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. »
PHOTO CAROLINE GRÉGOIRE, LE SOLEIL ARCHIVES
Rebecca Sevrin, November 19 in Quebec, for the final appearance of KISS at the Videotron Center
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. And the last name Sevrin? “A memory I kept from a divorce,” Rebecca jokes laconically.
It was when her older sister returned from a stay in England, in 1976, that punk turned everything inside her upside down.
“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’s by listening Marquee Moon of TV [mythique groupe new-yorkais] that I said to myself: if this guy can make an album with such limited technique, I can too. »
An artistic chaos
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 SCUM
PHOTO PROVIDED BY REBECCA SEVRIN
Rebecca in 1984 with No Policy
There were no jocks, no little prom queens in this scene. We were all unloved people who loved and helped each other. You saw someone on the street with weird hair and you knew they were in your gang.
Rebecca Sevrin
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 her unique guitars, which 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. »
PHOTO JOSIE DESMARAIS, THE PRESS
Rebecca Sevrin
The queen of vinyl clothing
During a stay in New York, Rebecca Sevrin saw silver leather pants, on sale for $600. Too expensive. Far too expensive. “What I did was that 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 hesitated between strangling 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 the Guitar Research & Design Center in Vermont, to find a job in this field dominated by men. .
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.
PHOTO FROM FRIGHTWIG’S FACEBOOK PAGE
Rebecca Sevrin in the group Frightwig, in 1986
“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 that shines.
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, WASP, Pussycat Dolls).
She first dressed Gene Simmons in 2004 and has accompanied KISS on the road at various times, including over the past two years.
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. »