Adam Prudhomme
Editor
Canadian alternative rock/pop punk legend Bif Naked will be at Napanee’s Dog House Studios on Thursday, performing an acoustic set of her biggest hits mixed with songs from her forthcoming album.
Born with the given name Beth Torbert, the 48-year-old has been on the music scene since 1994 and is hailed as one of Canada’s top selling artists from ‘95-2016.
Her show in Napanee is part of her Songs and Stories Tour, where she shares some of the real life events that inspired the songs in her collection.
“The audience has grown up with me,” said Torbert. “I’ve done this since I was 18-years-old. I’m lucky a lot of my fanbase has grown up and gotten older along with me. It’s not just that I lost my dad, everyone is starting to lose their parents, a lot of us have already experienced divorce and all the embarrassment that goes along with that. And also cancer. I’m a 10 year survivor of breast cancer now. A lot of girls I know aren’t as lucky. And there are a lot of girls now getting diagnosed. I talk a lot about that because we can all relate to cancer in our family, unfortunately.”
Her upcoming studio album is titled Champion and will mark her first full studio album of original material since 2009. That doesn’t mean she’s been idle the last 11 years. Musically she’s continued to tour and put out singles over the last decade while off the stage she has penned a 2016 autobiography titled I Bificus, done several public speaking engagements and released her own line of organic all-hemp CBD line known as MonaLisa Healing. That’s while also overcoming cancer, heart surgery and kidney failure.
“The way people consume and receive their music now is so different and in a way very freeing,” said Torbert. “We haven’t been obligated in a way to do a full studio album. There’s been so much that has been going on with writing, doing book readings and book tours and speaking engagements and stuff that I volunteer for. We tour every summer and have been doing the rock shows all along, but for some reason we got together last year for a writing session between Snake (Allen, her guitar player) and Doug Fury (co-writer and co-producer) and myself and something just clicked. There was a weird transcendental magic that happened…it was like holy (cow) we have a record. Let’s do it.”
Among the songs to come from that record was the single Jim.
“Everyone has a Jim in their life and has been betrayed and would love to be able to write a letter to their betrayer,” said Torbert. “That’s kind of where Jim is from. It’s a universal thing in a way. I’ve been very lucky to write songs that are very biographical all these years. The hard thing has been going back and writing the memoir and these types of shows (on the Songs and Stories Tour)…I feel a little more vulnerable in a way and almost a little embarrassed. You feel very naked buy being able to do Songs and Stories shows has been very rewarding.”
Tickets for Thursday’s acoustic show are $35 and available at https://www.ticketscene.ca/events/28181/. Doors open at 7 p.m. and the show will also include Frank Moyo.
Dog House Studios is located at 99 Dairy Ave. in Napanee.