by Chris Walter
Based on a True Story rehearsed as often as time permitted during the fall of ’01, but the members all worked steady jobs and the band was never meant to be a full-time commitment. After nearly two decades in the music business, Marc was not under the illusion that BOATS would be hugely successful and attract a major label record deal. Still, the ex-SNFU guitarist loved playing music, and BOATS allowed him to put that love into practice.
Even for Marc Belke—and as incredible as it may seem—there was more to life than music, and on November 11th, 2001, the guitarist met a vivacious young blonde who would become a large part of his life. Rather than spotting her in the front row at an SNFU show, he was introduced to Jennifer while transporting gear for the Vancouver rock band Copyright. “She was a friend of their guitar tech,” says Marc, thinking back to the chance meeting. Soon the two were dating and, not long after that, living together.
Marc had a new woman in his life, but another old friend was starting to show her age. Although she had been faithful and true, requiring very little maintenance in her years of servitude, Earl Grey was almost done. On the same week that Marc made the last payment on the vehicle, an arrogant gust of wind whipped the door out of his hands and bent the hinges. “The door was fucked after that,” the guitarist says sorrowfully.
Based on a True Story continued to rehearse, and the band eventually assembled enough material for a forty-minute set. Through his employment with House of Blues, Muc landed a slot opening for the Bad Brains at the Commodore Ballroom on December 7th, 2001. Marc hadn’t shared a stage with the American hardcore pioneers since 1987, and he was hoping that the show would expose Based on a True Story to new fans. Unfortunately, the guests at the Commodore that night only wanted to hear old school hardcore, or even the dub reggae for which the Bad Brains were known, but not commercially-oriented melodic rock. “The show wasn’t that great, and the dance floor was pretty much vacant,” Muc admits. Matt Warhurst was also underwhelmed by the response, but none of the guys were too surprised. Those with thin skins do not last long in the entertainment business.
Undaunted, BOATS returned to practice. Marc’s new bandmates were capable players, but he was surprised nevertheless at the speed with which they learned the songs. The other members were all much younger than Marc was, but that was probably more of a bonus than anything else. BOATS began to do shows around town, and garnered better reactions from patrons at the Cobalt Hotel on Main Street. As a supporter of SNFU, proprietor wendythirteen was more than happy to give Marc’s new band a place to play. While Based on a True Story didn’t perform often enough to garner a huge following, the members enjoyed playing live and felt they had a good thing going.
For Chi Pig, life without SNFU was barely worth living. He was self-medicating heavily and needed music like a blind man needs a seeing eye dog. His ex-bandmates could work at normal jobs, but music was the only thing he knew. At least Chi was on good terms with Rob “Starbuck” Johnson, who still lived upstairs at Knight and 33rd. Interestingly, Rob would later form the hard rock band Air Raid Siren with Sean Stubbs. For now, however, Rob and Chi collaborated on a Chi Pig solo project, with Rob supplying electronic music for five songs. Some of the singer’s lyrics on the project were intensely personal, foreshadowing the material he would write for In the Meantime and In Between Time. Sadly, none of the local record labels would give the demo a chance. When the head of one small outfit admitted that he hadn’t bothered to play the demo, Chi Pig wrote another song entitled “Didn’t Even Rate a Listen.” None of this did much for his shattered self-esteem, which was low and sinking lower daily.
Although his situation was not as dire, Marc Belke was also having problems adapting to the normal world. He was employed with a company that made reproductions of French antique furniture, and the job was somewhat less than glamourous. The work was not particularly difficult—even though the wax aggravated his eczema—but he would rather be playing guitar than fooling with furniture. Consequently, Based on a True Story recorded a demo at the practice spot, and the frustrated musician began to shop it around. Like Chi Pig, he was unable to find any takers, but his self-image wasn’t as fragile.
BOATS continued to do odd shows in the spring of 2002, but Marc missed touring, and Vancouver seemed a little stifling now that he was stuck there all the time. Marc’s girlfriend Jennifer was also dissatisfied with life in Vancouver, and the pair eventually agreed that a change of scenery might be in order. These days, Vancouver reminded Marc of SNFU, and many of those memories weren’t pleasant. The band hadn’t exactly gone out on a high note.
Once the decision was made, the couple wasted little time putting their affairs in order. Marc showed up at practice one day and simply told his bandmates that he was leaving for Toronto in a week. “We hardly knew what to say. We were a bit stunned,” recalls Matt Warhurst. Although Marc asked the band to move with him, he was mostly being polite and didn’t really expect the younger musicians to pack up and move for a project that wasn’t really taking off. BOATS was going down with all hands on deck.
As the time to leave quickly approached, Muc felt better about life. He had purpose again. In the fall of 2002, the couple loaded their belongings into Earl Grey and made the long journey across Canada to Toronto, where they moved into a basement suite just off Church Street in the gay district. Here, surrounded by their flamboyant neighbours, the pair planned to start over and build a new life from scratch. Luckily for SNFU fans, Marc was in too deep to escape quite that easily. He was a sucker for punishment at heart.
On the very same day that Marc Belke moved to Toronto, Matt Warhurst was about to leave for work when he received a phone call from Chi Pig. “I answered the telephone, and it was Chi asking if we wanted to start a new band,” recalls Matt, grinning at the memory. “We were a bit pissed off at Marc for ditching out on BOATS, but we got busy with Slaveco right away,” remembers Shane Smith. Just like that, Chi Pig was back.
The members of Slaveco, (which was merely BOATS with Chi singing instead of Marc) immediately repaired to the practice pad on West 7th and threw them-selves into the new project with enthusiasm. “We wrote two songs at the first practice, one of them being ‘Shape Shifter,’ which was probably our most success-ful song,” says Shane Smith. “The lyrics were just pouring out of Chi. We’d never seen him with an energy like that.” Matt Warhurst also remembers that the songs came together very organically. “The chemistry was obvious to everyone, and we were happy about the way the band sounded,” says Warhurst. The music—a mishmash of rock, punk, and metal—featured Chi’s inimitable vocals and lyrics, and also gave the talented young players plenty of room to shine. The members spent a good deal of time together when they weren’t rehearsing, and were friends as well as bandmates.
With a new purpose in life, Chi Pig tried to pull himself back from the edge. He was building props part-time at a movie studio in Burnaby, but the work wasn’t consistent, and his drug addiction was beginning to manifest itself more noticeably. He sold personal items to Matt, who fed the singer on occasion and supplied him with much-needed vitamins. Shane, who had come into a chunk of money, provided Chi Pig with plenty of free cocaine. “We used to get fucked up all the time!” laughs Chi Pig. Although coke wasn’t his drug of choice, the singer took whatever was offered. While some people can hold jobs and be somewhat functional while using cocaine and other drugs, Chi Pig could barely cope with life even when he wasn’t high. Without any real income to speak of, the Slaveco frontman did what he could to survive. Most of what little money he managed to scrape together went on cigarettes and cough syrup.
After rehearsing like fiends for several months, Slaveco recorded a demo at Matt Warhurst’s high-rise in Yaletown. How they got away with playing live music in an upscale apartment building remains a mystery, even though they recorded the drum tracks at the rehearsal space. “We had some mattresses against the windows, but…” says Matt, trailing off. The neighbours must have been very grateful when the session was fi
nally over. Incredibly, no one called the cops.
Slaveco was ready to play. While it would have been impossible for them to reclaim the territory formerly occupied by SNFU, the guys planned to have fun and do something new. Sure, handbills advertised that Chi Pig of SNFU was fronting the band, but a failure to capitalize on that would have been regrettable.
City officials evicted hardcore queen wendythirteen from her beloved Cobalt Hotel for bogus safety violations, entailing a move to the Astoria, which she soon renamed the “Asbalt.” Shows went on as usual, and Slaveco made their first appearance opening for Death Sentence there on January 31st, 2003. Blasting through a set containing music written by Ken Chinn, Matt Warhurst, and Jay Black, Slaveco set out to prove that Vancouver had a new contender. The band also played material from the solo project Chi Pig recorded with Rob Johnson, and, as a nod to the band that had first started Chi on this long and rocky path, Slaveco covered “Gates of Steel,” a song made famous by Devo. Few people other than the singer were aware that the song was written by Susan Schmidt and Deborah Smith of Chi-Pig, the ’77 new wave power trio from Akron, Ohio.
At any rate, the gig went off well enough, even if Stefan Nevatie of The Nerve claimed to be a “little disappointed,” at what he felt was a lack of energy. No doubt the young musicians were more concerned about hitting the right notes than they were about jumping around onstage. That would come later. The guys in Death Sentence weren’t happy that Slaveco received the same pay they did, but wendy-thirteen respected Chi Pig and felt they deserved it. There was hope for the future, even if Slaveco would never be SNFU.
Mary-Anne Korosi, the host of Punk-O-Rama on 99.3 The Fox, was a staunch supporter of Slaveco, playing “Shape Shifter” and other Slaveco songs almost every Thursday. “That was amazing, because we were an unsigned band, and the demo hadn’t even been mixed properly,” says Shane Smith. “I loved Slaveco, and it was a great break from SNFU. Chi was trying to keep the momentum going, and you could definitely hear it in the Slaveco tracks,” says Mary-Anne. The band shopped the demo to every label possible, even trying Mike Patton’s Ipecac Recordings without success. “Dave Grohl came by the station and Chi introduced me to him. That was cool,” says Shane. Despite all this, Slaveco remained unsigned.
On the other side of the country in Toronto, Muc Belke took a job at a high-end antique store on Yonge Street, and Jennifer went to work as the art director for a womens’ magazine. The snow piled high outside their basement window as Marc thought about the tracks SNFU had recorded just before the break-up. The idea that the songs would never be released did not sit well with him. Too bad there was no way to cut a new album.
That all changed when Muc received a surprise phone call from singer Doc Chiodo of the Model Citizens, the punk band that had driven from San Diego to Golita to see SNFU in 1999. It turned out that the Model Citizens were looking for a record label when they stumbled across Three Days Dead, which had just re-released Let’s Get it Right the First Time. “We figured they had to be legitimate if they had SNFU, right?” says Doc Chiodo. Wrong. Anyway, the Model Citizens had recently signed with Three Days Dead, who agreed to fund their debut album. “We were really excited to be on the same label as SNFU,” says Doc. Since the Model Citizens had always been huge fans of SNFU, they asked Three Days Dead for money to bring Marc onboard to help produce the album. The label agreed, and now Doc wanted to know if Marc was interested. Of course he was.
Although Muc had a credit on the back of Let’s Get it Right the First Time, he warned everyone that he wasn’t a fully certified producer. After pondering this for a bit, Three Days Dead agreed to take Muc’s suggestion and bring Pete Wonsiak in as well. The band was all set to fly Marc and Pete to San Diego when Three Days Dead abruptly flaked out on the deal. This would have been the end of the project, except the Model Citizens and their manager Todd Knapek, who all had good day jobs, decided to fund the album themselves. To this end, they brought Marc and Pete to town on their own dime and went to work. The team recorded the bed tracks in the allotted amount of time, and then the entire group flew to Vancouver for a final mix at Mushroom Studios. “We also hung out with Ken [Chinn] for a while, and that was a bit of an eye-opening experience,” says Doc, who hadn’t been aware of the singer’s drug issues.
The mixing went well, and soon the album was complete. While they were at it, Chi Pig and the Model Citizens recorded a song they wrote together called “Hands of God.” “It’s actually pretty fucking good!” says Doc Chiodo. Flush with success, the Model Citizens and Todd Knapek asked Muc if he would like some help funding a new SNFU album. They knew that SNFU already had a good handful of songs and only needed a few more. Marc was happy to accept, and the two parties made plans to start on the project as soon as possible. Marc returned to Toronto, and the Model Citizens flew home to San Diego, eager to work together again as soon as possible.
First, Marc and Jennifer thought it might help to get out of their dark basement suite, and they soon moved to an apartment on Bartlett Street in the Dundas-Bloor area. Although the couple were more comfortable in their new digs, life in Toronto wasn’t working out the way they had envisioned. Jennifer’s daily commute was brutally long and the politics at work were stressful. Marc’s job was unrewarding both financially and mentally. Antiques could be fascinating, but the customers who collected them were not nearly as interesting. Not only that, but the pair missed their friends in Vancouver, and the mountains and the ocean as well. Neither of them wanted to admit it, but perhaps moving to Toronto had been a mistake.
Despite those minor problems, Muc was glad to pick up his guitar and write music for the new SNFU album. Luckily, the songs came fairly easy, and he managed to put together a number of powerful riffs without much trouble. All they needed now were bass, drums, and vocals. While Marc couldn’t count on Chi to pull the project together in Vancouver, maybe Matt Warhurst would step up to the plate and take care of the details.
Earl Grey was nearing the end of her very active life. The old gal was beginning to rust out and wasn’t the quietest vehicle around these days. Still, she had almost 500,000 original kilometres on her by now, so a little noise was forgivable. Sadly, her engine block cracked one day, and Marc had no choice but to sell the old beast for scrap. “The way people get attached to vehicles is ridiculous, but it happens, and I loved that van,” Muc says nostalgically. Truly, he had been many places and seen many things in Earl Grey.
In May of 2003, Marc Belke flew Pete Wonsiak and Matt Warhurst out from Vancouver to help work on the songs that would eventually become “Sick Lee & Coward Leigh,” “A Wreck In Progress,” “If I Die Will You Die,” “One Legged Bridge Jumper Breaks Good Leg In Plunge,” and “Der Heavy Head Dance.” Toronto drummer Trevor McGregor, who sat in for the sessions at Chemical Sound, remembers one song called “The Awful Truth” that didn’t make the grade. “I don’t know why they didn’t use that one because it was great,” says McGregor. Rob Johnson thinks he might have written it, but can’t remember for sure. Perhaps the song will surface someday, although SNFU fans would not be advised to hold their breath.
Waiting to do his drum parts, Trevor McGregor tore through a copy of The Dirt by Mötley Crüe that someone had left lying around the studio. When it was finally his turn, Trevor struggled a little to play the new material, which was faster than the songs from ‘00 had been. Nevertheless, the percussionist pulled it off to everyone’s satisfaction, and was glad to be involved in the project. “I’d always been a fan of SNFU, so it was cool to do the album,” recalls McGregor. “We didn’t know how the songs would turn out, but the potential was there.” Those instincts would prove to be correct.
When the guitar and drum tracks were complete, Muc emailed them to Matt Warhurst, who added his bass parts at Lemon Loaf Studios before passing them on to Chi Pig. The singer listened to the songs carefully and tailored lyrics to fit. At least one of the songs came without any effort at all. “I opened my window and saw words right in front o
f my face on the brick wall several feet away. I grabbed a pen and wrote ‘Cockatoo Quill’ in about two minutes. Then I realized that the pen in my hand was the cockatoo quill,” says Chi Pig. “It was a feather duster that I bought from the dollar store and gaff taped a pen to it.” The singer regularly petitioned the Model Citizens for funds. “Things started to get a little hairy for a while, but we kept cutting the cheques,” says Doc Chiodo. “Still, the record was awesome, and we were glad to play even a small part in making it.” In fact, In the Meantime and In Between Time probably wouldn’t exist were it not for the Model Citizens. Fans of SNFU owe that band a great debt.
Chi Pig, at least, was producing some very worthy songs. Some of the lyrics went to Slaveco and others went to SNFU, though he occasionally had problems deciding which words to use for which project. In the winter of 2003, Marc flew to Vancouver to record extra guitar tracks at Smoke & Mirrors Studios, Pete Wonsiak’s home recording unit. Brent Belke even participated, contributing lead guitar on “Der Heavy Head Dance.” The vocals were added shortly afterwards, and Matt Warhurst did some of the work himself when Pete grew tired of waiting for Chi Pig to show up. “Pete asked if I’d fill in and engineer some vocal sessions,” says Matt. “I’m sure Chi showed up every time I was supposed to record him.”
The final mix was done at The Warehouse, an upscale studio owned by Bryan Adams on Powell Street. Like the facility in the rocker’s West Vancouver mansion, this one also boasted the best equipment currently available, and Dave “Rave” was again behind the console. “Having Dave Ogilvie as a friend gave us access to one of Canada’s best studios at a ridiculous rate,” says Marc. “Paul Forgues did a ton of editing on it at a bargain price because he was also a friend.” In short order the mixing was complete and the project was finished. Against all odds, SNFU had completed their seventh studio album.