Canadian punk queen Beth Torbert, best known as Bif Naked makes a long awaited return to Lethbridge with an acoustic show in support of her new auto-biography “ I Bificus,” Nov. 6 at Coyote Joes.
Bif Naked is a punk rocker who was gone through a lot in her life. She has released 10 albums released over the past 20 years, is a newlywed, cancer survivor and now published author, as well she should be having lived a more interesting life than most of us but she has maintained a positive attitude throughout everything.
She grew up an or
phan in India to two kids in a private school , moved to Canada, joined her first punk band after dropping out of high school in Winnipeg and ended up having many adventures and misadventures in life before being diagnosed with breast cancer in 2008 and beat it after 13 months of therapy, chemotherapy, surgery and radiation.
Some would say she’s had a pretty interesting life, though she would disagree with the statement.
“Bless you for saying that,” said Bif Naked from the middle of a delayed honeymoon in Paris with her new husband and guitarist Steve “Snake” Allen.
“We actually got married in July and we’ve been playing a whole bunch of rock festivals in Europe, so this was the first chance we had to have a honeymoon,” she said.
“He’s a nice young man from Cranbrook and he’s been married before like me. It is so difficult to meet someone when you get older,” she observed. She met him three years ago.
“It just goes to show you never know when you will meet someone special. My sister met the guy she married in high school and they’re still happily married, ” she said, adding she enjoys Paris, having been there for three times this year.
“ My manager has a condo here, ”she said.
She is excited about the new book, though she wasn’t that enthusiastic about it when she embarked on the journey.
“ I didn’t want to write a book, but my manager persuaded me to. I didn’t want people to think my story was bigger than anyone else’s story, but my manager kept badgering me about it,” she said, adding it was tougher to write about things like her dog dying than it was to write about the traumas and tribulations she has overcome in her life.
“ I’ve always written about those things in my lyrics and people really identify with it,” she said, adding she didn’t leave anything out, though her editor cut a bunch of the copy.
“ I wrote about my dog dying and they cut it out because they said it wasn’t interesting. It was tough to write about my dog dying, but writing about the violence in my life was no problem,” she said.
She wrote the first draft in longhand.
“ I was trying to use a program called WordPress, but I didn’t know where the italics were so if I wanted to emphasize something I used all caps,” she said.
“I have no basis of comparison about how to write a book. But the process is almost exactly similar to writing for a big record label. You submit 60 songs, but they only want to use 10 of them,” she said.
“ But I was glad they let me talk about my parents as much as I did,” she said.
“ It was cathartic in a way. I’ve definitely written confessional in my lyrics,” she said.
The book has attracted positive feedback.
“There has been such and amazing, positive response,” she said noting the first part of the book release tour in May was a success.
The acoustic tour in support of the book is an intimate night.
“I’m not sure how many of my rock fans are also book worms. So I acoustically play the songs that are relevant to to parts of the book I’m reading,” she said adding she will be joined by her guitarist and husband.
While Bif Naked may be in a bookworm phase now just as she was in a pop singer phase while she was recovering from cancer, she is putting her rock and roll hat on again for a new album she plans to release next summer.
“I’ve been playing all of these rock shows and forgot how much fun it is,” she said.
It’s been a few years since I’ve been in Lethbridge, like 2009 or 2010, so it will be good to be back and I hope to come back again next year with the rock show,” she said, adding she had the debate about returning to her punk rock roots after flirting with a pop songstress persona.
“ When I was going through cancer treatment, it was brutalizing. I had to chop my hair off and had heart surgery and I wasn’t feeling very feminine,” she said, noting she overcame that by exploring her pop side.
“People really identified with that. Now I’m a cancer survivor and that will always be part of my life. I have a lot of people in the audience who identify with that,” she said.
She said not to expect any new songs in the show.
“ Everybody has a camera phone now and they film the whole set and they get really bad versions of new songs. There’s no surprises anymore,”she said
She is excited to have Jordan Alexander opening the tour for her.
“She’s a great girl and has a very beautiful voice,” she said, adding after her set, it is time for “I, Bificus.”
She is pleased with the intimate show.
“We play some songs, then Snake proceeds to drink red wine while I try to read from the book with my reading glasses. It’s a wonderful evening,” she said.
The I, Bificus Songs and stories tour hits Coyote Joes , Nov 6 at 8 :30 p.m. Tickets are $30 in advance, $35 day of the show.
