Bif Naked
August, 2005
Bif Naked frightens most of us instinctively. Admit it. She’s tattooed in places most of us never even see, she can look rather fearsome in most photos and one suspects that there’s bloodstains under those black fingernails.
But the truth of the matter is that in truth Bif Naked is Canada’s Sweetheart. Truly, truly. She doesn’t smoke or drink, she’s ‘straight edge’ and save for her penchant for ahem, colourful language, she’s as charming as they come. It is not for nothing that her new album is called ‘Superbeautiful Monster’ insomuch as that verbal oxymoron doubles as a defacto description of Bif Naked herself.
While careening around curves on the New Jersey Turnpike, BN (writer’s note: BN is a helluva lot better than referring to her as ‘Naked’ don’t you think?) laughs at what her image has wrought over the years. “I've been dealing with that since my first record” she chuckles. “People say ‘when we look at you we think you’re in a trash band and when we hear the record its entirely different’. I just sigh and say 'yeah I know’. I don’t know what to say. I just like making my little songs.”
Those ‘little songs’ have been coming from BN for something like fifteen years to date. “Since I was eighteen years old!” she notes. “I was a theater major at the University of Winnipeg. I met some guys in my class that were playing in a band. I dropped out of university to go on tour and I’m still on tour!”
Her infamous name made its debut at roughly the same time that her boots hit the stage. “That was kind of bestowed upon me” BN shrugs. “Bif was a nickname for Beth. I had the nickname since about grade 10. When I joined a band with these guys, everyone had these cool names. It was just kind of what was up with me at the time. I was a young person taking on a punk hard core provocative name because I just wanted to be different. When the band I was in, Gorilla Gorilla had a show on Valentines Day back at the Royal Albert in Winnipeg back around 1990 they made a poster and it said ‘Come see Bif Naked with Gorilla Gorilla. So its just stuck over the years through thick and thin.”
The other thing that stuck for BN was playing music. She is that seeming contradiction, a musician that loves the road. Playing live is BN’s raison detra. “I don’t know what else to do with myself!” she laughs. “I just really love playing shows! I just love it! That connection you have with other people with music is just the deepest connection you can ever have. And the audience and the performers, honestly, they become one. They’re having the same moment together. It makes you feel like you’re all friends, like you all can relate. Its extremely fulfilling.”
And as large as Canada is, there’s just not enough places to play for BN. So of course Europe and the US are also on her radar. “Europe?” she blurts out. “Its awesome. I sold records in Europe before I sold any in Canada. I lost my Canadian deal in ‘95, bought the record back, formed a company and started licensing the record in Canada. It also came out in Italy and Germany. So I went where the work was. I was great fun. It was a very serendipitous time.”
She’s also broadened her horizons south of the border. “I have a great time down here” she says brightly. “I’ve always been really, really lucky. I can die happy. I got to do the Tonight show, Total Request Live, MTV, the Buffy show. Its been a great ride”.
Its occasionally unsettling to hear BN make passing references to ‘dying happy’, and refer to her career in the past tense. It’s less odd when one considers that she discovered a few years back that she has a heart aneurysm. Its operable but, well, complicated. “Its just that the risks outweigh just waiting it out” she says quietly. “I discussed it with my parents. We looked into a lot of options….”she trails off. “You know maybe as time goes on they’ll develop better systems and technologies. The odds for the surgery were not encouraging at all. It was like 68% of patients die on the table. So it was like ‘screw that’. Who wants to do that? I’m going to do the Tonight Show!”
Interestingly enough BN’s reminder of her own mortality has enriched her life. To paraphrase the late Warren Zevon, she seems to be able to ‘enjoy every sandwich’. “Ultimately what I always thought was that I’ve had such an extraordinary life” she insists. “After my twenties I was very ensconced in studying Buddhism. I’ve never had a fear of death. I’ve never had any issues with it. So when it comes to the aneurysm I’m like ‘eh’.
They say that with age comes wisdom and despite her seeming toughness, Bif Naked is enjoying her newfound wisdom. “You know what?” she laughs. “I love being in my thirties! It rocks, it rules so hard. And now I just find that my mother was right about so many things. You smile more, things get easier to deal with, your coping mechanisms are better.”
But despite her love of live performance and her que-sera-sera philosophy, the idea of taking a break and having children is not far from her mind. “I pray for it everyday” BN says flatly, adding dryly, “Do you know where my husband lives? Tell him to call me!
My imaginary one!” She’s laughing deeply by this point and hilariously unstoppable. “I keep looking at my watch going, you sonovabitch, get here so I can have a couple of puppies. Tell him to call me!”
As she slows down and the chuckles abate she admits “I’ve been in love several times in my life. I’ve enjoyed being engaged to be married several times and you know God bless them all. I’m glad that I got out when I did.”
As you can tell by a glance of the cover of this magazine, Bif Naked has about 579% more tattoos than the average woman. And of course like most such things, it started rather innocently. ”I just wanted one tattoo, when I was seventeen years old” she say slowly. “And then…” she dryly notes, “I needed one on the other side for the symmetry. And then I needed ANOTHER for the symmetry. I also studied different theologies and different images and I wanted to record them on my skin.
“Ultimately I incurred a lot of misadventure when I was a child and when I was a teenager and honestly all along with hindsight now I think it was my armor” she says quietly. “I was never going to be mean to anybody. I think I just didn’t want anyone to keep hurting me. I think I started getting tattoos when I was young to make sure that people wouldn’t talk to me or hurt me or….”. BN pauses and starts to laugh at herself. “I really am a therapists dream Bob! Someone is out there waiting to make a fucking fortune off of me!”
“It was kinda about being a sexual abuse survivor, a violence survivor and so I just put a big smile on my face and carried on” she admits. “I think I just compartmentalized so well that I didn’t deal with a lot of things and I started getting tattoos. I never thought that was why. I just think that now I look back and say 'ohhhh...'! There’s a lot of light bulbs go on for me as I get older. I love it and enjoy it. Its fascinating for anyone. I’m glad to be at the place that I am.”
Not surprisingly the next thing on Bif Naked’s agenda is uh, more touring. “We’re playing with Nickelback in the west and with Billy idol in the east” she notes, referring of course to the show that brings her to the John Labatt Centre on September ??. “I’m thrilled, just thrilled to be opening for him. I’m such a big fan, but I’m a little nervous. I just want to be able to do a good job!”
Bif Naked frightens most of us instinctively. Admit it. She’s tattooed in places most of us never even see, she can look rather fearsome in most photos and one suspects that there’s bloodstains under those black fingernails.
But the truth of the matter is that in truth Bif Naked is Canada’s Sweetheart. Truly, truly. She doesn’t smoke or drink, she’s ‘straight edge’ and save for her penchant for ahem, colourful language, she’s as charming as they come. It is not for nothing that her new album is called ‘Superbeautiful Monster’ insomuch as that verbal oxymoron doubles as a defacto description of Bif Naked herself.
While careening around curves on the New Jersey Turnpike, BN (writer’s note: BN is a helluva lot better than referring to her as ‘Naked’ don’t you think?) laughs at what her image has wrought over the years. “I've been dealing with that since my first record” she chuckles. “People say ‘when we look at you we think you’re in a trash band and when we hear the record its entirely different’. I just sigh and say 'yeah I know’. I don’t know what to say. I just like making my little songs.”
Those ‘little songs’ have been coming from BN for something like fifteen years to date. “Since I was eighteen years old!” she notes. “I was a theater major at the University of Winnipeg. I met some guys in my class that were playing in a band. I dropped out of university to go on tour and I’m still on tour!”
Her infamous name made its debut at roughly the same time that her boots hit the stage. “That was kind of bestowed upon me” BN shrugs. “Bif was a nickname for Beth. I had the nickname since about grade 10. When I joined a band with these guys, everyone had these cool names. It was just kind of what was up with me at the time. I was a young person taking on a punk hard core provocative name because I just wanted to be different. When the band I was in, Gorilla Gorilla had a show on Valentines Day back at the Royal Albert in Winnipeg back around 1990 they made a poster and it said ‘Come see Bif Naked with Gorilla Gorilla. So its just stuck over the years through thick and thin.”
The other thing that stuck for BN was playing music. She is that seeming contradiction, a musician that loves the road. Playing live is BN’s raison detra. “I don’t know what else to do with myself!” she laughs. “I just really love playing shows! I just love it! That connection you have with other people with music is just the deepest connection you can ever have. And the audience and the performers, honestly, they become one. They’re having the same moment together. It makes you feel like you’re all friends, like you all can relate. Its extremely fulfilling.”
And as large as Canada is, there’s just not enough places to play for BN. So of course Europe and the US are also on her radar. “Europe?” she blurts out. “Its awesome. I sold records in Europe before I sold any in Canada. I lost my Canadian deal in ‘95, bought the record back, formed a company and started licensing the record in Canada. It also came out in Italy and Germany. So I went where the work was. I was great fun. It was a very serendipitous time.”
She’s also broadened her horizons south of the border. “I have a great time down here” she says brightly. “I’ve always been really, really lucky. I can die happy. I got to do the Tonight show, Total Request Live, MTV, the Buffy show. Its been a great ride”.
Its occasionally unsettling to hear BN make passing references to ‘dying happy’, and refer to her career in the past tense. It’s less odd when one considers that she discovered a few years back that she has a heart aneurysm. Its operable but, well, complicated. “Its just that the risks outweigh just waiting it out” she says quietly. “I discussed it with my parents. We looked into a lot of options….”she trails off. “You know maybe as time goes on they’ll develop better systems and technologies. The odds for the surgery were not encouraging at all. It was like 68% of patients die on the table. So it was like ‘screw that’. Who wants to do that? I’m going to do the Tonight Show!”
Interestingly enough BN’s reminder of her own mortality has enriched her life. To paraphrase the late Warren Zevon, she seems to be able to ‘enjoy every sandwich’. “Ultimately what I always thought was that I’ve had such an extraordinary life” she insists. “After my twenties I was very ensconced in studying Buddhism. I’ve never had a fear of death. I’ve never had any issues with it. So when it comes to the aneurysm I’m like ‘eh’.
They say that with age comes wisdom and despite her seeming toughness, Bif Naked is enjoying her newfound wisdom. “You know what?” she laughs. “I love being in my thirties! It rocks, it rules so hard. And now I just find that my mother was right about so many things. You smile more, things get easier to deal with, your coping mechanisms are better.”
But despite her love of live performance and her que-sera-sera philosophy, the idea of taking a break and having children is not far from her mind. “I pray for it everyday” BN says flatly, adding dryly, “Do you know where my husband lives? Tell him to call me!
My imaginary one!” She’s laughing deeply by this point and hilariously unstoppable. “I keep looking at my watch going, you sonovabitch, get here so I can have a couple of puppies. Tell him to call me!”
As she slows down and the chuckles abate she admits “I’ve been in love several times in my life. I’ve enjoyed being engaged to be married several times and you know God bless them all. I’m glad that I got out when I did.”
As you can tell by a glance of the cover of this magazine, Bif Naked has about 579% more tattoos than the average woman. And of course like most such things, it started rather innocently. ”I just wanted one tattoo, when I was seventeen years old” she say slowly. “And then…” she dryly notes, “I needed one on the other side for the symmetry. And then I needed ANOTHER for the symmetry. I also studied different theologies and different images and I wanted to record them on my skin.
“Ultimately I incurred a lot of misadventure when I was a child and when I was a teenager and honestly all along with hindsight now I think it was my armor” she says quietly. “I was never going to be mean to anybody. I think I just didn’t want anyone to keep hurting me. I think I started getting tattoos when I was young to make sure that people wouldn’t talk to me or hurt me or….”. BN pauses and starts to laugh at herself. “I really am a therapists dream Bob! Someone is out there waiting to make a fucking fortune off of me!”
“It was kinda about being a sexual abuse survivor, a violence survivor and so I just put a big smile on my face and carried on” she admits. “I think I just compartmentalized so well that I didn’t deal with a lot of things and I started getting tattoos. I never thought that was why. I just think that now I look back and say 'ohhhh...'! There’s a lot of light bulbs go on for me as I get older. I love it and enjoy it. Its fascinating for anyone. I’m glad to be at the place that I am.”
Not surprisingly the next thing on Bif Naked’s agenda is uh, more touring. “We’re playing with Nickelback in the west and with Billy idol in the east” she notes, referring of course to the show that brings her to the John Labatt Centre on September ??. “I’m thrilled, just thrilled to be opening for him. I’m such a big fan, but I’m a little nervous. I just want to be able to do a good job!”
posted by bk @ 10:45 AM
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