Bif Naked Brings Her Story Home: Canadian Red Carpet Premiere of “Bif Naked: The Documentary” to Rock The Rio Theatre

Metal-horned hand gestures, mosh pits and socialist battle cries might be the kind of thing you’d expect at a Bif Naked show—but not tonight.

You’ll want to pack your Kleenex for a screening of Bif Naked: The Documentary, at the Rio Theatre this evening (November 4).

The Vancouver punk rock icon’s life is detailed in the documentary—from her secret birth in India, to being adopted by missionaries and growing up in Canada, to her struggles with cancer, sexual assault and addiction—through archival footage, staggeringly emotional and intimate interviews and unearthed performances. The doc (which features interviews with Canadian music stalwarts George Stroumbouloupoulos and Doug Fury) will be available to stream at-home on Super Channel and Fuse starting November 21.

But for one-night only, the red carpet theatrical premiere of Bif Naked: The Documentary (screened previously at the Calgary International Film Festival and the Edmonton International Film Festival) will also have an exclusive acoustic performance by Bif Naked (known to her friends as Beth Torbert) herself, along with a live audience Q and A.

We caught up with the pioneering punk rocker to talk about the film and laying it all bare—dare we say, naked—for the audience that’s grown up alongside her.

This documentary is a really raw and unflinching look at your life. What was it like to see your own story told on screen with that level of honesty and vulnerability?

Honestly, it’s been so emotional. Initially, I was a bit nervous to watch it. It’s like reading my memoir in front of people. It was a little bit embarrassing, I felt self-conscious and conceited. I didn’t think I deserved to have this made. My manager of 32 years kind of nudged me to do it and in the interviews, I tease him, like “well, he forced me to do it,” but the truth is, he encouraged me and was instrumental, as always, in making it happen.

When Super Channel came on board and had faith in my story, I wanted to do it and I mean—I’m still having pinching moments because I cannot believe that everyone had such faith in my story. [Director Pollyanna Hardwicke-Brown] really championed the story and told it so tenderly. They have this archival footage that even I had never seen before, and they told every story so tenderly and got interviews with my first mom that have never been told before. 

I just can’t believe it.

How did it feel to work with director Pollyanna Hardwicke-Brown, and what made you trust her to tell your story?

She was a fan, but she’s also an editor. On the technical side of things, she is a master. It wasn’t just how meticulous and committed she was, but also just how absolutely devoted to protecting the truth of my tale, protecting my integrity and ensuring that my story is told properly.

There are huge themes of sexual assault, huge themes of violence in my childhood and also there’s aspects of my tales that were told in my book. I have dealt with so many stalkers over the years, lots of dealings with law enforcement and the Crown Council. I was a runaway. Many of these stories have to be carefully told, but not at the same time. I don’t want a sensationalistic story.

Pollyanna really was just so careful and really so truthful. She has so much integrity, and she’s like my guardian angel at the end of the day. Ultimately, as another woman, she really, really championed my integrity.

You’ve been open about surviving cancer, addiction and assault—has that helped you heal through the situation, or is it helping you connect to other people who will probably see themselves reflected in this?

There are areas of my life that I’ve always lived with as an adult, and because I wrote songs about them so young, it was easy for me to enshroud these topics in a flowery, little lyrical language. It was difficult for me to finally talk about them in very real and vulnerable terms. It was even easy for me to write about in the book [iBificus], because I didn’t have to sit in front of people, nor did I have to sit in the theatre and watch people cry in front of me or watch my manager have tears on his face.

It’s been a huge journey, and that’s been something that I was not anticipating nor expecting. So it’s been a very emotional experience for me. So to be able to screen it now in Vancouver and then go forward across the country, I don’t know that I’m prepared for what I will be dealing with.

Because I grew up on your music, you were really a feminist beacon for me in the late ’90s and early oughts and this doc specifically highlights the reality of being a woman in a male-dominated industry. How do you feel about how the industry has changed since then?

I don’t feel it’s changed all that much to be honest with you. I find that now the things that have changed are us little feminists [is that] we’re aging [and] our feminism is fantastic because we’re more comfortable in our wisdom.

But now we have to—in the same way we did when we were 25—discover how to articulate what we’re thinking. I feel like there’s a different calling, because women who are geriatric—who are older than us—are really getting left behind in this world. The population is aging, and they’re not able to advocate for themselves anymore. I think that that’s really where our brand of feminism needs to go.

You’ve had an unconventional life to say the least: born in India to missionaries, raised in Canada. Do you think that origin shaped your sense of identity and work?

I can’t say, in a way, because it’s all I’ve ever known. I feel very fortunate to have had the parents that I did because they were such squares. They were such squares. They were United Methodist kids that were university-educated and they were just bleeding-heart socialists.

They were fantastic parents, ultimately, and gave us a great start, but I was always a rambunctious performing arts kid, and I think that that really set me up for being what I became (which was still a performing arts kid). I’ve always identified with that more than anything else. 

I think that having my parents that were socialists set me up to be how I am today: I’m interested in politics; I’m interested in being a socialist; I’m interested in public health; I’m interested in Democracy Now; I’m interested in the little guy, the underdog. I’ve always been that person. That’s why I think punk rock was always a perfect fit for me. I wasn’t the best singer, but I didn’t have to be, because we were singing about social justice. We were out there, “oi, oi, oi!” on our skateboards.

I think that the generation I was born into was perfect. I don’t know that today I could have done what I did. Back when we were doing it, it was very DIY: we were splitting burritos, throwing our skateboards in a van and touring. We didn’t care if we didn’t eat. I wanted to open for DOA. I don’t know that that spirit exists on the same level today in the TikTok world.

For sure, you grew up in these sort of DIY communities, but I will say you became a very household name. Is there something earlier in your career that you connect with more than the mainstream? 

Oh, definitely. You know, people loaned a hand to one another—we would make handbills and mail them to the next town. All the bands knew each other and you would crash at, you know, at Jimmy’s drummer’s house in Montreal. Every band knew each other and there was something really beautiful about that.

People didn’t care how many followers you had. It’s hard not to parody ourselves and go, “We walked 10 miles through the snow to get to the gig.” You know, it’s hard not to make fun of ourselves. It really is. I’m sure every generation has their own heroic way of viewing themselves.

We can’t take ourselves so seriously. In many ways, it’s harder for young bands today because so much more is expected of them. We had no expectations because the smallest things were a victory to us. Two people at the show in Flint, Michigan was a victory. If the guy in Portland paid you in beer, it was a victory. Now you don’t even go there unless you have 100,000 followers on TikTok.

What are you hoping people take away from the evening? People will be able to watch this again [on Super Channel], but tonight is the only night where audiences in Vancouver get to meet you and listen to an acoustic session. What do you hope they’re taking away from it?

I hope that all of us get to have this collective experience as a community. My fans and I were the same age when I was putting my first record out, and now, for example, when I play at the Rickshaw, my fans that come to the Rickshaw are the same age as me. All of us Gen X kids are all growing older together. We still all bust out our battle vests and go to the shows.

What I am hoping for is, even if it allows anyone else to be able to grieve or go through their own experiences, through my big mouth putting my own stuff out there, well, then I’m happy. Because sometimes, people don’t have the opportunity to be a voice for their own shit in their life and that’s all I’ve ever done as a performer. So, I’m hopeful for that. I’m hopeful that it will allow people an opportunity to kind of reflect upon themselves or give them hope.

Catch the red carpet Canadian premiere of Bif Naked: The Documentary tonight (Tuesday, November 4)

The Rio Theatre
1660 E Broadway
Doors 6:30 p.m., show 7:30 p.m.