SEPTEMBER 2005

FFWD WEEKLY
GETTING SCHOOLED BY BIG JOHN BATES
by Brad Halasz

Big John Bates is proof that you don't have to be rich or give into those New York executives to live the rock'n'roll lifestyle. He's been known to get drunk onstage, tours globally and he's ready to kick the ass out of anyone who eyes the burlesque girls he tours with the wrong way. Yes, Bates has scored well at the school of rock. Getting ready to release the upcoming "Take Your Medicine", Bates' twisted brand of old-school rock'n'roll has garnered much attention at an international level.

"We're getting interest from labels around the world with this one. It looks like we're going to tour prety consistently from now until next summer," says Bates from his Vancouver stomping grounds. Following the success of 2003's Mystiki, Bates has brought vixen bassist sCare-oline and current drummer StageCoach to hell and back, banking more than 100 shows so far this year.

Rockabilly star & pro bono bodyguard - Big John Bates won't
let anyone mess with the Voodoo Dollz Burlesque Troupe

Europe has been receptive to Bates' music. They love him so much, in fact, that their enthusiasm quite literally leveled him on the last tour. "I went overboard (with Akavit) onstage on my birthday last year in Norway. The audience was buying me drinks like crazy. There were about 300 people in a 300-year-old venue in Oslo and they kept buying me shooter after shooter and they sang "Happy Birthday" to me in English," he says. Those shots may have been free but there was a cost. "I certainly paid for it. I wiped out and it took me a few minutes to get up, although I did manage to keep on playing."

Battling the hoards of free booze (and still swiging his flask in between songs) is just one of many challenges Bates has encountered. Europeans might embrace the trio's genre-hopping set but hardcore music fans might snap if you called the band rockabilly. "The traditionalist rockabillys would hate it if you did that," he says. "We're too punk for them, too rock'n'roll."

If there was evidence of a greaser scene in Canada it would rest on Bates' shoulders, but he's more concerned about making music he knows, for fans he knows, than catering to music snobs. "We have a lot of our own fans that come from all kinds of backgrounds - people who are a little more broadminded," says Bates. Fighting off the whiskey river flowing through his veins, or the elitist hairsplitting is a part of Bates' lifestyle, but his rock'n'roll mandate wouldn't be complete without smokin' hot burlesque dancers.

The Voodoo Dollz were with Bates for his last tour (and many before that) and the burlesque-rock show is the only one like it in North America. 2005 has treated the Voodoo Dollz well. "Burlesque is really popular. They've done their own tours of Europe," says Bates of the Vancouver-based troupe. "It makes for a helluva evening."

Scantily clad women twirling sticks of fire in a sweaty club to an alcohol-infused crowd may seem like a bad idea, but Bates says that most googley-eyed men (and women for that matter) stick to gawking and drooling. "Sometimes the audience kind of crossed the boundaries, but not very often. We've played over 300 shows in the past four years and I think three times sombody tried to grab one of the girls and twice we stopped the show, " he says. He has taken on the role of bodyguard, pro bono, and as his name might suggest, Big John Bates can make you keep your hands to yourself.