Bif Naked’s love of metal is well documented even if her brand of punk flavoured radio rock only hints at those roots. A staple on the Canadian music scene for well over a decade and laying claim to an international fanbase, she has teamed up with Spanish-born Vancouver-based guitarist The Machine to form the full-on metal project Jakkarta. A startling announcement given the success of her last album, Superbeautifulmonster (released in 2005), and the growing demand by the fans for a follow-up, but an inevitable move. And while a very small majority of people scoff at the suggestion of Bif stepping on hallowed ground there is a very loud majority of metal fans (although some won’t admit it) curious to see what will come of a union made in a Canadian corner of hell. Machine, a long time Bif Naked fan, has no problem with trying to sell people on the idea of Bif the metalhead and is poised to do some damage. Jakkarta is a serious project with a real future.

That said, a brief introduction to The Machine (real name Steve Ricardo) is in order. A former student of Black Label Society guitarist Zakk Wylde, Machine formed Cornucopia in 1995 and went on to record four albums and do three tours before the band fell apart. Since then he’s played with several other bands, racked up points as a session musician, and released two solo instrumental albums. Now, however, his focus is dedicated to Jakkarta.

“I want to see where we can take Bif,” says Machine, a long time fan of Ms. Naked. “I got in touch with her over a year-and-a-half ago. I told her that I wanted to help write her next album. It’s so hard to get a hold of any band as far as management goes, because they look at your resumé and go ‘Who the hell is this guy and why does he want to write with you?’. It was tough; I was sending resumés out to a few bands every Friday like clockwork for years trying to get their attention. I knew who Bif was, I’ve had pictures with her, and I’ve always wanted to have the chance to perform with her or write with her. And finally, out of the blue, Bif happened to be online and saw my email. She wrote back and said we should hook up. From there we spoke to management, and they said ‘We don’t want you to do Bif’s album, we want to form a project with you.’ Needless to say I was all for it (laughs). Two of my idols are Dimebag and Zakk Wylde. I grew up listening to those two and I had lessons from Zakk when I was young, so I use all that for Jakkarta.”
“Bif loved the stuff I did with Cornucopia, and she liked the fact I was into the really heavy stuff,” Machine continues. “I always felt there was so much potential in her, so when we sat down to talk about our musical direction for Jakkarta I suggested she should do something unpredictable and she was totally for it. She was like, ‘I wanna do something heavy like Mastodon, Lamb Of God…’ and my eyes were popping out of my head (laughs). It’s been a trip so far.”

Songwriting for the Jakkarta debut is underway, and anyone who is expecting a distortion heavy version of Superbeautifulmonster or I Bificus is warned to check his/her expectations at the door. Asked to describe the Jakkarta sound as he hears it, Machine stops to consider before answering.

“That’s a good one. All I can say it’s fresh, it’s something new. I’m sure you hear every couple years a label saying the same thing about a new band, but this new music is taking Bif to a level that she always wanted to go to but never had the chance. It’s full-on, balls to the wall, screaming metal. Take the concepts of Pantera, Arch Enemy, Zakk and Dime and Skolnick, put them all in a package with Bif and you’ve got Jakkarta. I have the liberty to basically come up with anything, so I’ve been writing a lot of stuff. I turn in CDs of five or six songs every couple weeks and it’s turning out really interesting. Bif hasn’t actually recorded anything at this point. This is mainly a ‘Let’s see what The Machine can produce…’ kind of thing. Management wants to know who this guy that came out of the middle of nowhere is, which is fine with me. People that Bif knows have been asking her when the next Bif album is coming out and she tells them ‘It’s not, I’m doing the Jakkarta record.’ She’s described it to them as a 16 year old girl going nuts and they don’t know what the hell to make of that (laughs).”

Machine uses the word “unpredictable” several times to describe the music, which isn’t as arrogant as it sounds. After all, no one expected the woman who had commercial radio success with songs like ‘I Love Myself Today’, ‘Lucky’ and ‘Let Down’ to make a stand in skin-flaying metal territory.

“Unpredictability in the rock industry has gone bland over the last five or 10 years,” Machine says, explaining his thinking. “Everything’s predictable now. Slipknot, for example, was great when they came out and five years later the kids are bored. That’s the thing about 15 and 16 year olds, and I try to put things in that perspective when I’m writing music. What would I want to hear as a fan? What intrigues me today? I don’t think it’s so much about people saying shredding is coming back or speed metal is coming back because fast music will always be there. I think people are just getting sick of the same rehashed stuff that’s on the radio day in and day out. They don’t know where to go with it.”

As for Bif stepping up to throw her beloved fanbase a razor sharp curve…

“I think maybe she’s been holding back as long as she has because she’s been waiting for something like this. You’ve got to find the right niche, the right timing, the right musicians to go ‘Bingo! We’ve got all the elements, let’s put this project together.’ I think Bif’s at that point now. I mean, why not? It’s kind of a toss up for the fans and the label. If you’re a huge Bif fan and all of a sudden you hear that she’s doing something totally left field you’ll want to know what Jakkarta is about. Everyone will always want a Bif Naked album, but to have this left field thing that goes back to her metal roots is something that people will want to hear what it’s all about. Everybody looks up to her. She’s one of those tomboys that loves metal and has always stuck by it. Even though she’s done other things there’s always been a root of metal through all of it.”

The only major hurdle Jakkarta has to deal with is Bif’s current battle with breast cancer. Diagnosed at the beginning of January, she is in the early stages of treatment and, not suprisingly, remains positive and focused on the future. And if the mention of the situation here seems offhand-ish, the fact is Bif is treating it as a bump in the road and nothing more. Case in point:

“Life throws things in your face every single day, and with Bif it’s like ‘What have I got? Whatever...’ That’s her attitude. She’s punching the nurses and kicking the doctors saying ‘Get me the fuck out of here and let me go back to rehearsal!’ That’s her attitude. She’s going through the procedures anybody would with this, but she’s tough and she’s going to walk away clean. Tough as nails, that woman, let me tell you. She doesn’t take shit from anybody and that’s why I was intrigued about working with her. I swing by and give her the music and she’s totally into the stuff. She started lyrics and stuff a few months ago and she’s already got a few songs done. We’ve picked out what we want to do lyric-wise and we don’t want to be your typical political kind of band. We just want to write from the heart, and we’ve both got all pent up anger that we’re now able to release through Jakkarta.”
“I think by fall/winter we could see a release,” Machine says in closing. “Maybe do some festival dates in 2009 and see who we can jump on tour with from there. Number one is getting the material done and making sure every track from 1 to 12 is ass kicking. But, thinking about being on stage playing these songs and visualizing Bif singing them sends chills up my back.”