,” and perform covers of jazz, country, and R & B tunes. “ He was so right-on all the time, " Hofmann told me. "He understood and anticipated so well. He had a great sense for music, for the feel."

Another connection led Heath to join power pop group The Beatifics. Paul Novak, who had been a sometime bassist for The Sycamores prior to Heath joining, was also a member of the Beatifics. The band, following national recognition for their 1996 debut How I Learned to Stop Worrying, was going through some personnel shifts that led to Heath being invited to take over the low end.

From this point on, as Heath humorously put it, “I was always in, like, three bands.”

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Between 1999 and 2002 Heath kept plenty busy with The Sycamores, The Beatifics, and Pete Hofmann, and he also continued to work full time, as a database administrator at both Ingersoll Rand and Thermo King. He and Laurie divorced during this time, and Heath met and married therapist Jennifer Schweitzer.

Working with the Beatifics and Hofmann had represented Heath’s first ventures outside of roots rock, and opened up new opportunities for him. As his live work with The Sycamores wound down (though they’d continue to record semi-regularly), Heath joined with Beatifics members Paul Novak and Andy Schultz to form a new power pop band, Betty Drake. The band - which included drummer and Heath’s fellow South Dakotan Nate Jacqua - released their debut album, Grape or Red, in 2003 and celebrated with a gig at the Turf Club headlined by Slim Dunlap. Though he was a versatile player, pop rock and new wave were his most natural wheelhouse; his bass-playing heroes were Tommy Stinson of the Replacements and Bruce Thomas of Elvis Costello’s band The Attractions. Those influences shine brightly in Heath’s melodic basslines on Grape or Red.

The other big opportunity came from an old acquaintance seeing Heath in a new light. Erik Appelwick knew Heath from the Vermillion and Sioux Falls days. Appelwick played in The Harvesters, and shared bills with Violet many times. Like Heath, he’d resettled in the Twin Cities and gotten involved in the local music scene. When Appelwick’s band Vicious Vicious played with The Beatifics, he and Heath reconnected. In fact, every time Appelwick went to the Turf Club he saw Heath there; it happened so often that Erik began to wonder if Heath ever left. Appelwick had been working with another South Dakotan, Darren Jackson, on an album of power pop songs. They’d recorded most of it themselves along with drummer Peter Anderson, but were looking to put together a live band. Appelwick asked if Heath wanted to join. He gave him the recordings and said, “Listen and see if you wanna do it.” Heath dug the songs, and agreed to join. The band didn’t have a name (in a previous iteration they’d been called Camaro), nor a full line-up, and Heath hadn’t even learned the songs yet, but they got together for a photo shoot. Though they’d run in similar circles for a while, it was Darren and Heath’s first time meeting. Darren took Erik’s word that Heath was the right bassist for the band.

Eventually things fell into place. The band added a permanent drummer, Matt O’Laughlin, and a keyboardist, Johnny Hermanson, and dubbed themselves the Olympic Hopefuls. They signed a contract with local label 2024, released their album (The Fuses Refuse to Burn), and set out to make a splash in the Twin Cities.

The splash turned out to be more like a great wave, as the Olympic Hopefuls - with their orange-and-red tracksuits and energetic performances - quickly became the hottest ticket in town. Heath had been there before with Flag With Hank and Violet, but this felt different. “We got so much attention right away,” he recalled, “That it was easy to think that you were going to get famous." At the same time, he was pragmatic about keeping his day job: “As you know more people who are kinda successful... you find out how much money they make, and it's like 'No way.' I make so much more doing what I do, and I like it."

He’d also joined yet another band, hooking up with Chicago transplant Chris Perricelli and drummer Ken DeVoe to play Zeppelin-and-Bowie inspired rock. Scene veteran Cyn Collins wrote of a gig at the Turf Club, “Henjum really shines in Little Man, where his funky, driving and creative bass-playing has more opportunity to fill in the spaces.” The trio recorded an album, Big Rock, and played lots of gigs together. Similar to Hofmann, Perricelli appreciated Heath’s intuitive approach to playing as part of a unit, as well as his infectious joy.

As the Hopefuls gained more and more attention, Heath shifted his day job from full time work to consulting, and was thus able to remain steady through the tumult of interband conflict, legal trouble, and arguments with the label. Other than a stretch in the summer of 2005 when he took time off to have surgery to address intense back pain, Heath was a constant Hopeful.

In 2006 Erik Appelwick was disinvited from the Hopefuls after expressing a desire to go on tour with Tapes ‘n Tapes. and it’s a testament to Heath’s stalwart nature that he was able to stay in the band while not only remaining friendly with Appelwick, but actually joining him in Vicious Vicious. Heath played on Appelwick’s third VV album, Parade, and had a blast practicing and recording with Appelwick, Adrian Suarez, and J.G. Everest. Appelwick praised Heath’s contributions to the record as “impeccably tasty.”

Just as with his previous bands, the Hopefuls didn’t quite make it. There were a variety of factors, but one was that almost everyone had growing families, Heath included. His and Jennifer's first son, Henry, was born in 2005. Everett followed in 2008. The Hopefuls would make one album without Appelwick, Now Playing At the One-Seat Theatre, but the momentum of their early days was gone. Heath stuck with Jackson even after Fawcett and Hermanson bailed, playing a couple of gigs in an ersatz version of the Hopefuls in 2009.

The next year, Heath joined Darren in the live Kid Dakota band, and together they did a European tour that Heath found highly enjoyable because of the accommodations and the engaged crowds. "I'd do that again in a heartbeat,” he told me. He remained close with Darren despite acrimony that arose between Jackson and their former Hopefuls bandmates. Darren invented a jingle to introduce his friend, “Talkin’ ‘bout the legend of sweet ol’ Heath,” it went.

Heath and Jennifer divorced sometime around 2010. By this point Heath had begun working as a senior database engineer at Surescripts, where he would work until his death.

Heath’s musical life was quiet for about a year, but in 2012 things started to pick up again. He recorded a song called “Get Well, Slim” with the Sycamores as part of the ongoing Slim Town Singles series designed to raise money for ongoing care for Slim Dunlap, who had suffered a debilitating stroke. Heath also joined a new band, Buffalo Sleeper, which was essentially a reconfiguration of a late ‘90s band called Ten Ton Bridge. They released a self-titled EP in 2013, and would follow it with another in 2016.

In 2013 Heath played on what he called “one of my favorite projects,” a cover of Tom T. Hall’s 1973 number one country song, “I Love” with Eric Kassel as a fundraiser for Rob and Leah Rule, who managed the Turf Club for a decade.

Heath also returned to his Americana roots by joining Pill Hill, an outfit led by singer-songwriter Dan Fowlds and featuring guitarist/producer Jacques Wait (a Twin Cities fixture who also had connections to the Sycamores, Beatifics, and Little Man) and drummer Judd Hildreth (who was previously in Valet, one of the Hopefuls’ 2024 labelmates). Heath admitted he’d grown away from roots rock, but he loved playing with such talented friends and bandmates. He played bass on Pill Hill’s second album, It Tastes a Little Sweeter, which was released in 2014.

Also in 2014, Heath reunited with a former band and got married again. That summer four/fifths of Violet got together to record a series of performances for the White Wall Sessions. Then, in November, Heath married Erin Duffy, a teacher at Susan Lindgren Elementary School in St. Louis Park. The couple settled in a house nearby.

Heath’s musical life - and his life in general - is hazy from this point on. He doesn’t appear to have done much past the release of the second Buffalo Sleeper EP in 2016. He played on Darren Jackson’s one-off Hopefuls single “The Gift” in 2018, and unless I’ve missed something, that song stands as his last released recording.

In summer 2023 Heath reunited once again with Violet to play a “Going Out of Business” show at DaDa Gastropub in Sioux Falls, where the band sold off their inventory of t-shirts and CDs. It also seems that Heath went through another divorce around this time.

Erik Appelwick reports that he’d last connected with Heath in the summer of 2024 to chat about making some music together, but that Heath’s back pain had worsened so much that couldn’t even hold a guitar or bass. Appelwick encouraged him to do what he needed to do to get whole again.

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News of Heath’s death was a shock and, as Rich Show put it “a real gut punch.” Tributes have filled his Facebook page. There are pictures and videos of Heath performing, and lots of remembrances. What’s striking is how consistent the portrait of Heath is, even when filtered through so many different points of view. That he was smart and thoughtful, and most of all, sweet. Chris Perricelli’s words summarize it best:

“In addition to being an extraordinary musician, Heath was a kind, gentle, and humble person. He was the type of individual who exuded warmth and calm in every situation, a quiet presence who made everyone around him feel at ease. Though he could be reserved at times, his kindness and generosity were always clear to those who took the time to get to know him.”

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My sincere condolences to Heath’s sons Henry and Everett, to his sister Irene, all of his bandmates and friends, and to everyone else who loved him. Heath, I’m sorry this spotlight took so long to fall on you.

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Heath Henjum Discography

Flag With Hank - Flag With Hank (1989) Flag With Hank - Weaselroni (1991) Violet - Global Village (1993) Violet - Rejoice in the Frustration (1994) Rich Show - Obviously (1996) The Sycamores - Realizer (1999) Pete Hofmann - Crawling Tall (2001) Pete Hofmann - Mermaid on the Rocks (2003) Betty Drake - Grape or Red (2003) The Sycamores - Three French Hens (2003) Little Man - Big Rock (2004) Vicious Vicious - Parade (2007) The Hopefuls - Now Playing at the One-Seat Theatre (2008) The Sycamores - “Get Well, Slim” (2012) Buffalo Sleeper - Buffalo Sleeper (2013) Eric Kassel and Friends - “I Love” (2013) Pill Hill - It Tastes a Little Sweeter (2014) Buffalo Sleeper - II (2016) The Hopefuls - “The Gift” (2018)

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Sources Collins, Cyn. "Little Man at the Turf Club, January 14, 2005." How Was the Show? January 15, 2005. Fischer, Reed. "Twin Cities Musicians Remember Legendary Bassist Heath Henjum." The Current. February 27, 2025. Henjum, Heath. Interview with Paul V. Allen. November 19, 2015. Perricelli, Chris. "Talented Musician Heath Henjum Has Passed Away." Superior News Alert. February 26, 2025. Messages to the author from Pete Hofmann and Rich Show