A punk icon in Bonita: Ex-Plasmatics member rocks New Year's Eve

Sorry, Plasmatics fans. There won’t be any exploding cars to ring in the new year at the Southwest Florida Performing Arts Center.

Those days are long gone for former Plasmatics member Jean Beauvoir. He’d rather not risk his life with buzzing chain saws, sledgehammered TV sets and blown up Cadillacs and school buses.

“I gotta tell you, it was life-threatening being in that band,” the Mohawk-wearing musician and producer says about The Plasmatics’ infamous punk concerts in the 70s and 80s. “It was crazy!”

Instead of explosions, Saturday’s audience will get a ball drop, a burlesque show, a Champagne toast and lots of hard-hitting rock ‘n’ roll.

Beauvoir, 56, says he’ll draw from his long, prolific rock career for his New Year’s Eve show at the Southwest Florida Performing Arts Center. He and local band 10,000 Views will play a set that includes solo material, cover songs and music he’s written and/or recorded with bands such as Kiss, The Ramones, John Waite and Steven Van Zandt.

“We’ll just have a fun night!” Beauvoir says.

Despite living in Bonita Springs, Beauvoir has only performed once before in Southwest Florida. But that show — opening the Bonita Springs performing arts center in June — left an impression on center owner Brien Spina.

“He blew the doors off the place!” Spina says. “He rocked it.”

Spina and Beauvoir became close friends after meeting through a local nonprofit group. Now their kids hang out, they get together for barbecues and sometimes they even play the video game Guitar Hero — where one of Beauvoir’s own songs, Crown of Thorns' “Rock Ready,” once came up.

“I said, ‘Yeah, you gotta do your own song!’” Spina recalls. “And it’s funny: My wife ended up beating him!”

Luckily, Beauvoir is much better with real instruments than the video-game variety. And he’ll be showing off those skills this Saturday and later in a concert series called Jean Beauvoir Presents at the performing arts center, where he'll perform and introduce touring bands.

Beauvoir will fit those shows into an already busy work schedule that includes playing European rock festivals, recording music, producing other acts and even working on a children’s book series with bestselling author Bill Doyle.

“He’s working all the time,” Spina says. “He’s just so talented.”

Those talents have been on display since Beauvoir was a teenager. He became music director for Gary “U.S.” Bonds at age 14 and then sang lead with the classic doo-wop band The Flamingos (“I Only Have Eyes for You”).

But he made his biggest splash in 1979 when he answered an ad for a bassist and joined the fledgling New York band The Plasmatics and frontwoman Wendy O. Williams on their iconic first two albums. He was 18 years old.

That’s when Beauvoir debuted his signature look — a towering blond Mohawk that he still wears for his concerts. These days, Mohawks can be seen on prominent musicians such as Rihanna, but he says the hairdo got him some sour looks in the late 70s and early 80s.

“At the time, there were no black people with blond Mohawks,” he says. “I couldn’t walk down New York streets without getting a lot of stress.”

Which arts center is which in Bonita Springs?

Black people thought he was trying to be white, he says. But that wasn’t the point. “For me, it was really a statement of racelessness.”

Beauvoir left The Plasmatics after the album "Beyond the Valley of 1984,"  but he decided to keep the Mohawk. He stopped wearing it for a few years, he admits, but eventually brought it back.

“Finally I just said, ‘You know, people are missing it,’ and it felt really natural for me,” he says. “It’s like a part of you. It’s like Kiss with the makeup (laughs)!”

Since leaving The Plasmatics, Beauvoir’s career has taken all sorts of twists and turns: He joined Steve Van Zandt in the band Little Steven & The Disciples of Soul; wrote and/or recorded songs for various movie soundtracks (including The Ramones’ “Pet Semetary” and his biggest hit, “Feel the Heat,” on the 1986 Sylvester Stallone movie “Cobra”); joined hard-rock legends Kiss on the albums “Animalize” and “Asylum”; produced and co-wrote songs with acts such as Joey Ramone, The Pretenders, NSYNC and John Waite; and formed two well-received rock bands, Voodoo X and Crown of Thorns.

“I try to stay as active as I can,” Beauvoir says. “You gotta stay busy!”

The multi-instrumentalist used to do all that work from his home in Los Angeles. But then he moved to Bonita Springs about five years ago to take care of his terminally ill mother, who lived on Florida’s east coast.

“I just literally opened up Google and started looking,” Beauvoir says about moving to Bonita Springs. “I said, ‘This looks good!' I drove here and looked around and said, ‘I love it here.’”

“Naples was so beautiful. And of course, it’s just the opposite of a punker in The Plasmatics (laughs).”

Not that he’s here a lot, anyway. His busy schedule has him flying all over the the world.

“I do travel a lot,” he says. “I was just in Sweden recording. I’m starting to work on a new solo album.”

Smaller arts centers pack season with concerts, plays, comedians

Beauvoir plans to stay busy and keep working as long as he can. But he’s not kidding himself: He knows he’ll probably always be best known for his connection to The Plasmatics.

“My solo records, believe it or not, probably sold better than The Plasmatics,” he says. “But the Plasmatics were such an iconic, groundbreaking group.”

And he’s just fine with that. Some of his best memories come from his time in that band.

Even when just being onstage put his life in danger.

“Every night was an adventure,” he says. “We were blowing up cars and throwing guitars around.  We were getting arrested and thrown in jail and getting beaten up by the police.

“The band was so crazy that every time we got to town, the press was all over us.”

And Beauvoir says he wouldn’t trade it for the world.

“It was a really good time,” he says. “It was on the edge. It was the real deal, it really was… And it was pretty amazing.”

Connect with this reporter:Charles Runnells (News-Press) (Facebook),@charlesrunnells (Twitter),@crunnells1 (Instagram)

If you go

What: New Year’s Eve Bash 2016 with Jean Beauvoir

When: 8 p.m. to past midnight Saturday

Where: Southwest Performing Arts Center, 11515 Bonita Beach Road, Bonita Springs

Tickets: $40-$55 for general admission and unlimited cocktails, $125-$175 for dinner packages

More entertainment: The night also includes Latin band Havy Rodriguez and Miami Splash, a vaudeville show from the sexy dancers of Glam! Bam! Burlesque!, a ball drop and Champagne toast.

Info: 389-6901 or swflpac.com