Antigone Rising

Antigone Rising is an all-women rock band with members from New Jersey and Long Island, New York, USA. Their music is influenced by classic rock from the 1970s such as Led Zeppelin, mixed with pop overtones and at times folk and country elements. They originally formed at Bucknell University (Lewisburg, PA) in the late 1980s, with sisters Cathy (guitar) and Kristen Henderson (drums) as the primary force, and Penelope "Peppy" Kokines taking lead vocals. Later members would include Sue Obolsky (lead vocals), Agona Hardison (lead vocals), Terri Avella (bass) and Ann-Marie Stehn (bass).

In the mid-1990s in New York City, the Henderson sisters re-grouped and started playing gigs (initially in Bleecker Street venues including The Back Fence, Cafe Figaro and The Bitter End) with lead vocalist Cassidy, a self-taught singer who had previously sung in church and with a high school girl band, Jen Zielenbach on bass and Dena Tauriello on drums. They are the current lineup of Antigone Rising, which now reportedly performs 200 or more shows per year. The band is known for earning a dedicated fanbase very early on that follow them from concert to concert all along the East Coast and increasingly across the country. Fans refer to themselves as ARheads (pronounced airheads) or Risers, and to the band simply as AR or Antigone.

Their first four albums were recorded mostly with independent labels and financed through fan donations. In 2003 they signed up with Lava Records after label president Jason Flom spotted them playing at one of their gigs. In 2005, they became the first artists to be promoted in Starbucks' Hear Music Series, created to discover and spotlight new music. The high visibility, exclusive sale, in-store promotion and airplay at Starbucks across the country helped the band's acoustic EP From the Ground Up soar to over 450,000 records sold by the end of 2005. Their next album, provisionally titled Drama Club, will be their post-Starbucks studio nationwide debut release.

Antigone Rising have shared the stage with Joan Jett, The Rolling Stones, moe., Rob Thomas, Aerosmith, The Allman Brothers and performed at Lillith Fair 1998 and SXSW 2005 and have co-written with Chris Trapper of the Pushtars and Rob Thomas.