Neon Cactus closes just shy of Bruce Barker’s 25th year at Rusty Bucket

Piano man Bruce Barker (HHS’94) never touched a piano until his second semester, freshman year. Assigned to Terry Courts residence hall, Barker walked past the lobby piano countless times. In February 1988, he decided to sit down at the bench with his Walkman and teach himself to play a song by ear — “All Cried Out” by Lisa Lisa and Cult Jam.

“It took me seven hours,” Barker says. “I went through four sets of batteries and skipped two meals. But the next song only took an hour to learn, and the one after that took 15 minutes. I keep whittling my time down, and that inspired me to play more.”

A member of the Purdue Varsity Glee Club, Barker says his voice had always been his instrument. He performed his first Elvis concert for his parents at age 4. From then on, Barker always wanted to be an entertainer. “It was the one gift God really gave me,” he says, “to sing and make people happy.” And that’s exactly what he’s been doing at the Rusty Bucket piano bar inside the Neon Cactus in West Lafayette for nearly 25 years.

Barker began his piano playing career providing background dinner music at Captain’s Cove in Lafayette. As the evening wore on, patrons would start handing over $5 bills with their song requests. Barker’s friend was the manager for a new nightclub on the Levee, the Neon Cactus, designed with a piano bar. Barker met with owners Jim (M’70, MS EDU’73, PhD EDU’79) and Sheila Cochran, who hired him right away. He started at the Cactus on November 3, 1995, and left the world of dinner music behind.

“When I first started, I always thought it was such an amazing honor that people would plan part of their weekend around me,” Barker says. “That they would choose to spend their money coming to hear me play and sing. That was an amazing gift. I try to honor that by always making sure I give them their five dollars’ worth.”

For a short time, he played Jake’s in Chauncey Hill on Thursday nights, which the Cochrans also owned, and the Cactus on Fridays and Saturdays. Playing three nights a week wasn’t enough to pay the bills, so he also worked 40 hours a week as a fire extinguisher technician. Realizing he was a significant draw for the nightclub, Barker quit his day job to devote more energy to the piano bar. From the very beginning, Barker knew he wanted to create a community of friends with his show.

“Most piano bars are so impersonal,” he says. “They don’t care about who is there that night. They just care about how much money you brought and how to separate you from that money. They play songs twice as fast or cut them in half to cram in more requests. I wanted to do things differently. Being in Glee Club was fundamental to teaching me what’s important about being an entertainer. You look someone in the eye; you take time to be present with them. You don’t just say hi and move on to the next person.”

Barker established early traditions for his show that he’s stuck with all these years. He likes to arrive early to chat with people who’ve come to hear him perform. He doesn’t take tips during his first hour — “People love free stuff! Give them a free song!” He plays straight through the entire time — “Taking a break would be like hitting the brakes.” And he ends every night with the same song — “A Pirate Looks at 40” by Jimmy Buffett.

“One time about 10 years ago, after I’d finished playing for four hours and 45 minutes straight, I had ended the show. And a guy came up to me with $100 and asked me to play two more songs. I told him no. That’s the song I’d ended every show with since I started this gig. And I wasn’t about to change that now.”

Regardless of the size of the audience, Barker puts the same all-consuming energy into every performance. And there have been some quiet nights over the years. Barker recalls one year, during a severe snowstorm, there wasn’t a soul in the bar at 10:00 p.m. The crew was just about to lock up when a group of snowmobilers arrived in the parking lot. “All of the sudden, we had a 20-person party. It was so fun.”

An Entertainer at Heart

“I’ve never had a business card, but if I did, it would say entertainer, not musician,” Barker says. “I admire musicians, but that has never been my calling. My calling is to bring people together. Bring them a little joy. Help them disengage from reality for a couple of hours. Maybe form a new bond with a significant other or a lifelong Boilermaker friend.”

It worked for Barker. His wife, Sabrina (Lake) Barker (HHS’01) walked into the piano bar on August 13, 1999 — Barker’s uncanny memory for dates is nearly as impressive as his musical recall — wearing a gray sweatshirt, ponytail, and no makeup.

“She was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen,” he says. “Throughout the entire night, I kept thinking ‘I really want to talk to you, but I don’t ever stop the show.’” Sabrina was still there at 1:00 a.m. Barker gathered the nerve to introduce himself, and they ended up driving to the Purdue Airport, where they talked until dawn. “I was trying to think of somewhere romantic at 2:30 in the morning,” Barker says. “All I could think of was Top Gun. I thought we could watch the planes take off. But there is nothing happening at the Purdue airport at 2:30 in the morning.” The couple celebrated their 18th wedding anniversary in June.

In March, Sabrina, an elementary school teacher, became Barker’s producer as he began streaming shows live from his basement after the COVID-19 pandemic forced the Neon Cactus to temporarily close. For Barker, it was an opportunity to give back to the fans who have supported him. Nearly 14,000 people tuned in to watch that first week. He hit his peak attendance — 105,000 viewers — during a Senior Week show honoring 2020 grads. That’s when Traci Rombalski (M’98) tuned in from her home in Orlando, Florida.

“It’s probably been 12 years since I’ve seen Bruce perform live,” Rombalski says. “So it was great to have the show streaming to my TV, cocktail in hand, rocking out. It was fun to see Boilermakers everywhere chiming in to say where they were watching. It was like one giant reunion. Bruce never disappoints. He is so over-the-top personable. The show is never about him. It’s just about everyone having fun.”

Barker had every intention of returning to the Rusty Bucket and celebrating his 25th anniversary at the Cactus in November — “I’m rounding up and counting it! I’ve never been good at fractions.” But on September 2, the Cochrans announced the nightclub was closing permanently. Barker spent the previous day packing up his piano, his wall of photos, and the various memorabilia Boilermakers have gifted him over the decades. 

“This is not the way I wanted it to end,” Barker says. “I wanted to have a big going away party. I wanted to hug everybody. I wanted to be able to look you in the eye and say ‘thank you.’ I am a proud Boilermaker, and you Boilermakers have given me the most amazing life. I don’t want it to be goodbye. I just want it to be until we meet again.”