She is one of the pioneers of Montreal hardcore punk. She is one of the godmothers of grunge. His father, Ernest Tucker, was the CBC’s first black journalist. She creates the costumes for KISS. Meet Rebecca Sevrin, who will dress Gene Simmons for the last time on Saturday evening, backstage at their final show at Madison Square Garden.
Rebecca Sevrin has been working with the KISS camp since 2004, but KISS has been in Rebecca Sevrin’s life for much longer. “The reason I asked my parents for a guitar was because every Christmas I had to watch one of my cousins play all the KISS songs on the guitar and I was like, ‘That’ I’m sure I can play better than him,” she recalled two weeks ago in the lobby of the Sofitel hotel, where she stayed during Paul, Gene, Tommy and Eric’s visit to Montreal.
She added with a mischievous smile: “But I didn’t like KISS. What I like is punk rock. »
And punk rock fans were not legion in the Châteauguay of his youth. “It was a land of hockey where everyone only listened to Styx and Supertramp,” says, like reliving a nightmare, the daughter of a mother of Welsh origin and a father of Bermudian origin , the CBC’s first black journalist, Ernest Tucker. What about the last name Sevrin? “A memory I kept from a divorce,” Rebecca jokes laconically.
“My sister was for me the coolest person in the world and when she returned to Quebec, she had black, pink and yellow hair. She’s the one who introduced me to the Sex Pistols, The Damned and company. But it was while listening to Marquee Moon from Television [legendary New York band] that I said to myself: if this guy can make an album with such limited technique, I can too. »
Rebecca made her first electric guitar at the age of 19. As a teenager, she moved from Châteauguay whenever she had the chance, towards downtown Montreal, to be shaken by the sound of the amplifiers, in clubs like Cargo, Rising Sun and Station 10.
In the early 1980s, she founded the hardcore group No Policy which, despite a short life and a discography consisting of a single demo cassette (now a collector’s item), would mark the local punk scene, alongside groups like Unruled , Genetic Control and S.C.U.M.
With a fervent curiosity, drummer Michel Langevin was among the privileged witnesses of these fabulous years of disorder and distortion. “I saw several hardcore shows in the 1980s in Montreal,” confirms the founder of the monumental metal band Voivod.
“And my favorite band from that scene was No Policy. I found them different, especially thanks to Rebecca and the unique guitars she designed. No Policy was artistic chaos. The songs were varied and complex, at a time when hardcore bands were mostly trying to play as fast as possible. »
During a trip to New York, Rebecca Sevrin saw silver leather pants, on sale for $600. Too expensive. Far too expensive. “What I did was when I came back, I cut up one of my father’s winter coats to make my own,” she says, still proud of her cut. “My father was torn between choking me and congratulating me. »
These pants will become the founding act of her career as a costume designer, the young woman having not been able, despite her studies in violin making at Guitar Research
Following the dismantling of No Policy, Rebecca flew to California. In 1986, she joined the all-female band Frightwig, considered the godmothers of grunge and the riot grrl movement, which Courtney Love has often mentioned in interviews.
“I saw these girls, they were all crooked, they were yelling, it was raw, it was raw, and I said to myself: this is my world,” remembers Rebecca, whose guitar can be heard on the album Faster, Frightwig: Kill!! Kill!!, a little-known treasure of rock music.
But it was as a costume designer and seamstress of vinyl clothing that she earned her living in Los Angeles, working on TV and film sets, for photographers as well as for groups (Mötley Crüe, W.A.S.P., Pussycat Dolls).
Every evening, Rebecca spends the entire show on the edge of the stage, on the Demon’s side, examining his slightest discomforts, which she tries to soothe as quickly as possible with foam and tape. This is because his armor, full of screws and essentially made of carbon fiber, can quickly annoy him.
She doesn’t yet know what the future will hold for her, after their final show on Saturday night at Madison Square Garden, other than a very, very long nap. “I’m with them as they prepare to go on stage and their love for each other is always palpable,” she observes. They play music and they talk about vocal harmonies, about production. Gene sings in fifth to the sound of the Beatles. And even if their feet hurt, they’re going to give you the best show you’ve ever seen in your life. »
