I Bificus

by Bif Naked

  The bus driver is ultimately responsible for the safety of everyone on the bus. He has their lives in his hands. It’s a big responsibility, and a lonely one. The bands are consumed with their own lives, as well as with the show. For the most part, musicians are thoughtful, intelligent, hard-working, and respectful of other hard-working bands. It was not uncommon for an opening act to be the headliner the following year, after radio airplay or a hot video. So the smart headliners understand that it’s best to treat everyone with respect, lest they end up back at the bottom of the food chain and paired with a new headliner with a vendetta.

  But musicians on tour are also fun-loving and, especially if two or three bands are touring together for a number of dates, can act like teenagers. This does not apply to all bands, of course. But it does to a good number of bands.

  My bandmates were basically good kids. Most of them drank alcohol. Pot and cigarettes were never allowed on the bus, though, and definitely no one was allowed to perform drunk or high. This was strictly enforced by Peter. With our band, there were no crazy hard drugs or anything that I knew of, but then again, what would I know? I went to sleep right after the show if I could, while the band generally stayed up, partying on the bus during our nighttime drives on the motorway. At six in the morning, I’d be waking up just as they were going to sleep. It was a good system, usually. We existed kind of like the Partridge Family, except we were on a rock tour coach, not a modified school bus, and Reuben Kincaid would have been eaten alive on one of our tours. He just wouldn’t have been tough enough.

  The motorway—the highway—was where we headed to after the gear was loaded out into the trailer and the bus compartments, on to the next city for the next night’s show. It was also basically the only place we could spend money. There was generally no opportunity for me to leave a venue unless we were doing press on the same day, and even then it was a tight schedule, with little time for dawdling. Sometimes I was so exhausted I’d fall asleep in the back of the taxi from the venue to the TV station, flanked by a promo person from the label and Peter. Or on the way back to the venue. Sometimes both ways. The drivers must have thought I was a junkie, simply nodding out. And I probably did look like a heroin freak with my tattoos and black eye makeup.

  No one cared that I was straight edge except for a handful of fans who came to the shows with telltale Xs scrawled or tattooed on the backs of their hands, or who’d cross their arms, giving me the salute of the straight-edge movement. I loved it. I was so happy when they came to the shows, as it reinforced my devotion to that way of life.

  Some of the musicians and crew from other bands who didn’t know us simply assumed I did drugs and drank. They also assumed I had sex with the guys in my band, the record-label executives, my managers, you name it. Rumour had it that I was having sex with anyone who crossed my path. As I mentioned, I usually made an effort to compensate for this and act like a tough tomboy. In hindsight, I don’t think that helped. It was just the way it always was: if you were a girl in the music business, you just had to be blowing somebody.

  My band was my fun, both on and off the stage. The guys without a sense of humour, especially on tour, are the guys who don’t last. This is true of many bands, not just mine. But it was simple: the guys in my band drank; I did not. What’s the problem? More beer for them, more soda pop for me. That was when I was still drinking pop, and it was what the venue provided for me. That was before I became a raw-food vegan and was just a non-drinking, non-smoking vegan and relatively flexible with what I consumed.

  In the early days, I drank beer and smoked cigarettes with my band. But by the time we went on our first European tour, I was already abstaining from alcohol and cigarettes. I was happily straight edge and happy to be the only one. After all, I was the only girl, so I was used to being the odd man out, so to speak. I compensated by being more aggressive on stage—jumping more and talking some pretty crass shit.

  Peter maintained that if I got nervous enough I simply mimicked Eddie Murphy, and they all thought that was pretty funny, though I don’t think I talked like that. At times I was heinously jet-lagged, thinking in reverse, overtired from playing shows within hours of landing or just from the constant driving—the deadheading—and from the shows and the press. I would be “accused” by my manager of creating multiple personalities. The comedian would pop up on stage, telling stories in between songs, or the three-year-old girl with the deer-caught-in-the-headlights look and little-girl voice, which might come out when the audience was happy and I was being ingratiating. Peter’s favourite was the tough sexy cool chick. In fact, whenever he was side stage when one of our shows started, that was exactly what he yelled at me over the roar of the crowd: “Tough, sexy, cool.” I was a girl up against some very aggressive bands, trying to win over audiences that often started the set as unbelievers. There was absolutely nothing better than triumphing over these audiences, so much so that the headliner would have a difficult time following our show.

  Often the venue would be the only thing the band would see in most cities or towns, for weeks on end. So we never missed the chance to hop off the bus whenever it stopped to fill up with petrol and run inside the truck stop to snoop at all the goodies on offer. Sometimes the boys bought beer and cigarettes along with snacks they enjoyed (in Doug Fury’s case, nougat). I’d hit the salty black cat licorice and the chocolates.

  Licorice was not typically on my menu. Even though I was straight edge, I still managed to party with my band at the end of a tour, to celebrate. “Party” for me meant break from my diet and eat candies. Pretty badass, I know. The only way for me to feel a part of the fun was to show off how much candy I could shove into my mouth, or to eat something they found particularly unappetizing, like salted black licorice. Doug’s laugh is a shrill cackle and it may be my favourite sound in the world. If what I did made Doug laugh, well then, I would just keep on doing it.

  The band’s resounding cheers as I ate more and more of those licorice pieces only encouraged me further. Likely overcompensating (again) for any and all things they might complain about—the pay, the hotel, the food, the guitar strings, the travel, the jetlag, the booze selection, the lack of clean, real-life clothes—I was relentless in my efforts to make them laugh, hamming it up for their entertainment in any way possible.

  The sun was just breaking the skyline in Rostock, and the bus was parked alongside the venue, the MAU Club. Our beloved driver, Bertie, had left the bus for the driver’s room in the nearby hotel, and the rest of the band was sleeping soundly in their bus bunks. The birds were just starting to open their eyes, and I could hear the distant sound of cars in the early morning traffic. I was outside on the asphalt, my face pressed into its cool smoothness, a pool of vomit, a salty-sweet grey foam, next to me. I was unable to even push myself up off the ground. I was gravely ill and extremely remorseful.

  No matter how sick I was, I never missed a show, and the show that night would be no different. Puking was not the worst thing I had ever done on stage. But I would not indulge in salty licorice again, ever.

  My mission was accomplished, and I would remain the good kid who got the most laughs out of her band yet again. This was my raison d’être during our motorway partying, and I was proud of myself. Eventually, I peeled myself off the pavement and fumbled my way back onto the bus and onto my bunk, which was covered in my clothes and stuffed animals. Too sick to find my pyjamas, I just put on my Walkman headphones and crawled into my sleeping bag, and immediately fell asleep. By the time we hit the stage that night, I had recovered sufficiently to rock Rostock. I had also learned another of life’s lessons.

  TWENTY-NINE

  The Colonel, the Driver, the Dogs, and Insanity

  I WAS NEVER UPSET OR UNWILLING TO ACCOMPANY MY band and crew to the various establishments they patronized, including the stripper shows, although the occasions of my being included were few and far between because I usually went to bed after our show and therefore missed the festivities. But
my best friend was an exotic dancer, so I was undaunted by that type of thing. I mean, who is the fool here—the one taking the money or the one throwing it at the stage? Hard to say. I guess it depends on the situation. But it does seem as though the dancers have a lot of power over the men in the audience, who seem willing to spend every dime they have to try to win the attention of these naked beauties and hopefully take home the prize.

  Amsterdam is full of strip clubs, the kind men smoke cigars at, and I’m confident that no in the band or crew overthought things, they just enjoyed the show. Cigars were all the rage among the record-industry people we met. It was something like pot, I think. They all liked to dip their toes into the culture a little bit, but remember, they were executives, suits—not many potheads in that group. Cigars were a status thing. From TV crews to record-company presidents to lawyers to promoters to cops, everyone seemed to smoke cigars, usually Davidoff mini cigars. Luxurious puff sticks, decadent, pretentious even. Davidoffs were what Peter puffed on during summer tour season.

  Peter didn’t drink alcohol and hadn’t for more than a decade. He is a martial artist with three black belts, including one in sun hang do, a combination martial art. He didn’t believe in taking drugs, drinking alcohol, or anything like that. How and when he acquired a taste for Davidoff mini cigars I don’t know. If you ask him, he’ll point to Clint Eastwood in spaghetti westerns.

  Peter was nicknamed “the Colonel,” and when he raised his voice or growled at you, it had an instant effect; there was no doubt the Colonel was in command. This was like nothing I grew up with in my house of silence, so it was effective in getting my attention, and it produced swift results from everyone on the tour—the band, the crew, and even the crews on the big festival stages. It was effective in getting people to do whatever it was they were supposed to be doing.

  The tour bus is no place to have a mutiny. It is, unfortunately, a ripe atmosphere for problems of many kinds because of the aforementioned dreaded bus fever. Sometimes a band member got a big head or oversized ego and decided to let the manager know how unhappy he was that he had not been singled out for higher recognition. Sometimes the band member would try to bend the ear of a few of the others and attempt to gain some form of power on the tour. This, I felt, was always an unwise move. Peter would hear the person out, smiling and listening intently, letting him have his time stating his grievances. Usually it was about how the guy carried the show with incredible solos, or with his good looks, great image, or stage presence, and wasn’t being recognized for it. The musician had a case of “being a legend in his own mind,” as Peter called it.

  Peter always started by nodding his head as if agreeing with the person. Then he looked the guy in the eye and asked if he had seen the posters. “Tell me, whose name is on the posters? It looks to me like Bif Naked’s name is on the poster. Is that your name?” This was typically met with silence. Then Peter would say, “How many people do you think would be coming to this show if it were your name on the poster?” He liked to have fun bringing the egos in line. Having vocalized his discontent, the musician would usually find that his days in the band lineup were numbered.

  Peter also never ever took an ultimatum from a band or crew member. Instead, it resulted in an immediate firing. I generally tried to avoid being around at these times, by either hiding in my bunk or at the other end of the bus. On occasion I’d be trapped there, and then I’d sit as quietly as possible, staring at the floor. If it were up to me, I would have gladly put any band member’s name on the bill who wanted it there. We could have taken turns for all I cared. This attitude drove Peter, Jonny, and Marsha crazy.

  The crew was no different from the band when it came to the occasional outburst or acting out. One roadie stole a microphone from our gear and tried to sell it for heroin, in Paris. When Peter found out, he calmly and politely woke the guy up, told him he had five minutes to get his belongings off the bus, gave him some cash to buy a plane ticket back to New York City, and left him on the side of the road wondering what had just happened. All this before nine o’clock on a beautiful sunny morning.

  Band and crew members were not allowed to stray by themselves. This was one of Peter’s ironclad rules of the road. He had to keep everyone in groups and know where they were so that the tour could keep moving. The musicians were usually good at following this rule, but new crew members were not always. In Slovakia, a new roadie got into hot water with the cops for going on what he thought was a date, with a woman who turned out to be a sex worker. On another occasion, a soundman hooked up after the show with a girl whose estranged convict boyfriend just happened to have been released from prison that day. He broke down the door of his girlfriend’s apartment, beating the poor soundman nearly to death. He was lucky to have lived and lucky his hearing, eyesight, jaw, and teeth remained mostly intact. It was a brutal beating and he was unrecognizable for some time.

  Touring is always dangerous on some level. But as I mentioned, the bus driver has perhaps the most responsibility. We were always respectful to the drivers, and Peter enforced this behaviour as a rule. Occasionally, though, the bus driver would not work out as well as we had hoped. Not everyone could be as wonderful as our beloved Bertie. Many times the drivers did not cut the mustard and Peter would have to have a chat with them, one on one.

  Many tours seemed never-ending. On one European tour—this was in 1996—it did not help matters at all that our Dutch bus driver, Paul, on more than one occasion during overnight drives, swerved, almost throwing us from our bunks. It felt like we were nearly rolling the bus, and this made everyone extremely nervous.

  “I swerved to avoid hitting a dog!” he said, defending his driving one night when interrogated by Peter, all of us having been jolted awake. We knew he had fallen asleep at the wheel. No one believed his dog story. “It’s true!” he declared. “In France, many people throw unwanted pets from the windows of moving cars on the highway to get rid of them.” We still didn’t believe him.

  Peter never gave the guy a second chance. By the time we got to Salzburg two days later, Peter had made other arrangements. He told us to unload all our belongings off the bus and take them into the venue.

  “What should we tell Paul if he asks what we’re doing?” I asked.

  He replied, “Tell him you’re doing laundry, or tell him nothing.” Then he called Paul off the bus.

  I unloaded my belongings, but, instead of heading into the venue, I hid around the corner, straining to hear the conversation. My curiosity had got the better of me.

  “Paul, sit here with me for a few minutes; I want to have a talk. Paul, that is the old bus,” Peter said, pointing to Paul’s Prevost parked directly in front of them.

  Paul looked puzzled and said, “The old bus?”

  “That’s right, Paul, that is definitely the old bus because. . .” Peter pointed at the shiny British double-decker sleeping coach coming around the corner, “that’s the new bus.”

  Paul looked bewildered. “What do you mean?” he asked in a high voice. I was cringing, I felt so sorry for poor Paul.

  The double-decker bus pulled up beside the Prevost. It was bad enough that Paul was getting fired, but did it need to be so dramatic? Although Peter was still pissed off at Paul for endangering our lives, he stuck out his hand and they shook hands. “Sorry, Paul. It just didn’t work out. You can head back to Utrecht.”

  Paul was quiet. “But it was a dog,” he squeaked.

  “No hard feelings.” Peter stood up, giving him a big smile and patting him on the back. “No hard feelings, Paul. I’ve contacted your boss and he is expecting you tomorrow, so I guess you’d better go.”

  Peter saw me. “Bif, go tell the guys to come and put their stuff on the new bus, tell them we are changing buses now.”

  I couldn’t meet the forlorn driver’s eyes. I scurried off to find the boys.

  We were only midway through the tour and already many things were becoming clear. One was that our new guitar player from New
York City was a bit arrogant toward the Canadian band members, who were easygoing guys and had known each other for many years.

  The guitarist had been brought in as a ringer—a star guitar player. He had come highly recommended from my American managers, who said that he would add credibility to the unknown lineup and the new solo girl singer. He was originally from Scotland and both his accent and his sense of humour were wonderful. I liked him very much. He was talented and driven, and later we even wrote a song together: he mailed me the music on a cassette tape and I wrote the words and finished the melody using my small keyboard. I preferred to write this way, by myself—I felt free from restraints and self-consciousness.

  During the tour, the ringer was becoming increasingly unhappy too about being a support musician to a female singer. I think he assumed it would be different, more of a duet like the Eurhythmics, and was disappointed with the reality that it was Bif Naked, a solo artist. It was difficult for him to hide his discontent, which soon turned into contempt for the guys in the band—at this point, Rich Priske from Chrome Dog, recruited by Peter to be in my touring band, and Randy Black, from Annihilator. Their response was to try hard to irritate him whenever the opportunity presented itself. They were as relentless as schoolboys. They knew he disliked them, knew he felt they were all beneath his level, so they tortured him day and night in any way they could, even speaking pig Latin around him after discovering he couldn’t understand it. The guitarist would yell and curse them, and they’d roar with laughter.