Snfu

by Chris Walter

  Moving through the BC interior, the shows were somewhat incoherent and fans were not always happy. SNFU landed in Kamloops on Friday, April 24th, for a show with BurnHollywoodBurn, Tim Chiba’s band PIM, and Dilate. Tim was happy to see Chi again, but missed the Belkes, whom he hadn’t seen in years. “That was the first time I ever saw Chi drinking beer. He told me he had a new crutch,” says Chiba. “I took him out for Chinese food, and my mom made him some sushi. He was happy.” The band headed out the next day bound for the next small town. In front of them, the road stretched endlessly.

  Denis feels that the tour marked a turning point in Chi’s drinking, and what had been somewhat annoying was becoming problematic. Goony says that Chi only had one “pooper” out of every ten shows, but those numbers were sure to increase over time. For now, they could only move forward and deal with difficulties as they arose. “Even Thana punched Chi out a couple of times,” remembers Denis. “He could be a real handful.”

  The band motored on. “If you put the last four tours together, we were on the road for six months solid,” says Denis. “Chi picked on Shane mercilessly. He said Shane still owed him money, and wouldn’t let him forget it.” Nevertheless, the boys made all the dates, and Chi didn’t let the pooper ratio grow beyond one out of every ten shows. Thana was a good driver and a tireless worker, but Denis had to take over occasionally, just to give her a break.

  Ab Irato joined the tour in Montreal, and would provide direct support for the rest of the eastern dates. Amazingly, and despite the disaster there not long ago, fans in Montreal came out to see the show, which went surprisingly well. The two bands moved out the next day for a string of shows. Dominic LeBlanc of Ab Irato recalls the fun in Burlington, Ontario: “At the legendary Rooster, waitresses called the Cockettes wore special uniforms, but when Chi decided to wear one, they went back to the locker and put on their street clothes.” Obviously, the girls couldn’t compete with the sexy frontman.

  Although the shows in general were better, word had spread via the Internet about Chi’s past drunkenness, and attendance was beginning to suffer. Still, the boys rolled on, from town to town, city to city, leaving a trail of cigarette butts and empty beer cans. Denis says they encouraged fans to take Chi away to party with them, just so they could get a bit of a rest from the intoxicated singer. “One morning, I was sitting in the hotel lobby with Jerry from Ab Irato, when a mini-van stopped outside, the door opened, and Chi came tumbling out,” says Denis. “Then the van went speeding away.”

  On the way to St. John’s, Newfoundland, the boys took a detour that landed them in serious trouble. Because Thana was following the GPS device rather than a map, the driver didn’t realize that she had accidentally crossed into the USA until they saw a sign on the bridge they were crossing. “You can’t turn back on a fucking bridge,” says Chi Pig, stating the obvious. Thana had no choice but to proceed to customs, where border officials took one look at the scruffy occupants and ordered them from the van. They didn’t know what to make of the strangely dressed Chi Pig, who was hopping from foot to foot. “I asked to use the bathroom. They said no, and told me to take my hands out of my pockets. I was squeezing my cock so I wouldn’t piss, but when I took my hands out of my pockets, I pissed all down my leg,” remembers the singer, grinning harshly at the memory. “When Chi has to go, he has to go now,” confirms Denis.

  The officials gave the van a brief search and then asked the group if they had any drugs on them. Goony readily turned over a small box of weed, which they dumped in the garbage. Since the musicians hadn’t intended to cross the border, the Americans knew they weren’t drug smugglers. Shane, however, refused to surrender his pot, and customs gave him a $500 ticket when they found it. Chi didn’t have any ID, so the officers decided to strip search the singer, even after looking him up on Wikipedia. “They were touching my ass, so I told them it felt good,” laughs Chi. “When they were searching me, I told them to do it faster and harder. I was making them very uncomfortable. I limped away after they were finished, and said they’d given it to me good. One guard held up his fist in his black leather glove and said they’d worked me really fucking hard. That was the best part about it all.”

  Then one of the officers opened Chi Pig’s suitcase, which contained a month’s worth of dirty laundry. “You could just see his head reeling!” laughs the singer. All the man found, of course, was crusty socks and dirty underwear. Chi was now free to wait for his bandmates, who were still being interrogated. The officers asked the boys if they had any more drugs and, when they promised they didn’t, the officers brought out a dog to search the van. Thana, who knew police dogs, immediately saw that the animal was new and had not been fully trained. “It was mostly interested in Chi’s dirty clothes,” recalls Denis. This was very fortunate because the dog completely missed the two-and-a-half ounces of weed hidden in Goony’s guitar amplifier. “I knew I’d go to jail if I gave that up, so I decided to take my chances,” says the lucky guitarist. Denis also knew Goony had the weed hidden somewhere. “My sphincter had never been clenched so tightly,” says the bassist, reflecting on the high stakes poker game with customs officials. This was one game the boys could not afford to lose.

  Shane Smith claims the officers attempted to extort $5,000 from them, but gave up after learning the band had no money. After four hours of questioning, the boys were finally allowed to be on their merry way. “That all happened because Denis wanted to take a shortcut,” says Chi, trying to pin the blame on the bass player, even though Thana was driving. Still, the only person to suffer any real consequence was Shane Smith, who received the hefty fine. “Those guys were actually really nice,” says Denis, now that the incident is far behind them. The band turned back into Canada and headed for Newfoundland, being careful to stick to the main highways. “That turned out to be a nice little debacle,” says Chi Pig, summing up the experience neatly.

  The shows in the Maritimes were as good as could be expected, and at least Chi didn’t fall off any stages. In St. John’s, Chi annoyed his fellow bandmates to such a high degree that they duct taped his hands and feet, stuffed him into a duffle bag, and tossed him in the trailer. “The trailer was empty, so we raced around the block a few times so he could tumble back and forth,” says Goony. Now that the guys knew what to do when Chi got on their nerves, touring wasn’t as difficult. “We threw him in the trailer a couple of times,” Denis recalls. “We’d let him out of the bag, and he’d call us assholes, but then he’d say that it was kind of fun.” The singer got revenge by picking on Shane, who didn’t have the seniority to fight back. Shane was getting sick of the abuse, and it wouldn’t be long before he quit again as well. This time, however, he would leave on good terms and give the band plenty of advance notice.

  SNFU arrived home in mid-June, more tired than they had ever been. Before the members went their separate ways, Goony and Denis told Chi they were worried about his health, and asked if he would consider rehab. The singer flatly refused, assuring them that he would be fine. He just needed a little rest before they returned to Europe for a string of festivals in July. Everything was going to be okay, he promised.

  After relaxing for a day or two, Denis dropped by to check on his tattoo shop and discovered that he had problems. Unable to run the business and tour at the same time, the musician/tattoo artist had signed the shop over to an associate so somebody would be there to run the business while he was out of town. On this occasion, however, the associate told Denis that he could no longer work at his own shop. He had, in effect, been screwed out of his own business. “Shit happens,” the bassist says philosophically. “Besides, he released me of my obligations, and I was free to work for Scott.” At Crossroads Tattoos, Denis could pick his own hours, and proprietor Scott Ashton handled all the petty details. “Scott is such an awesome fucking guy,” says Denis, giving his friend and boss a hearty plug. Sometimes things happen for a reason.

  The boys only had a few more days off before taking another excursion i
n Mark’s van to the hinterlands of BC and Alberta. By now, Mark’s vehicle had a bad smell to it, and the mileage was double what it had been. The boys docked at the Ship & Anchor Pub in Calgary and moved on the next day to Innisfail. Chi was drinking, but seemed subdued and tired. The steady drinking was finally catching up to him and he was not looking well. “I still have this rebellious streak in me, and if people tell me not to do something then I’m going to fucking do it, even if it hurts me,” explains the singer. All the same, the band hit Edmonton, Fernie, and Nelson in rapid succession, arriving back in Vancouver without staying overnight in Nelson. They could have stayed with Chi’s friend Laurie, but it seemed like a better idea to go directly home. Bodies need rest.

  On the 4th of July, SNFU returned to the Cobalt for a show with Life Against Death and Last Plague. Already they were thinking about Europe and knew the tour would soon be upon them. The guys would only be going out for a month, but they would be playing large festivals and the level of debauchery would be high. On this evening, thankfully, the boys got through the set and attacked the rider with gusto. Just another night in the city with SNFU.

  The boys flew to Frankfurt on July 10th for a show at the Café ExZess with fellow British Columbians NoMeansNo. Although they were suffering from jet lag that night, they had a day off to rest up before the next show. After a decent gig in Switzerland, SNFU moved into Russia, which was unlike any place they had ever been. The magnifient old architecture, the guttural language, and the good vodka were like something out of a movie, and seemed almost familiar in a way. While the Russians were responsive enough, few of them had heard of the band. Still, just being there was an experience they would not soon forget.

  From Russia, SNFU toured through Austria and Croatia, returning to Germany for the Back to the Future Festival in Dessau. This was a huge event, with many well-known bands on the bill. Festivals like this could be overwhelming, not just for fans but for the musicians as well. There was never a moment to relax.

  Moving on, SNFU hit the Mighty Sounds Festival in the Czech Republic before returning to Switzerland for the Dynamo Festival, which was mostly a noisy blur. SNFU played three different cities in Spain, including the Apollo Festival in Barcelona with Sepultura and Municipal Waste. At that show, Chi saw the same fan who had slugged him the last time he was in Prague. “It turned out that the fucking guy was a foreign diplomat!” exclaims the singer. After the show, Chi was startled to learn that the band had left without him. Since he had no contact number, and didn’t know where the guys were staying, he went barhopping with the diplomat. “That guy was notorious, and all the bartenders knew him well,” says Chi. “We got kicked out of one joint for pissing on the floor.” The singer eventually passed out on a park bench. He woke up several hours later and somehow stumbled across the boys in the band, who were just leaving the hotel. “We didn’t even talk about them leaving me at the show,” says Chi. “It would have just turned into a fight.”

  Stopping only to brush their teeth and change their clothes, the musicians made another trip to Germany for a festival in Düsseldorf. Somewhere on the road, Chi missed while trying to piss in a pop bottle, and a river of urine flowed down the middle of the aisle towards Goony’s precious laptop. “He rescued it just in time!” laughs Denis. At the next stop, Benny from Klownhouse Tours, who was driving, made Chi wash the vehicle. “So there I was, scrubbing the floor with a sponge and soapy water,” says Chi Pig. “But you should have seen the looks on their faces when the piss was running towards them!” Like most touring bands, SNFU rarely stopped for piss breaks, so plastic bottles of urine were always rolling around in the back of the van. Touring is such fun.

  SNFU blazed through Belgium, bounced back to Germany, and finally crossed the channel for several festivals in England, including a huge event in Blackpool. “We shared our dressing room with The Damned, who arrived late,” says Shane. “Goony was stoked that they were in our room.” Outside the venue the next day, Shane assaulted a drunken punk who ignored warnings not to piss on their van. “At that point, I was sick of taking shit from people in Europe,” explains the drummer. He bounced the punk’s head off the van and then hurled him into a wall with more force than he’d intended. “He just laid there on the sidewalk with his neck at a funny angle. I thought I killed him!” remembers the drummer. Luckily, the unfortunate punk regained consciousness and staggered away, seemingly no worse for wear. Shane Smith was very happy that he didn’t have to go to prison. He would rather play drums for free than make license plates.

  The band finished up in England and returned to Germany for the last show of the tour, which was in Niedersachsen on August 11th. After a predictably noisy and beer-soaked finish, the guys drove to Frankfurt and caught a flight home. They landed at YVR the next day, flush with cash but shell-shocked and very hungover. The only extortion of the tour had occurred in France, by a traffic cop who extracted the relatively small sum of 50 Euros. They considered themselves fortunate to get off so lightly.

  Three days later, SNFU did a homecoming show at the Cobalt before moving on to Unrest Fest in Edmonton, where they played with the Dickies, Malignant Tumour, and others. Still feeling the effects of the European tour, they managed to rise to the occasion nevertheless. Chi was drinking a lot, but no one could accuse him of being lazy. In fact, the band had played almost as many shows in 2009 as they had during any of the Epitaph years. With the exception of Shane Smith, none of the musicians were young men, and touring was tough on the body and soul. Not only did Chi’s fellow musicians doubt that the singer could endure such a gruelling schedule, they weren’t sure if they could do it either. The band needed a rest.

  The End of the Line For SNFU?

  Sean Shaul and Craig Laviolette of Prairie Coast Films flew to Edmonton on August 25th of 2009 to screen Open Your Mouth and Say… Mr. Chi Pig at the Stanley A. Milner Theatre. “The place was packed, and the reaction to the documentary was very encouraging,” says Sean Shaul. For Sean and Craig, the culmination of their hard work was at once gratifying and emotional. Over the duration of the project, they had developed a close relationship with Chi Pig, and were happy to see that the subject of their film seemed to have conquered some of his demons. The filmmakers returned to Vancouver and showed the documentary to another sold-out house at the Pacific Cinematheque on September 1st. Chi Pig got up to speak after the screening, and the applause was deafening. His story was inspirational and touching, made all the more poignant by the fact that his struggles were still not over. If there is anything that Sean regrets about the film it is the fact that the Belkes were made to look like bad guys. “I felt that the line ‘Marc Belke declined numerous requests to be interviewed’ was a bit snarky,” says the filmmaker. “I didn’t know what else to put for his side of the story.” At least they spent $800 to fix Marc’s name, which they spelled wrong on the original cut.

  SNFU returned to the Commodore Ballroom on September 25th, for a gala event with DOA and The Jolts. “Chi was out of sorts that night. He’s always been hot and cold with me, so I gave him as much space as possible,” says Jolts’ guitarist Josh Nickel. “Chi didn’t have ID and the bouncers wouldn’t let him in. They basically laughed at him when he said he was in the band. Later, onstage, he gave them a good ripping. Not that they cared.” That night, Chi claims that Shane brought his bag containing his false teeth to the venue, and he lost the bag when the band left him at the show. Shane, however, doesn’t remember that and blames Denis or Goony. Not that Chi wore his teeth very often anyway, but they were nice to have for special occasions.

  SNFU kept a low profile for the next four months, doing a show every so often, but always within city limits. The strain of constant touring had taken a toll, and now they just wanted to relax for a bit. The boys didn’t play at all in December, and the first show of 2010 was not in Vancouver, but at the Sugar Nightclub in Victoria with Mendozza, Smoked Out Brainzz, and Lesbian Fist Magnet. Chi Pig was drinking that night, of course, but he wasn’t out
of control, and the fans were appreciative. Despite leaning heavily on his new crutch, it was apparent that the singer wasn’t finished yet.

  After paying back the money he owed from the incident in Budapest, Shane Smith left the band in early April, and SNFU was again on the hunt for a new drummer. They soon learned that the Subhumans were on hiatus, and Jon Card was happy to fill the vacancy, especially when he learned that the band would be returning to Costa Rica. SNFU had lost one fine percussionist only to replace him with another—one who already had plenty of history with the band, and with Chi Pig in particular. By now, Jon had known Chi Pig for almost thirty years. The singer had a great deal of respect for Jon, who never hesitated to deliver the ugly truth whether the singer wanted to hear it or not. Even Goony and Denis were not able to be as frank with the stubborn singer.

  The band buckled down for rehearsal at Crying Sky Studios at Terminal and Main. Jon had little difficulty picking up where he’d left off, and although he’d never played any of the songs from In the Meantime and In Between Time, the band was soon up to snuff. Where the original line-up had suffered from a lack of qualified drummers later in their career, the new band didn’t seem to be having that problem at all. No one wanted to consider the problems they would encounter if Jon were to bail. There was no point in worrying about that yet.

  The first order of business was the upcoming show in Costa Rica, and Mark Sommer was finalizing arrangements with a promoter who wanted to bring the band to San José for a punk festival on April 23rd. While the guys would hardly make any money after costs were deducted, they could at least have a vacation. This time, Chi promised himself that he would stay away from the coke and stick with the booze. That was the plan.