Kick back and open your arms

Kim Hardy has been involved in the music industry and club scene for years, gaining respect and helping make great things happen. From backstage, to onstage, to the tattoo parlor, to the fetish ball, Kim Hardy is recognized and appreciated and doesn’t give a rat’s ass what those small-minded prudes think!

Michael Venus: What are you up to?

Kim Hardy: I tour with a punk-rock band called Sum 41.

MV: I think I’ve heard of them.

KH: Ya, they are really big in Japan (we both snicker). Which is neat and I basically tour around with them and spend my life on the bus in close quarters with these like 22-year-old brats who are amazing! The guys like to have poon patrol every now and then so I’ll go and give backstage passes to some chicks in the audience. We have a little holding room, make sure they have ID for insurance and legal issues depending on which state you’re in! It’s awesome, they’re great.

MV: Tomorrow you’re flying to?

KH: Tomorrow we’re flying to Copenhagen; we are going to do a five-week European tour and rumour has it that we might be doing a couple of shows with Iron Maiden. Which would be amazing, metal pentagrams all around!

MV: What is your actual title for this project?

KH: I’m the tour assistant and the merchandising manager so that sort of means I’m the den mother, the babysitter, the ‘pick up after everybody’ person. I help the tour manager if he’s too busy-like coordinating with the press and making sure that the guys do their photos and stuff like that. I also, for North America, work with designers and merchandisers, for T-shirts, or toques or beanies or whatever.

MV: You have quite an impressive background in this industry. Maybe you could fill in our literary audience. Tell us about your her story.

KH: Got in to the business with Nettwerk Records in the 1994. I was the first receptionist they ever had and back then there were 15 people I think, total. Worked there for five years as a receptionist to campus promotions to media relations to artist relations. I left there and began working with DJs exclusively and then had a little touring experience with Lilith Fair because I was Sarah McLachlan’s publicist. So when Lilith happened I would coordinate all of the press in Canada for all of the artists and make sure the press conferences were cool and that they flowed with no issues or problems or ugly questions.

MV: So you love the industry and all the glamour?

KH: It’s great. I do love the industry and I think for sure that it’s my calling because music is everything. I always wanted to get on the road a lot sooner than I did-only a year now. I had the bug since I was working at Nettwerk but there wasn’t really opportunity at the time.

MV: You are the only woman now on board the tour bus. How is that?

KH: It’s totally cool because I have to pretend I’m a man most of the time unless we are in climates where I can wear flip-flops with my red little chiclet toenail. I didn’t realize how seldom women tour. It’s cool when you meet other women, or girls. They’re not ladies-you have to be hard. But it is fun; everyday you wake up in a different city. You’re touring with people who become your family and it’s unreal to think my bosses are 10 years younger than me and I learn from them everyday and I’m in stitches. They are so funny and so different and make fun of me always (laughing).

MV: You are also into fetish and kink, aren’t you my precious?

KH: I was first introduced to it when I did a fashion show at the Lux theatre a million years ago and got a real kick out it. I really loved the clothes made out of rubber and leather, the way it looked and felt. I continued doing the shows and then I got more curious about it all and started seeking it out more locally. I just think it’s all so beautiful. It’s totally diverse and it’s not easy for people who don’t have open minds to understand, for sure. I think it’s awesome for people to have no boundaries in expressing themselves even if it’s one night a month or whatever.

MV: Do you think everyone is a little bi?

KH: Yes, for sure. I think a small percent of people on earth will actually admit it and actually be proactive in finding out. I think it scares a lot of people because of the atomic family and the way people were brought up and stuff. I’ve been bisexual since I was probably seven, eight. I’d have my girlfriends over for sleepovers and I would pretend I was Mickey from the Monkees and she was my groupie and we would hump and it was totally cute (chuckle, chuckle). Then it just got a bit much because I was always getting kicked out of sleepovers and my mother would get calls like, “Your daughter is never allowed over in my house again.” So then eventually it matured and I had a couple of girlfriends and lovers. I love women, so soft and sexual and there is a total connection. And I also really love cock, too. I think being bisexual is just a more open state of mind. I’ve never been a typical female. I grew up a tomboy and always have had guy friends. It’s really only recently I’ve acquired female friends in my life who are amazing-but they’re not typical either.

MV: More about kink.

KH: It’s really great to be able to play characters, especially with someone you love and trust, to just explore yourself and somebody else through so many different perspectives and settings and outfits, and costume changes.

MV: What moves you?

KH: Music, smells, words. I’m definitely grammatically inclined, even though verbally I can be a bit jumbled at times. I like colour a lot and I think those things inspire me.

MV: Lasting impressions?

KH: I would like people to embrace diversity and change. Let it all happen and quit being so judgemental of something that you don’t understand. Just kick back and open your arms!