BiFurious is like a bloodcurdling episode of Behind the Music

Just the other day, Darrin Hagen says, someone called Northern Light Theatre to book the band BiFurious for a gig. Exciting news---too bad they’re fictional.

That said, they’re about as close to being real as a fictional band can get. Their website (www.bifurious.ca), which is presumably where the caller heard about them, provides obsessively detailed information about BiFurious’ tumultuous career, from the release of their self-titled debut album on Halloween 2002—an instant hit, thanks to the leadoff single “Don’t Get Cocky (Or You Won’t Get Cocky)” – to their meltdown just three years later, thanks to a combination of internal feuds, substance abuse, and the mysterious death of their ambiguously gendered drummer Katt. There’s even a complete BiFurious discography that even includes lead singer Cody Gold’s flop solo album Knobnoxious (featuring tracks with titles like “Wax Me”, “Stroke a Genius” and “Spank Spank Spank”). Try to imagine a band with the glam-rock sensibility of David Bowie or the New York Dolls and the incestuous sexual history of Fleetwood Mac, and you’d have BiFurious.

This was the backstory for this year’s edition of Urban Tales, Northern Light’s annual Halloween show. What started out as a series of simple staged readings of short, spooky plays has become something much more elaborate under the direction of artistic director Trevor Schmidt, who has worked out a system whereby four writers are assigned a setting and a group of common characters and then each write one portion of a single gigantic story.
“You’re all basically writing intersecting monologues,” explains Hagen, who is “collaborating” this year with fellow Edmontonians Jason Chinn, James Hamilton and Rosemary Rowe. “ The band has gathered in this castle to record their farewell-slash-reunion album, and then you’ve got to find a reason to send them all off exploring on their own. And, this being a horror story, nothing good ever happens to anyone who decides to go explore the hallways of a castle alone. What happens then is completely up to you---except they have to die. That’s the only rule. There’s never a happy ending at Urban Tales!”

That’s bad news for the character Hagen was assigned to write: Daphne Highland-Smythe (Davina Stewart), the band’s backup singer and keyboard player, who has the gypsy-witch wardrobe of Stevie Nicks and the weight problems of Ann Wilson. And as it happens, when Hagen was a teenager, Fleetwood Mac and Heart were his two favourite all-time bands. “I love Heart. I was flipping channels the other day, and A&E was showing a Heart concert in Seattle, and they made me cry four times. Those songs still mean so much to me---they represent a really important part of my upbringing. If I could be part of any rock band, I’d love to be the third Wilson sister---Ann and Nancy and me, we’re like this.” He pauses. “Then again, Fleetwood Mac would have been amazing to hang out with too.”
Hagen is thinking especially of Rumours-era Mac, when all the band members were sleeping with each other and all their relationships were falling apart. “I think that kind of tension breeds creativity,” Hagen says. “Their emotional world was ending, but as a result we get this amazing album that will always be one of the best albums of all time. I think a rock band that’s too clean and sanitary won’t have much to write about”.

Which beds the question: Will BiFurious be a better show if everybody drinks and argues with each other all throughout rehearsal? “Oh, no, no, no!” Hagen replies. “Actors are completely different from rock musicians. We all thrive on getting along all the time!” He then dissolves into a long, loud cackle. I’m not sure why.