by Chris Walter
The next day, SNFU played for at least 400 people at New City in Edmonton, where Chi Pig hammed it up for all he was worth. The singer was in better shape for this leg of the tour and the shows were more consistent. Mr. Plow, who opened for SNFU every night, remembers an enormous heckler who gave him a hard time during his set. A group of punks at the front of the stage weren’t happy with the massive jock, and they jumped him as soon as SNFU started. “What looked like a pit was actually ten punks trying to beat up this huge douchebag,” laughs Mr. Plow. “He was like the Hulk, throwing bodies left and right.” The bouncers finally arrived and dragged the buffoon away, but not without a mighty struggle. Steroids and booze make for a nasty mix.
The gang moved on for a show at The Stetson in Calgary on October 18th, where a bouncer wearing flip-flops started causing trouble. A hardcore faction of local punks known as the Calgary Beer Core wanted to stomp the guy, but they begrudgingly let him live. During SNFU’s set, Chi started blowing snot rockets from his nose, but instead of aiming them at the floor, he shot the boogers at fans in front of the stage. Worse, Chi hit two promoters who were supposed to be doing shows for the band on this tour. Outrage grew the next day as angry fans posted messages on Facebook and Twitter. The band finally made Chi Pig understand that angry fans might hurt him badly if he continued to blow snot on them, so he reluctantly stopped.
SNFU was supposed to play an all-ages show at New City in Edmonton on October 19th, but kids these days were unfamiliar with the band, and the gig was cancelled. Luckily, The Stetson invited the band to stay for another night, so they celebrated Chi’s birthday in Calgary. Being Sunday, the show was smaller and perfect for a birthday party. With two days off, the guys returned to Edmonton and hung out for a bit before moving on to The Roxy in Saskatoon. SNFU whirled through Regina, Medicine Hat, and Innisfail, stopping just long enough to entertain the crowds and collect the money. After a sold-out show in Banff, they made the long drive to Winnipeg for two nights at the Zoo (the all-ages show there having sold enough tickets to proceed). “Those shows were great,” Plow recalls.
The tour was winding down, but the group pushed on to Lethbridge for a Halloween show. Every night was Halloween for Chi Pig, of course, so he wore one of his standard pig masks for the occasion. They left town the same night bound for British Columbia, where they hit Cranbrook for another small but joyful gig at the Eagles Hall. “The gigs were definitely hit and miss,” says Chad Mareels. “Some were complete bombs, but other times the band was about 80% of what they had been in the ‘80s and ‘90s.” Chad didn’t actually see SNFU in the 80s, but at least he was happy with some of the shows they were playing.
SNFU was set to go home, but Chi wanted to see his friend Laurie in Nelson, and his bandmates made the three-hour drive without complaint. After a short visit, the singer left with the band but returned to Nelson soon afterwards. He wanted to write lyrics for the next album, but although he stayed for several weeks, he didn’t get a great deal of writing done. Chi returned to Vancouver and carried on just the same as before. All the members were worried, but only Chad Mareels began to plan an exit strategy. He had not signed on for this.
Resting briefly, the band did a show at the Cobalt on November 15th before setting off on another brutal cross-country tour. The band took a northern route this time, stopping in small towns they missed on the last run. Chi was drinking more, and Chad was becoming increasingly disheartened. Although the turnouts were fairly decent, the shows themselves were a bit spotty. Unable to deal with Chi’s destructive behaviour, Chad made up his mind to leave SNFU. Not only was he unwilling to watch the singer drink himself into a stupor every day, but the band was not recording any new material. Without fresh input, they were little more than a tribute act, and he couldn’t see the point of that.
The bare-bones tour ended, and Chad tendered his resignation. The capable young percussionist played one last show with the band on December 15th at the Cobalt and then he was gone. Chad’s departure, however, failed to worry the band, and they simply called Shane Smith, who was ready to re-enlist, especially when he learned they would be touring Europe in the spring. Just like that, Shane Smith was back in the wacky world of SNFU.
All Around the World and Back Again
SNFU returned to rehearsal, but since Shane already knew the songs, the band was back up to speed again in less than a month. On February 1st, 2009, SNFU made a trip to Vancouver Island to warm up for the European tour. The band hit Nanaimo for a show at The Cambie that was full but not crowded. All the same, Shane sounded good, and the show at the Lucky Bar in Victoria the next night was better attended and the energy level was higher. Chi was also on his best behaviour, turning in a dynamic and eye-catching performance. Could he keep his act together in Europe? The gang would soon find out.
First, before the European tour, the band gladly accepted an offer to play in Costa Rica. Even Goony had never been to Central America before, and Mark Sommer spent the rest of the month working to ensure that the trip would proceed smoothly. Finally, on February 28th, 2009, SNFU flew to Costa Rica for a show in San José at the Latino Rock Café. Hundreds of extremely excited local fans were on-hand to greet the Canadian punk legends, and they were treated like visiting royalty. Because so few North American punk bands ever play in San José, the event was packed to capacity and SNFU gave the locals a show to remember. “Even in Costa Rica, which is a Latin country, people always request ‘Painful Reminder,’” says Denis, slightly dumbstruck. “They knew every word and they were all singing along.” Exhausting their entire repertoire and returning for several encores, the band finally crawled off the stage. After the show, the guys wandered the city streets, drinking with fans until dawn. Central America was all right.
The next day, a fan took Chi Pig and Shane on a road trip to see a dormant volcano just outside of town. Along the way, the fan stopped to grab some primo cocaine for ten US dollars a gram. The trio then continued on to the volcano, where they climbed to the crater’s edge and sat drinking beer and snorting blow. “The water was a beautiful blue-green colour,” remembers Chi. He also claims that this was his only slip, and that he hasn’t done any more drugs since. “Pure coke for ten bucks a gram! How could I not?” he asks. Chi and Shane partied all night, and there was still a little coke left in the morning.
The band still had a few more days to see the countryside, and they treated the tour as a vacation of sorts. At the time, Goony was apparently suffering from back pain, and according to Chi Pig, the guitarist was able to buy OxyContin over-the-counter to deal with his discomfort. “Twelve bucks for twelve tablets,” recalls Chi Pig. “That sneaky fucker brought them into Canada and got away with it.” OxyContin pills sell for up to $50 each in Vancouver, but the consequences of being caught are severe.
Back in Vancouver, SNFU did a show at the Cobalt on March 7th while waiting for the European tour to begin. While Goony and Chi Pig had been overseas many times, the experience would be brand new for Shane Smith and Denis Nowoselski. When the time finally arrived, the other members met Chi Pig at the airport, and were dismayed to see that the singer had nothing but the clothes on his back for the next six weeks in Europe. “He had a few beers though, and they were pulling them out of his pockets,” says Denis. Somehow, Chi was allowed to fly, but the flight attendants would not serve alcohol to any of the musicians. The band did a quick show in Toronto with Left Spine Down before continuing on to Germany. “Goony was pissed off because they took his studded belt away at the Toronto airport,” remembers Chi Pig.
The first European date, at the Tom Tom Club in Günzburg on March 14th, was reassuringly crowded and Chi rose to the occasion. “He was drunk, but he could still perform, and he sounded all right,” remembers Denis. SNFU had not released an album for five years, so the turnout was a bit of a surprise. The popularity of the band seemed to be on an upswing.
The largest number of dates were in Germany, and SNFU did ten respectable shows there before reaching Holland o
n March 24th. “Germany is an awesome place—probably my favourite country in Europe,” says Shane Smith. Chi Pig was rarely sober but managed to function, even if he forgot a few lyrics from time to time. “Me and Chi did mushrooms on my birthday in Amsterdam,” remembers Denis. From Holland, the tour moved into England, where an audience member struck Chi with a closed fist when the singer tried to play the slap dance game with him. “That happened several different times,” says Goony.
After three good shows in England, the tour pushed on to Paris, where Chi Pig and Denis went looking for breakfast the morning after the show. “Nobody would let us in, and then I noticed that Denis was wearing a custom-made shirt that said ‘He Loves Cock,’ with an arrow pointing to me,” laughs Mr. Chi Pig. The pair finally found a restaurant owner who couldn’t read English.
The shows in Switzerland and Austria were uniformly fun but beery. The gang barrelled onwards to Italy, where heavy boozing was the order of the day and Denis spent most of his time putting out fires. “Chi was drinking all the time, so I decided that if I couldn’t beat him then I might as well join him,” laughs Shane Smith. Chi says that Shane tried to match him beer for beer and thought he could smoke as much pot as Goony could. “Not gonna happen,” says the singer, who claims that Shane hit him, not just once, but on four separate occasions. “Shane threw a fucking wheel of Gouda at me,” he cries. Chi fails to mention, however, that he threw a roll of paper towels at Shane first. “I snapped and flipped over the whole rider table with all the food and booze on it. I couldn’t see out of that eye for fifteen minutes or so,” says the drummer matter-of-factly. “That kind of shit happened on a regular basis.”
The trip was remarkably well organized by Benny Sievert of Klownhouse Tours. Goony found the booking agent simply by looking online for one that seemed the most interesting. The guys didn’t know it, but Benny was already very familiar with the band. “I grew up in a small town in North Germany that had no punk scene at all. There was just a small group of skaters that listened to ‘radical’ music. One of those guys gave me my first punk tape: SNFU’s If You Swear You’ll Catch No Fish. Without SNFU there might be no punk rock in my life, and I might not have started a booking agency. Thanks to SNFU for bringing me into punk rock!” says Benny, reflecting on the strange coincidence that brought them together. Considering the challenges SNFU faced trying to keep everything else together on the road, the boys were fortunate that they didn’t have to worry about the bookings. “Benny was on top of everything,” says Goony. “He’s the model of German efficiency.”
In Italy, Chi drank approximately fifteen beers hanging out with well-wishers, who were happy to ply him with free booze. Where the singer had once stayed backstage doing stretches and calisthenics, alcohol made him more gregarious, and now he enjoyed drinking with the fans. That night, Chi Pig stopped the band mid-song to disparage his bandmates the same way he had in Regina with Marc Belke, pointing to each musician to ask the audience if they knew who that person was. Since the band was fairly new, and he was the last original member, the audience only knew Chi Pig, of course. “He basically belittled us all in front of everybody,” says Shane, who had suffered the same indignation the last time he toured with SNFU. Unfortunately, the crowd did not get to see Chi Pig perform to the best of his abilities. Rather, the singer stumbled around drunkenly, forgetting lyrics and messing up the songs. Happily, Italy was the low point of the tour and the other dates were considerably better.
Wherever they went, Chi Pig seemed determined to drink everything on the rider. The other bandmembers, with the exception of Denis, also joined in, and rarely did a bottle escape. The level of drunkenness backstage was enough to make a Winnipegger wince, and the antics were out of hand. “In Europe they force beer on you—good beer, too,” says Shane Smith. The musicians guzzled booze and hurled cold cuts at each other as the van careened across the continent, performing shows that were remarkable mostly for their lack of consistency. Chi was looking sharp, however, and had acquired a gold lamé suit that hugged his skinny frame and complimented his long, bleached-out hair to bizarre effect. The singer often sported a fuzzy Wookie hat, even when he wasn’t onstage, which didn’t exactly help him blend in with citizenry. His outlandish appearance caused many double takes, and perhaps even a few cases of whiplash.
From Italy, SNFU moved into war-ravaged Slovenia, and the boys were shocked by the bullet-pocked buildings and mounds of trash everywhere. The landscape was so unlike clean, orderly Canada—or even most of Europe—that they might as well have been on another planet. The show at Gala Hala on April 7th in Slovenia was crowded, however, and the fans arrived carrying the same rotgut homemade plum “brandy” that the DayGlo Abortions had sampled years earlier. No doubt some of those same fans also attended this show.
With a day off in Budapest, the boys decided to see the city. On the way to the hotel, Chi warned the guys to stay away from a number of sleazy bars they passed on the way in. However, Goony, Denis, and Shane were bored and chose to ignore the singer. They wanted to have some fun and meet girls, so to hell with Chi Pig. They snuck away without telling Chi where they were going. Walking down a street lined with dodgy bars, the guys were drawn to one establishment in particular by the large number of scantily clad, surgically enhanced women milling around outside. “Goony thought it looked good, so we went in for a few drinks,” Denis recalls ruefully. “The next thing you know, we have twelve naked girls in our laps.” Not just that, but soon everyone was holding a drink, and it looked as if the boys were paying for them. Still, what harm would it do to buy the lovely ladies a drink or two?
Things were going well until one of the horny musicians noticed with a start that the clock above the door bore the distinctive Hells Angels death’s head emblem. That shock still hadn’t taken full effect when the large and scary looking bartender presented them with separate bills written on scraps of paper. Shane Smith’s bill was the largest of them all. Though the numbers looked very steep, they were sure it was just a conversion issue, and that the bill wouldn’t be so high in US funds. However, the boys were soon made to understand that they owed $4,880 US dollars. The hapless musicians realized they were being extorted, but there was nothing they could do about it. One of the bulky, well-dressed hosts even escorted Denis to a nearby money exchange, where the bassist was forced to convert the band money he was carrying to US dollars. Still shaking with fright, the boys were surprised when they were told that they could drink free of charge for the rest of the night. “They had all our money already, so they couldn’t take any more,” laughs Denis. The guys drank until the wee hours, doing their best to put a good dent in the supply. “We didn’t say a word to Piggy the next day,” says Goony. “He would have enjoyed it too much.” Chi Pig soon learned about the incident anyway. “I told those guys not to go there!” the singer crows. “They were so busy following their dicks that they ignored the danger!”
The boys left Budapest and moved on to Croatia, where Chi Pig remembers sitting outside the gig with a fan. “He thanked me, and said it was a very special event for him and his friends. They hadn’t seen each other in ten years, but the show brought them together again.” Later, when the band was playing, Shane met a fan who was less grateful. “A guy at the front of the stage started smashing on Ken’s pedals, so I jumped off the drum riser to confront him,” says Shane. After being robbed in Budapest, the percussionist was looking for revenge. “We had to do the rest of the tour just to pay back our manager!” he exclaims. The incident with the pedal smasher eventually passed, and no one was injured. “One cool thing about Croatia,” remembers Chi, “is that there were no McDonald’s restaurants. They had two but they burned them down!”
SNFU moved through Bosnia but didn’t play there. “They had new buildings in the foreground, but all the old buildings full of bullet holes were still behind them,” remembers Chi Pig. “It was totally bombed out. All they had there were graveyards and flower shops.” Denis, in particular, was dismayed
by the way locals disposed of trash. They simply threw it in the river, and the banks were heaped with full bags of garbage. Not a pretty sight.
While they didn’t sell much merchandise in the Eastern Bloc, the guys were impressed that the locals would part with their precious money to see the band. In light of this, SNFU worked extra hard to give fans their money’s worth, and Chi performed to the best of his ability. They left Croatia on a high note, ready to go home and sleep for a week. Chi Pig, in particular, was feeling his age, and his liver badly needed a rest.
Still rattled by the traumatic event in Budapest, the boys stopped in the Czech Republic. “I got punched really hard in Prague,” says Chi, referring to another game of slap dancing that went badly awry. “It’s supposed to be a slap for a slap, but this big guy just drifted me!” From there, the band travelled to Germany for the last show of the tour, which was at Wild at Heart in Berlin on April 11th. The band was playing songs from most of the albums, including “Head Smashed in Buffalo Jump” and “Cockatoo Quill” from In the Meantime and In Between Time, and the fans knew the words. The band moved on, but the incident in Budapest had soured the tour for everyone except Chi Pig.
The trees were bright with cherry blossoms when the boys arrived back in Vancouver. Despite being exhausted, they rested for less than two weeks before setting off on the next leg of the tour in Mark Sommers’ van with a female driver named Thana at the wheel. “Chi looked sick, but he didn’t say anything to us about it. He never told us how he was feeling—he just climbed into the van,” says Denis Nowoselski. When the madness finally ended seven weeks later, Thana would walk away with more money than anyone in the band did, but she earned every penny. “On the next tour, we did the driving ourselves because we couldn’t afford to pay anyone that much,” says Denis. This tour would stretch the band to the breaking point, and the stress would age them prematurely.