Bill Reynolds - Life Real Loud - John Lefebvre, Neteller and the Revolution in Online Gambling

A van driver arrives to ferry us from airport to hotel. He’s tall and his black hair is slicked back like Mr. Blonde from Reservoir Dogs . He wears a black trench coat, a black suit, and a white shirt. He makes small talk with the guys standing with their suitcases. He asks what they do.

Leisz: “We’re musicians.”

“Oh, what kind? Jazz musicians?”

Payne: “No.”

“Classical?”

Payne: “Yeah.”

“Oh, well there are good venues for classical musicians to play in Vancouver.”

Payne: “Oh yeah?”

“What instrument do you play?”

Payne: “Piano. And Patrick here, he plays the skin flute.”

“Oh really? That’s great.”

Later on, the guys who were there replay the conversation for the two who weren’t. Everybody cracks up. The laughter builds to a frenzy, which cracks everyone up even more.

Leisz: “Some people are so gullible.”

There seems to be an implication here that it’s some Canucks that are so gullible.

Fataar: “That was juvenile, Billy.”

Payne: “Yes it was, yes it was. That’s me, I guess.”

Billy Payne is sixty-two years old.

We check in at the Georgian Court, a boutique-style hotel on Beatty Street across from BC Place, the stadium where the British Columbia Lions host rival CFL teams and where Lefebvre and his mom met the Dalai Lama. Bookin suggests anyone who wants lunch should meet in the lobby at one. A gang forms and we start walking away from the hotel. We find a good place, but it’s packed. Danny Patton and Fataar stay behind; they want coffee and a small bite. Patton’s smart. He knows we’re going to a steakhouse tonight; he wants to eat light. Also, he knows Lefebvre probably won’t restrain himself.

Hutch gets an idea in his head that he’s been to a really good restaurant a few blocks away — there’s that memory for every meal kicking in. We keep walking and end up in Gastown. Hutch finds the place, Chill Winston. Seven guys sit down: Lefebvre, Bookin, Warren, Hutch, Payne, Leisz, and me. I sit across from Warren and beside Bookin. Warren starts talking about his wife and young daughter. He got married late in life, one of those late-bloomer dads who will be around seventy when his kid moves out of the house. He seems homesick.

We start ordering, drinks first. I ask for a glass of the cab sauv listed on the menu. “Hold on, Bill,” Lefebvre calls out. I look over. Hoo boy, here we go. I look at Warren and say, “Right, I forgot, you cannot go solo and order the wine when you’re with John.” After examining the official wine list he asks the waitress, “Do you have anything for spoiled boys?” He smiles.

Lefebvre has ordered two bottles of expensive wine. They found a couple of really good bottles tucked away in the basement. I can’t keep track of the names, and I forget to write them down. Some journalist. Everybody loves the sandwiches and compliments Hutch on his top-notch memory. The chef personally comes over to present a gift of non-flour chocolate dessert with chai coffee sauce, a brownie really. It is insanely good. Bookin inquires: “Do you ship to L.A.?”

Bookin tells us he’s finally had that conversation with the headliner about the opening act’s sets going overtime. It’s an issue because the band is still vacating the stage at least fifteen minutes late. Not cool. There have been no complaints from the Felder camp — yet — but Bookin doesn’t want the issue to fester. He managed to stop Felder and talk to him directly about this delicate subject.

“Well,” Felder said, replying with his own question, “is John enjoying himself?”

“You bet he is!” replied Bookin.

“It’s okay then.”

So it turns out Felder is a real softie. Lefebvre mentioned something in passing about Felder being somewhere along the way on the twelve-steps road, which might account for the beatific attitude. Bookin is impressed with Felder. “Few guys would do that, because the opening act can suck the air out of the room if it goes on too long, which is death for the headliner because he has to work that much harder to win back an audience exhausted listening to an act they didn’t necessarily come to see.”

Then Bookin chats me up about the book. He wants to talk about the kind of information that gets out there about Lefebvre. To Bookin it’s important to remain vigilant about what people know and don’t know and the few things they take away with them when they hear about the artist. Airbrushing the Lefebvre picture for mass consumption seems to be a tactic for him. He’s worried the majority of people will hear Lefebvre or hear about Lefebvre only in passing — hear him talking on the radio for a couple of minutes, say — and that’s the only impression they’ll get. That’s Bookin’s goal, to limit and shape that mass-culture first impression.

Lefebvre has booked us into Gotham for seven. Eat, drink, and be merry, for tonight is a night off. The steakhouse is swank, a meat eater’s delight, and the servers are young men, one of whom performs a spontaneous spastic act with a full wine glass. Somehow he manages to project every drop of the ruby red liquid over one end of the white tablecloth. Lefebvre cautions the headwaiter not to beat the guy up about it. A new cloth covers the offending stain, and all is forgiven. It was a sensational feat. No way the guy could have duplicated his pratfall even if he tried a hundred times.

At sound check the next day, it’s entertaining to watch these super-pros grouse in a friendly but vexed way through the changes they have to deal with, the accommodations they have to make. Colin James, the Canadian blues-rock guitarist and vocalist (who lives in Vancouver), has been invited to join the band for the final two songs of the tour. Lefebvre knows him from when Neteller hired him to headline a party. They’re playing “My Baby Goes Green” and “I Won’t,” standard rock songs, but they have to figure out how to insert James’s solos, how they’re going to come out of those solos, and how they’re going to finish the tunes. So it’s delicate. They keep botching the endings, which is comical considering the level of talent on stage. It’s like the college-rock, “Louie Louie”—level band trying to figure out exactly when to look at each other to finish the song.

Greg Leisz sits across from me at dinnertime. He is a charming guy, relaxed and considerate. Leisz can play anything on the electric guitar and anything on the pedal steel, but it is his prowess on the latter that has kept him in demand. He made his name in Canada and the U.S. playing in k.d. lang’s band for years, but it’s a thrill when he straps on an electric and plays classic riffs. He can play rock action all night long with a warm but stinging tone.

Leisz had actually come up to Canada and played at the Scotch & Sirloin Restaurant in Calgary for five weeks in 1974, back when Lefebvre hadn’t quite gotten sick of driving a cab and getting wasted at the Highlander. His family owns one hundred thousand acres of property on the Hollister Ranch in the Santa Monica Mountains, three-quarters of an hour outside Santa Barbara. The family retreat is a steep three-mile drive above the ocean. Leisz’s mom bought the property many years ago, when it was not expensive. The family didn’t get a permit to build a house until 2005. Regulations are strict at Hollister because it is a working cattle ranch. You cannot put up fences — well okay, you’re allowed to fence one and a half acres around the house — and there are all sorts of other ecological restrictions to consider. Sounds ideal.

Ideal is also how the last gig ought to go. Lefebvre is starting to look like he’s on his game. He’s comfortable on stage. He picks his spots to address the audience, and he’s interacting with the band much better. They all look like they’re having fun. When Colin James joins the group on stage he adds rock ’n’ roll raunch. The guy is now in his late forties but still looks and acts like a kid. Good for him. He’s on cue to play the last two songs, and his swagger guarantees an uptick in tempo. The audience seems to feel it in the gut, the music revving up. Onstage it’s hard to say, but at the back of the theater it feels like the band is starting to click.