Multi-platinum selling Canadian rocker and Juno Award winner Bif Naked spoke with Global News just hours before she headlines a Pride concert Friday night. The artist opened up on her bout with cancer, returning to stage for the first time since kidney failure and heart surgery, and why her continued addiction to love is actually healthy.
On playing Pride: “It’s an honour for me on so many different levels … It’s a privilege to be included in that because it’s really a celebration of identity as well as the desire not to have to identify, and that’s the miraculous thing about this festival. It’s family-oriented but it’s for any kind of family.”
On why her song I Love Myself Today is fitting for Pride: “It’s an anthem for so many different types of people at different times of our lives. It’s going to be a lot of fun to play it.”
On her celebrity crush: “If it were not for Benicio del Toro, I would definitely be a gay woman, which may very well be true. He is my litmus test.”
On homophobia: “I don’t understand it at all. I can’t comprehend what the obstacles are. It’s difficult for me to understand any type of exclusion or elitism.”
What she is grateful for: “On my Twitter page today I put the word of the day is Pride. But the action of the day is gratitude, and that’s really something that I live with everyday. I’m so grateful that I didn’t croak every day.”
On Canada’s music industry: “People might not understand this to the depths that I do because I had the benefit of being a musician for so long. I mean it’s a miracle that I have been able to pay my rent and keep my little dogs in back surgeries, and eat organic zucchinis for 20 years, and if it were not for Canadian government programs like VideoFact, and organizations like SOCAN (they keep Canadian music alive), I would have never been able to make a record.
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“I wouldn’t exist. There wouldn’t be any second record for me back in the early ’90s had I not gotten a grant to make it. That’s just not a possibility. I wouldn’t have been able to tour.
On regrets: “I started in this business when I was 18 years old. I was bat s— crazy, really and truly I was a human jumping bean. I’m really proud of everything that I did and was able to do. I was proud I did Jay Leno, I’m proud of all that extensive touring I did but if I had to do it all over again today I’ll probably not be as anxious.
“I was very anxious and self-conscious, and I don’t think I ate for 10 years I was so freaked out about being in front of people. Now I feel comfortable and I really enjoy myself and the process, and that’s new to me.”
Her new lease on life: This show is my first show since my kidney failed and my heart surgery so it’s a big emotional time for me. Breast cancer was bad enough and I got through it. You kind of go on … and now as I tiptoe back to the octagon of touring, I really appreciate every single little baby step I take and I fall in love with the whole experience all over again. So it renews for me every time. It’s wonderful.”
On the matters of the heart: “I love marriage. I’m a hopeless romantic, I believe it in, I believe in the Jann Arden I Would Die for you theory, now I’m so fucked up … I’m so overly enthusiastic in the love department, jumped right through everything in life. It’s sort of like a high risk behaviour and the parallels that come with it. If you have a penchant of that high risk behaviour, it will permeate every single facet of your life. For me, it’s always been in love. I’ve been engaged 11 times, I can’t say no to anything in life.
“I love love. I love the feeling of caring so deeply for others or a cause or an action or a person that you would do anything. You live and die by it.”
Life lessons learned from her bout with cancer: “Cancer made me flexible! (With) cancer you can’t predict how you’re going to feel. You can make all the plans in the world but like any health crisis you’re going to be suddenly stopped by the limitation of malaise basically.
“What cancer did forced me to just be more flexible and really roll with the punches each day. Try to enjoy the ride more.
“The best thing that happened was I became a more light-hearted girl which may or may not be hard to imagine but it made me enjoy life much more.”
Her message this Pride: Have a really fun and safe weekend. Try not get too intoxicated because that’s when bad decisions are made, and that’s from experience and why I’m a straight edge. Because almost every bad thing that ever happened to me in my life, somehow somebody somewhere was drinking and it was all bad news.
-Bif Naked’s performs Friday, 9:30 p.m. at the Labatt South Stage at Church and Carlton Streets. Her next album is slated for a fall/winter release.
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