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Cancer no obstacle to Bif Naked |
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Written by Al Beeber
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Saturday, 19 September 2009 |
Bif Naked has stared death in the face and the veteran Canadian musician isn’t slowing down to let it catch up.
The heavily tattooed Naked is not only one of the most unique artists in popular music but she is also a breast cancer survivor.
A strict vegan who eats only raw foods — a lifestyle choice for the athletic, sinewy Naked — her health regimen couldn’t prevent her from being diagnosed with an insidious disease.
Naked heard the word “cancer” from her doctor early in 2008. Born Beth Torbert in New Delhi to a pair of American teenagers attending private school, this artist is no stranger to adversity.
After her birth, she was adopted by American missionaries who eventually settled in Winnipeg.
A poet, cartoonist and actor, she recorded her first album in 1995 and has toured around the world with artists as diverse as Sarah McLachlan and Billy Idol.
Now based in Vancouver, Naked wasn’t going to let cancer slow her down and she kept a promise to herself and her fans to release an album in 2009. That disc is aptly titled “The Promise” and fans can expect to hear a healthy sampling of it when Naked plays the Blarney Stone on Thursday.
This week’s performance will be Naked’s second in southern Alberta this summer — she earlier played at Coaldale’s Settler Days.
Naked has faced her disease and the ravaging effects of chemotherapy and radiation with dignity and grace. After all, she says, others have had to face the same battle.
“Just because you’re in cancer treatment, your life can’t stop. It’s a big luxury to be able to take time off,” she said in an interview late last week.
“A lot of people in treatment have to work, take care of babies and go to chemo on the bus.”
Because making music is her life, Naked didn’t see any choice but to keep working.
With new producer Jason Darr, she started work on the album despite her illness.
She wrote songs in her bed and when it was time to record, her studio was moved a block away from her condo.
“All I had to do was to force myself to walk up the hill, with my bald head and in my pajamas — like Quasimodo. The headphones would constantly slip off my shiny head! Some days were good and some days were horrific. Sometimes I couldn’t do a thing, other days I could only sing for an hour, and then crawl home to my bed. We took it day by day,” she recalls in a blog at her website.
The result is a truly diverse collection of songs from straight-up rockers to soft, poignant ballads. One tongue-in-cheek Darr ditty with a title we can’t print even has a country swing tone to it.
The difference between an album made after cancer and one she would have worked on had the disease not stricken her is a simple one, she says. Jason Darr, producer, writer and guitarist.
“He worked me harder than anybody else would have. He didn’t treat me like I was sick. I have great respect for him,” the soft-spoken artist said.
And while cancer treatment affected her immensely, it didn’t stop her from working.
“Chemo is an amazing thing to go through. You can’t predict how you’re going to feel. Some days I could only only sing for an hour and then I’d go back home.”
Naked says many people were surprised a woman as healthy as her could ever get cancer.
“People think you can prevent it by eating right and taking vitamins. . .but if you roll a seven, you roll a seven. I think you have to respect your body and do everything with moderation
“ I don’t know my parents and so I might have a genetic disposition to cancer. I don’t know, I have no history.
“It’s hard to say why a fitness freak and a vegan would get breast cancer.”
Naked has been back on the road since May supporting her album and after 20 years of touring, she says “it’s nice.”
While fans still want to hear old favourites, a term which hardly seems to fit this vibrant young woman, she tries to mix up her shows with new material and tunes from previous recordings.
And while she hasn’t returned to series television — she appeared in The Chris Isaak Show, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, The L World and Zed — she is working on a short film in Vancouver.
“The reason I don’t do more acting is I haven’t seen the right scripts.
“Girls who look like me get to play junkies and whores. I want to play something that’s a stretch,” she laughs.
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