Spotlights On: Hail Your Highness

Live and In Person

On July 18, Northern Michigan dream rock band Hail Your Highness will return to The Coin Slot to play alongside Grand Rapids-based indie rock band Low Phase to provide a dreamy, emo night, perfect for midsummer.

Two Sisters, One Genre

The band, made up of sisters Jessie and Niki Bobenmoyer, has been dedicated to providing the sort of sound you really can’t find anywhere else since 2016.

With roots lying in hardcore metal and punk genres, they later shifted into Midwest emo, shoegaze, and indie, which now heavily influence the music the two produce today. However, the sound Hail Your Highness releases still can’t be tied down to just those ideas, with some listeners commenting about trap and R&B aspects pulled into the song introductions. To Jessie and Niki, though, that’s not done coincidentally.

Jesse & Niki performing for a live set. Photo by Linds Hayes.

“That's always been our goal,” Jessie said. “We never want to be a genre-specific band, if that makes sense. We just want Hail Your Highness to be the genre, you know, and whatever song we write, whether it's a heavy song, whether it's a dream song, dreamy song, or an indie rock song, it's our genre because we're playing it.”

Behind the B-Side

All of the music created by the pair stays within a small circle: Jessie, Niki, and their sound engineer Brian Thorburn, who is based out of Indianapolis, where the sisters also frequent. Their relationship, which has stretched nearly as long as the sisters have been releasing music, has become not just a post-recording necessity, but a beautiful addition to the artistic process. 

Their song “Ends of the World” from recent EP Wonderdust is one example of a track that was more difficult for the two to connect with, due to a lack of structure and what felt like endless revisions.

“We tried switching around parts, trying to get it to feel right, making sure singing parts were distributed evenly. When we sent it to our engineer, we're just like, ‘Well, it's at least finished, it's a good song, the bones are there. We'll see what he does with it.’ And when we got it back, we were shocked at the final product,” Jessie noted.

“We were also so burnt out finishing that song, and so it would be midnight, we’re railing into the microphone as pissed as possible because the song called for that, and then being super satisfied with it, and then getting it back from our engineer from his perspective,” Niki continued. “How he took on all the dynamics; we were like, ‘This is insane.’ We're like, ‘This is who we are, this is us?’ We still have those moments all the time even though we've been doing it for like two decades of our lives.”

The song, originally placed on the B-side of the release, became one of the top streamed tracks off of the EP.

What’s Coming Next

Throughout their discography, they noted that similar themes and sound tend to pop up from release to release, which will without a doubt continue into their upcoming EP, which acts a reflection of current economic and climate status that is a part of a couple planned releases resulting from a backlog of over fifty songs created over the past several years. 

“It deals a lot with religious deconstruction too, which is something that we're very passionate about and that we've dealt with for a big chunk of our lives. I think right now we're feeling that that's probably the one we need to put our attention into right now just so we can get a lot of those feelings out,” Jessie explained. “We also have a really exciting feature that we will keep to ourselves right now, but that we're so excited about. I think a lot of people who used to listen to us in our heavier days, they'll be stoked.”

On top of moving through backlogs in discography to prepare for larger releases, Niki notes future hopes to collaborate with musician friends for upcoming EPs, whether vocally or other instruments. 

Youth Centers, Stages, and Festivals

Community has shaped Hail Your Highness from the start. It's no surprise, then, that the sisters got their start in community-centric spaces.

“Our parents had a youth center when we were teenagers, and we booked bands, and we played on the shows. So, we have a lot of experience with that,” Jessie said. “We were playing at least once a week, honing our craft, and getting comfortable being in front of people.”

Coming from Grayling, where their style of music was at times disregarded for other genres, the sisters used songwriting to find like-minded people.

An overlaid image with a dreamy feel, from a live set by Hail Your Highness. Photo by Linds Hayes.

“Our biggest reason has always been to find community through music,” Jessie described, detailing the shared energy of a gig as “sacred.” 

For Niki, though, she views the stage as a clearer path to connection than everyday life.

“It's the most honest way we can communicate with the world. If we can have our instruments and sing and show ourselves, it's a lot easier sometimes,” she said.

Still, given their ages at the time, places to perform were a little less accessible than for other performers around the Northern Michigan area.

“I was also a minor,” Niki recounted. “I mean, we started when I was 14, so it was tricky to travel; we couldn't play bars, you know; it was a lot of just being strategic and we played a lot of festivals.”

A Journey to Respect

Regardless of their adjustment to the stage throughout adolescence, they soon ran into another obstacle: the gender gap, especially in harder metal spaces.

“It was difficult up here, I think, because we were producing a sound that, at the time, there was no definition for. We were too heavy for like pop markets, and we weren't heavy enough for like the Legion Hall shows, the heavy, heavy stuff. I mean, we would get booed off the stage,” Niki explained. 

“Also Jessie and I, obviously being females, homies did not accept that. I'm glad we don't have to deal with that a whole lot these days. But when we were in our, you know, late teens and early 20s, it was a struggle to be taken seriously and not be looked at like a gimmick,” she finished.

Jessie echoed the same sentiment. 

“We learned we had to be better than the boys we were playing with to be taken seriously. And we took it seriously. We practiced every single day for 10 years, I think. It was nonstop,” she added. “It's a blessing and a curse, because we do feel very comfortable now with playing and performing and being able to execute what we do effectively and efficiently. It’s nice not to hear comments so much all the time. We've really had to carve out our own space to exist up here. And I can't say enough how much we appreciate the people up here who just embrace it and who have been with us for a decade supporting that.”

Aware of the safety concerns many women face at shows, the two started a show initiative called “Safe With Me.” Meant for women in bands, women coming to shows, and anyone who identifies as a woman, it gives them a way to attend and perform without fear of harassment or unwanted attention. 

DIY, Not AI

Having played together for over two decades, starting at roughly the ages of seven and ten from their shared bedroom, the two have seen major changes in the industry.

Cover art for Hail Your Highness' November 2025 EP Wonderdust.

“It's such a strange time to be living in music right now to be a musician. Ten years ago, people said it was the best time to be a musician; you don’t need a label, a booking agent, a manager, because you have all of these tools and you can do it yourself,” Jessie remarked. “Now the shift into streaming, and artists having to fight to be paid fairly— there's no unions, there's nothing to fall back on, there's no unemployment to collect, you know, if you can't perform. And now we're fighting AI, AI-generated music, which we've had battles with Spotify over.”

“It's easier than ever to be able to have access to recording software and being able to build a song, and with generative AI, people can call themselves musicians by plugging in a prompt, and calling it real music,” she said. “It’s this really dystopian feeling.”

Especially across their social media, Hail Your Highness often uses the term “DIY not AI” and promotes keeping humanity at the center of art, whether it’s music or other creative industries. The two, who wear all the hats when it comes to merchandise and management and booking, have pointedly never signed a record deal, despite it being the “ultimate dream” for a musician, in Niki’s words. 

“We'll keep doing our best to encourage people to buy physical media, come out to shows, change up those problematic streaming subscriptions if possible, and just get on board with supporting independent music, because that's really the backbone of the industry and we kind of get treated like second-class citizens, if that doesn't sound too pretentious,” Jessie said.

The pair has entitled their Patreon community the Starborn, and created streaming tiers where they have been chronologically uploading every EP and record they’ve released since 2008 for people to own forever— some of which aren’t available everywhere else. On top of being a peek into the “whole story” for listeners, it’s also served as a bit of a time capsule for both Niki and Jessie as they upload the older tracks and create physical replicas, such as CDs, for purchase as well.

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To support Hail Your Highness, check out their Patreon, follow them on Instagram, or catch them live for free on Saturday, July 18 at The Coin Slot in Traverse City.