by Chris Walter
SNFU began to look for another manager, and even asked booking agent James MacLean if he was interested. James shut them down immediately, saying there wasn’t enough money in it. Brent tried to wine and dine Randy Steffes, who was managing Green Day, but learned that the man had been fired that very day and was too morose to consider managing another band. When other show-biz types were also uninterested, the boys realized that finding a replacement for Fortune would not be easy. SNFU sailed on, rudderless.
Dave Fortune, although unhappy at first, soon realized that the band had done him a favour. SNFU took up a disproportionate amount of his time for the money it provided, and his involvement was mostly a labour of love. Free at last, he began to look around for gainful employment. “The boys had a ride—they just had to wait for it, but no one wanted to do that,” comments Fortune, who is still friends with all the members, including Chi Pig. Interestingly, Randy Steffes later joined the Real McKenzies, and appeared on their 2012 album WestWinds.
Despite all this, Marc Belke claims he didn’t feel the pressure, and that when he stepped into the studio nothing else mattered but the music. “Recording for me is always special, and I love the process of making records. I only think about the songs when I’m working. Let other people worry about money. We had a great time recording and mixing FYULABA.” In due course, the mixing was completed and the tape went for mastering. They were done.
With the SNFU album behind them, the Belkes fired up the Wheat Chiefs again. When Redeemer dropped in mid-July, the band threw a release party and prepared to tour. The guys were amazed when Ed Dobek arrived from Victoria carrying only an extra T-shirt and a toothbrush. To say that the man travelled lightly was like saying that Chi Pig enjoyed television. “When it came time to tour, Ed would just jump in the van with his little plastic bag. I don’t think he took a shower the whole time. He’s an amazing guy!” laughs Marc Belke. Although the venues were small, and most people weren’t aware that the two main guys were also in a little punk band known as SNFU, the Wheat Chiefs had a good time.
Timmins was a dud, and the show in Ottawa was cancelled, but both shows in Toronto were good, even though they became stuck in rush-hour traffic and almost missed the first one. The Wheat Chiefs hit Trois Riviéres and Montreal on July 31st and August 1st respectively. The show in Montreal was part of a large music festival, and the boys played to almost 10,000 people. “Ed was so nervous that the songs were about 20% faster. Nobody really knew who we were, but at least they didn’t want us to play ‘Cannibal Café,’” laughs Brent. Moving into the US, the Wheat Chiefs did a show in Boston before hitting Providence. In Rhode Island, the boys could do no wrong.
The band was late for a show with the CMJ Music Festival in New York City, but the promoter offered to let them play later. Unfortunately, what seemed like a great slot turned out to be the worst. “Not only was the place deserted, but the house lights came on as soon as we hit the stage and, no joke, a guy started sweeping the floor in front of the stage,” Rob Johnson remembers disgustedly. A heckler in Cleveland accused the Wheat Chiefs of being Green Day rip-offs, which confused them more than anything else. Soon the Wheat Chiefs were back in Canada—the land of hockey and Tim Horton’s. The boys blew through Winnipeg, Yorkton, and Edmonton like a warm spring breeze. Ed Dobek barely needed his spare shirt.
Although no one seems to remember if the Wheat Chiefs played Victoria or not, the tour ended and the members went home. “We barely made any money, and we slept wherever we could, but that tour was a lot of fun,” recalls Marc. “We were just a group of like-minded friends playing music we loved, so there was no friction between us.” Despite the general lack of attention from the music industry, Marc felt that the Wheat Chiefs had a better shot at commercial success than SNFU ever would, and others had mentioned that as well. Except in rare instances, punk rock was not a viable commodity, but hard-hitting melodic rock had the potential to go farther. Brent Belke actually heard “Refuse” on CFOX when he stopped for gas one afternoon. The mainstream FM station certainly never played SNFU. “That was weird, man,” Brent recalls.
Meanwhile, left on his own for a while, Chi Pig visited his boyfriend Bob in Lawrence, Kansas. The pair talked on the phone regularly, and the singer had been sending Bob scrapbooks full of letters, lyrics, and drawings. Chi’s vacation was a welcome change from the chaos of life on the road, and he returned to Vancouver in better spirits, ready to buckle down and get back to work.
SNFU rehearsed intensely before playing several local shows in August of 1996. Although FYULABA was due to be released soon, Epitaph didn’t seem to be promoting it as heavily as they had the two previous albums. Either Brett Gurewitz had already given up on SNFU and was simply running out the clock, or perhaps his personal problems were getting in the way of business. Underwhelmed but trying to stay optimistic, the Belkes continued to rehearse with the Wheat Chiefs and SNFU, doing their best to keep both bands running at speed. No one could ever accuse them of being lazy.
On September 19th, less than a week before FYULABA was released, the Wheat Chiefs opened for The Mighty Mighty Bosstones at the Town Pump. While the first half of the set was plagued with technical problems, the band rallied for the last half and finished strongly, even if the crowd wasn’t really paying attention. The Belkes were not easily discouraged, however, and still felt they could find the right audience if they kept at it. SNFU fans might not have welcomed them warmly, but the Belkes wanted to appeal to those who found SNFU too abrasive. Bands such as the Goo Goo Dolls and Collective Soul were doing well, so why couldn’t the Wheat Chiefs also make it happen?
The new SNFU album dropped on September 24th and the band threw a party to celebrate. FYULABA opened with the raging “Stepstranger” that Chi Pig wrote about Eric, who had once lived with his mom in Winnipeg. Clocking in at just 1:18, the song is as angry as anything the singer ever penned. Perhaps the death of his mother inspired him to lash out at the man who treated them poorly. “You Make Me Thick” is equally fast, though more than twice as long. A warning to the dangers of bulimia, the song targets the extremely unrealistic weight standards set by the fashion industry. Singer Bif Naked, who has struggled with eating disorders most of her life, sang backup vocals on the track, and her appearance on the song is not a coincidence.
Chi Pig’s lyrics on “Bobbitt” are “cutting,” although his habit of snatching song ideas from the TV is obvious. Aside from liberal doses of sick humour, the song also showcases the drumming of Dave Rees, and his chops here are phenomenal. Simon Head also plays keyboards on the track. “Better Than Eddie Vedder” is a speedy slice of pop culture that underlines the fickle nature of stardom. Having been abandoned by many of their early fans, SNFU had first hand knowledge of the subject, even if the song isn’t necessarily about them.
The next track, “Don’t Have the Cow,” concerns Mad Cow Disease. Although the singer confesses to being one himself, he delights in poking fun at carnivores, telling them “you’re no smarter than the slab of meat you eat.” On “Fate,” which the band used for the first video, the breakneck pace slows slightly to provide FYULABA with one of its most memorable moments. With its pronounced bass line and ominous lyrics, the song creeps into the dark recesses of the mind to lay a big scary egg. Side one ends with the wacky “Dean Martian,” which seems to have been added almost as an afterthought. As always, SNFU tended to make albums too long rather than too short.
Still, fans would not be disappointed and side two kicks off with the riff-heavy “Charlie Still Smirks.” A twisted sonnet to homicidal nutcase Charles Manson, the song also references Axl Rose, but not in a way the rock diva could appreciate. “Spaceghost, the Twins & Blip” sounds great, but the lyrics seem stolen word-for-word from a Saturday morning cartoon. Again, radio pop bands could get away with it, but punk rockers generally demand a little more substance. On “My Pathetic Past,” Chi Pig revisits the trials and tribulations of his adolescence, and fans would surely find it easier to relate to the pr
oblem of bullying than they would to cosmic spaceghosts. “Michelle Pfeiffer’s Diaper” falls squarely in the bizarre category, with a dash of grotesque imagery thrown in for good measure. On the final third of “The Kwellada Kid,” the music shifts from rapid-fire, second-wave punk to a funky groove that slowly fades away, leaving listeners craving more. SNFU returns to familiar ground with “Elfie Schlegel,” in which the singer admits that he is not getting younger. Although he spelled her first name wrong, Chi admires Elfi enough to compare himself to the Canadian gymnast, declaring that he’d once been “just like Elfie Schlegel coming off the uneven bars.” No one who saw SNFU in the ‘80s, or even the mid-to-late ‘90s, would deny that the flexible singer was squarely in Elfi’s league. “Gaggle Of Friends” is a little more adven-turous, sounding like a cross between NOFX and the Real McKenzies. Ending the album with a glib dismissal of his former schoolmates seems like the perfect way to exorcise them once and for all—even if his yearbook photo might still be hanging in the hallway of Queen Alexandra Elementary School. Call it closure, both musically and otherwise.
Visually speaking, the cover left something to be desired. Graphic designer Brad Lambert wanted to recreate a drawing of Chi Pig’s, but the clock ran out before he could finish. “The image was supposed to be babies in a sardine can, but it’s only half done,” says Marc Belke. “It was sort of a shit show.” With its confusing acronym and the somewhat baffling cover art, the album doesn’t exactly leap off the shelf. Still, FYULABA is an accomplished piece of work, even if it closely resembles The One Voted Most Likely To Succeed. The only real flaw is that many of the songs are very similar in tempo and style, making it somewhat difficult to tell them apart, at least at first. Brett Gurewitz must have despaired listening to the album, thinking that if the other two hadn’t sold well, then there was no reason to expect this one would. Still, Marc doesn’t think that Chi Pig spent a great deal of time worrying about commercial success: “Chi doesn’t give a fuck what you think. Artistically, there’s nobody like him; he’s a unique entity.”
While both band and label tried hard to believe that new fans would suddenly cotton to the genius of SNFU, the possibility that they might not must surely have occurred to them. Although most fans would agree that the album was a fine addition to the SNFU catalogue, FYULABA wasn’t particularly consistent, and some tracks were much better than others. The album sounded almost desperate.
Instead of leaving on tour before the CDs had a chance to cool in their pearl cases, SNFU waited to make sure that all the stores had the new release. In fact, having accepted an offer to work as a drum tech with Bad Religion, Dave Rees flew to LA and left on tour with them. He would be back in time to go out with SNFU in October, but after seeing how the other half lived, his perception of touring would never be quite the same again. “They had a different sort of touring than SNFU did,” Rees admits. “They’d fly me to Austria for three weeks just for one show.” While some might be inclined to say that he’d become spoiled, the young drummer was simply becoming disillusioned. Despite their best efforts, and all that talent, SNFU was losing ground.
In October, Bill Morrison shot the “Fate” video in a schoolyard on East 33rd and Main Street in East Vancouver. Although Chi’s friend Cameron Noyes had written funding grants on behalf of the band, there wasn’t much cash leftover for Bill, who had no choice but to concentrate on projects that would make money. Consequently, the video didn’t come out for several months after the album was released. Lateness aside, the finished product was a pleasing if not dazzling piece of work. “Brett Gurewitz loved it, and so did we,” says Bunt Belke. To a backdrop of fuzzed-out guitars and Chi Pig’s intense vocals, the musicians climb a chain-link fence and bounce on a trampoline wearing their instruments. The letters on the trampoline alternate between “S” “N” “F” and “U,” but not in the correct order, which would have been too corny. Muc remembers worrying that someone would be hurt filming the video. “Bill was telling us to jump backwards onto the trampoline while looking at the camera, which hardly seemed like a safe thing to do,” he says, adding that the shoot was fun anyway. Dangerous, but fun.
Watching the video, the average viewer might wonder what The Offspring or Bad Religion had that SNFU didn’t. Even the esteemed and knowledgeable Brett Gurewitz could not put his finger on the problem. Despite deep fissures under the surface, “Fate” showed an aggressive band at the top of their game.
Several months after firing Dave Fortune, the band hired a career show-biz type named Peter Karroll, who also managed Bif Naked and came highly recommended by the singer. Although the guys would eventually question Karroll’s ability to manage the band effectively, Peter wasn’t making much money from them, and had probably taken the job as a favour to Bif. Unfortunately, the new manager immediately took a confrontational stance with Epitaph at a time when the band should have been treading lightly. While Karroll’s complaints were often valid, SNFU was in no position to give orders, and a little diplomacy was needed. The three-album contract with Epitaph was up for review in November of ‘97, and Gurewitz could show them the door at that time. Although it soon became clear that the relationship between Bif and the smooth-talking Karroll was somewhat less than platonic, Bif insists that the brief affair had nothing to do with her recommendation. “I believed in my managers, Peter and Jonny [Zazula], and had every reason to believe that they would be just as helpful to my other friends,” says Naked, who is still managed by Karroll but not attached romantically to him in any way. SNFU’s relationship with Karroll wouldn’t be quite as close.
Managerial issues aside, the band attempted to focus on the matter at hand. Without delay, SNFU flew soundman Simon Head to Vancouver from Toronto, and roadie Brian “Duckman” Downey in from Hoboken. The group moved out to support the new album, but rain quickly turned to snow on the treacherous Coquihalla Highway. Their snow chains were too small, and it was too late to turn back by then. Because of this, what should have been a nine-hour cruise became an excruciating eighteen-hour ordeal, and the fellows were completely exhausted when they finally arrived in Edmonton. “At one point, the trailer started to slide away, and the guys all braced themselves for a crash,” remembers Simon Head, who drove most of the way in a blinding snowstorm. The boys barely had time for soundcheck and a sandwich before the gig, and they had to make it look good. Luckily, the fans didn’t notice that the band was absolutely bushed. Being onstage always magically brought the musicians back to life, no matter how spent they were. The energy of the crowd sustained them when beer could not.
Thanksgiving was on the following Monday, so the band took four days off in Edmonton to celebrate the holiday with the Belkes. With a little time to kill, the gang wandered around the humongous West Edmonton Mall and rode the world’s biggest indoor roller coaster. That night, Mina flew in to spend the holiday with Brent, and most of the group went to see the unique Crispin Glover at a spoken word event. Duckman had never been away from home on Thanksgiving before, but the Belkes made him feel like one of the family, even though the Americans didn’t celebrate the holiday until November 28th that year. After a good night’s sleep, Brent kissed Mina goodbye and the boys climbed somewhat reluctantly into Earl Grey. The old girl had plenty of kilometres on her now, and they didn’t trust her the way they once had.
Away from Edmonton, tension soon mounted in the van, and the bad vibes would only get worse as the tour progressed. Chi Pig wanted to hire his boyfriend Bob from Kansas to do sound, but the other musicians outvoted the frustrated singer, reminding him that Simon was a proven winner. Chi made his anger obvious, and was very nasty to poor Simon. Because no one else wanted to bunk with Chi, the two shared a room every night, and the bitchy vocalist tormented Simon by keeping him awake with the TV. Not only that, but Dave Rees was also unhappy. For him, the thrill was fading and he felt that SNFU was trapped in a downward spiral. He wasn’t entirely wrong.
The show in Calgary was loud and fun, but soon the boys were back in th
e van, inching along an icy highway towards dates in Saskatoon and Regina that were as predictable as they were sweaty. Reaching Winnipeg in the freezing cold, the boys stayed warm by jumping around onstage, even if the show wasn’t as full as it could have been. A toxic silence hung in the air the next day as the occupants contemplated the long tour ahead. The group continued east towards Toronto and Montreal, with everyone on board saying as little as possible. While touring conditions weren’t exactly great, the band had been down this road many times and knew how to stay quiet when they weren’t happy. At least for the most part.
Toronto was okay, but Montreal, as usual, was a blast. Shows like that made up for those that weren’t as full as they could have been. After a few more dates in Southern Ontario, the band headed into the States, but this time they didn’t have proper documentation, and border guards emptied the entire trailer looking for contraband. Somehow, silver-tongued Brent Belke managed to bullshit the officers into letting them pass. The boys quickly reloaded the gear and left as fast as they could. “We had boxes of merch and they didn’t even ask what was inside,” Simon laughs.
Shows at the Middle East in Boston and Maxwell’s in Hoboken were both half empty, but Simon Head was impressed with a new band at Maxwell’s, Shades Apart. “The singer was from a band named Big Black that had just broken up,” says the soundman. From NYC, the boys backtracked slightly to Club Babyhead in Providence, where shows were always good. Everyone had been telling Simon about an eccentric house soundman who was a minor celebrity in his own right. “They said he was super funny and talked like Barney Gumble. He’d be reading the paper or falling asleep while bands played,” Simon recalls. Unfortunately, the man had been found dead in his apartment the day before, so Simon did not get the chance to meet him. “That was a letdown,” he says quietly.
SNFU hit Philadelphia, Cleveland, Detroit, Minneapolis, and Omaha before reaching Lawrence, Kansas, where Chi was finally able to see Bob. After the show that night, Dave decided he’d had enough and quit the band. “He just sat in the van smoking cigarettes. He wanted me to play drums!” exclaims Simon, who probably could have pulled it off in a pinch. “Simon was a great soundman, but I didn’t know he was also a good musician until later,” says Bunt. The band moved on that night, but the tension between the boys was palpable. “There was no arguing or shouting or anything. The band always kept that sort of thing to themselves,” says Duckman. “Dave was on the outskirts of the band after that, but it didn’t affect his drumming, and he still shredded every night. Those guys had the sickest live show ever.”