I was by myself, I didn't even have a friend. Andy Warhol didn't hang out there as much after he got shot, but he'd still poke his head in there. I was embraced the second I walked through the door.

Now I've got a fever about what I'm doing, because I think it's important for women to make this kind of statement, not to have an expiration date.Д®LLE: Starting at the beginning, do you remember the first time you were invited to the infamous back room at Max's Kansas City?Д«B: Of course. I'm not gonna call myself the little engine that could because I'm 5'10 and I'm far from little-I'm the little engine that roared. Little by little, I just keep making more strides. The musicians that play with me are all world class. I'm not 15 and I'm not somebody who has a thousand hit records under my belt. I actually do what I do because of a very rabid fan base, but of course, an artist like me also fights demographics because, if you try to say to someone who's never seen me, 'Oh, you've gotta see this, it's incredible,' they can't wrap their head around it. I'm not Lady Gaga, I'm not Madonna, I don't have a million dollars behind me and big giant record companies. If we learned one thing, it's why you should never, ever call Bebe a groupie, but you probably want to read the rest.Д®LLE: You're suddenly doing a million different things, why now?Д«B: I listen to the fans. We had a chance to meet the kick-ass Buell between rehearsals of her upcoming one woman show and chatted for nearly two hours about everything from those famous boyfriends to posing nude to properly raising Liv. She's most excited, however, to play Hiro Ballroom's final blowout at the end of the month.

Last week, she played a packed New York Fashion Week bash to a sea of bouncing hipsters and the first few days of March will find her rocking out at the Hard Rock Cafe in Hollywood, Florida.

Today, she's probably better known as Liv Tyler's mother, but the 58-year-old's about to change that with her first major album, Hard Love, a set of grunge-meets-glam-rock tracks in which Buell's raspy wail demands listeners pay attention.ДЄs of late, Buell's dreams of being on stage instead of backstage are working out pretty well. In the seventies, she was a successful fashion model-not to mention 1974вЂІs November Playmate of the Month-and Max's Kansas City regular, where she sang into hairbrushes with Patti Smith and befriended (then dated) many a legendary rock musician including Elvis Costello, Todd Rundgren, and Steven Tyler. Bebe Buell's life is what blockbuster movies are made of.

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