Barenaked Ladies

Short Biography
Imagine a shrine for all great sayings, a Pop Psychology Hall of Fame if you will.  On these special walls you'd find such stalwarts as "What Doesn't Kill You Makes You Stronger," "Tomorrow's Another Day" and "Everything Happens For A Reason."  Right over there the "Light At The End of The Tunnel" stands next to "The Great Unknown." Sure, these sayings are ubiquitous; repeated down through the ages as mantra for some, cliché for others.  But now, after 20 years together, Barenaked Ladies are taking time to walk these halls and learn from another bon mot, All In Good Time.

Yes, All In Good Time is the name of the new album, the 11th from this Canadian institution, and their f...

Short Biography
Imagine a shrine for all great sayings, a Pop Psychology Hall of Fame if you will.  On these special walls you'd find such stalwarts as "What Doesn't Kill You Makes You Stronger," "Tomorrow's Another Day" and "Everything Happens For A Reason."  Right over there the "Light At The End of The Tunnel" stands next to "The Great Unknown." Sure, these sayings are ubiquitous; repeated down through the ages as mantra for some, cliché for others.  But now, after 20 years together, Barenaked Ladies are taking time to walk these halls and learn from another bon mot, All In Good Time.

Yes, All In Good Time is the name of the new album, the 11th from this Canadian institution, and their first as a new four-piece. Fourteen bold and adventurous new tracks, recorded in Toronto in the spring and summer of 2009, find Ed Robertson (guitar/vocals), Jim Creeggan (bass/vocals), Kevin Hearn (keyboard/guitar/vocals) and Tyler Stewart  (drums/vocals) exploring a very creative and fertile phase of their careers.
 
"There was a little more room for people to breathe on this record" says Robertson. "It's more rocking in places and it stretches out and becomes more spacious in others. It was a really good feeling in the studio, with everyone very comfortable together and Michael at the helm."

Robertson is referring to ace producer and long-time BNL collaborator Michael Phillip Wojewoda, who produced the band's very first full length CD, 1992's Gordon.  Wojewoda jumped at the chance to capture the group's rebirth as a quartet. "The newness of the situation inspired the band to stretch musically," says Wojewoda.  "Even though there were challenges, they jumped in headfirst with enthusiasm and passion. The results are very exciting.  It was great to be part of that."

The move from five to four could be a tough transition for a lesser group, but Barenaked Ladies are no ordinary rock band. Founded as a duo in 1988 by schoolmates Ed Robertson and Steven Page, the group soon grew to five members and took Canada by storm with their five-song indie cassette, The Yellow Tape.

Over the next decade-plus, their albums Gordon, Rock Spectacle, Stunt and Maroon went multi-platinum in the U.S., and Barenaked Ladies became a top-selling, award-winning concert draw across North America and The U.K. with their frenetic blend of high-energy melodic-pop, crack musicianship and spontaneous repartee.

Ed Robertson, the primary songwriter since the birth of the band, took a moment to share how the writing process for All In Good Time was different from past Barenaked Ladies albums. "This was a chance for me to shed some of my writing dependencies, both good and bad, and explore new ground. I allowed myself to go places that I might not have in the past. I was more literal at times, and more abstract at others, pushing the self-imposed limits I'd adhered to for too long. The writing was cathartic for me in a way that writing hadn't been since the early nineties. It had been a huge and often dark year: an arrest, a plane crash and the death of my mother. All of these things took a heavy toll on my psyche, and spurred a lot of serious exploring."
    
Regarding the line-up change in Barenaked Ladies, Robertson is very candid: "Our relationship with Steve Page was great and very fruitful. It lasted almost 20 years, but it was time to move on. Now we're doing something that feels really fresh and exciting to me. His departure left four singers and three multi-instrumentalists in the band, so we're not lacking for musical ideas, and now there's more room for the other writers in the band to bring songs to the table."

The results of Robertson's personal explorations can be heard in the standout first track/lead single "You Run Away," a story of missed opportunities and remorse: "I tried to be your brother / You cried and ran for cover/ I made a mess, who doesn't? / I did my best but it wasn't enough. "

In the brisk, angular rocker "How Long," Robertson kicks off the lines "Give it up for Anger, it makes us strong!" another echo of recent years for the famous father of three.

On the power-pop "Every Subway Car," the founding singer/guitarist takes on the angst of a love-struck guerilla artiste: "Soon the world will see / Our graffiti love/ Belton on my glove/ They'll wonder who you are on every subway car."

Finally, Robertson finds three rhymes for the apparently unrhymable word Orange in a Django Reinhardt meets Jay-Z beer-hall sing-along called "Four Seconds": "Oh Flip, The light is turning Orange / Coat ripped, when I caught it in the door hinge/ I slipped when the lady in the 4 inch / Bought it in a store in Germany."  Even after a couple of years of ups and downs, Barenaked Ladies have hung on to their abstract senses of humor.
For bassist Jim Creeggan, who sings the jaunty "On The Look Out" and the soulful "I Saw It," the latter a meditation on teenaged bullying, the current version of Barenaked Ladies is breaking important new ground: "I think the band is moving forward with a clearer collective understanding of who we are, and what is at stake.  Leaving Steve was one of the hardest things we've had to do and we each had to weigh in on why the band was important enough for us to continue.  We came to the conclusion that the band was only worth saving if we supported one another and strove for a healthy dynamic between us.  So far it's been amazing and the most creative time I can remember having with the group."
Multi-instrumentalist Kevin Hearn echoes Creeggan's notions of personal and creative growth within the band. Hearn brought three new songs to the table for All In Good Time: the symphonic "Another Heartbreak," the surreal ghost town travelogue "Jerome" and the luxuriously groovy "Watching The Northern Lights," all of which showcase his unique, fragile voice. "I brought my songs in with sketches of how I heard them," says the former St. Michael's choirboy. "They were further shaped by the guys and MPW's input.  I didn't try to write ‘BNL' songs, per se, rather I just tried to write songs that felt honest to me, and I knew they would be in good hands within the band."

The result of new contributions from within is a recording that is stylistically adventurous, musically diverse and the most emotionally riveting and honest work by the band to date.

"We had a bizarre year in 08," says drummer and vocalist Tyler Stewart. "A lot of upheaval, a lot of changes, but 12 months later we're stronger than we've ever been. We had to dig deep and redefine ourselves. Right now it feels really, really good to be in Barenaked Ladies."

In-depth Biography
By combining humor, songcraft, and an eclectic mix of folk and pop/rock, the Barenaked Ladies enjoyed considerable popularity in their native Canada before rising to universal status with 1998's "One Week." Vocalists Ed Robertson and Steve Page launched the band in the late '80s as an acoustic act, traveling to different college campuses and playing warm-up gigs for comedy troupes. These early shows played an important role in the group's foundation, as Robertson and Page began injecting their performances with humorous between-song exchanges to hold their audiences' attention. The trick worked, and the band's mixture of humor and musicianship was forever cemented.

Following the duo's tour of the college circuit, the Barenaked Ladies expanded into a tight musical group with the addition of bass man Jim Creeggan, his brother Andy on keyboards, and drummer Tyler Stewart. Several cassette tapes were released and helped increase the band's regional popularity, but 1991's Yellow Tape was a different animal, selling so rapidly that it soon became the first independently released tape to reach platinum status in Canada. The hype was compounded by the fact that Toronto's mayor, June Rowlands, considered the band's name to be sexist and demanding to women, and therefore forbade the Barenaked Ladies from playing a 1991 New Years Eve concert near City Hall. The story found its way onto the front page of The Toronto Star, and sales for Yellow Tape promptly soared. In typical style, BNL laughed the debacle off and booked a different show. Meanwhile, record labels had begun approaching the band with attractive offers, and BNL soon signed with Sire/Reprise and issued their full-length debut,Gordon, in 1992. Featuring "Be My Yoko Ono," "If I Had a $1,000,000," and "Brian Wilson," the album moved over one million units and initiated BNL's reign as Canadian pop kings.

At the height of grunge's popularity, producer Ben Mink came aboard to helm the acoustically mellow Maybe You Should Drive in 1994. Songs like the jaunty "Alternative Girlfriend" and the sweetly melodic "Jane" were college radio favorites, but changes were on the way. Before the bandmates could collect themselves for a third album, Andy Creeggan left the lineup in order to finish college and Look People guitarist/keyboardist Kevin Hearn hopped on board for BNL's joint tour with Billy Bragg. Hearn joined the group as a permanent member for 1996's obscuro-pop album Born on a Pirate Ship, and the band charted new celebrity territory by appearing on an episode of Beverly Hills 90210 to perform their Top 40 hit "The Old Apartment." Success came fast, and BNL sold out countless summer shows. This merry mayhem was captured on the band's first live album, Rock Spectacle; the uninhibited and playful effort (complete with improvised rapping and stage banter) introduced a new audience to an aspect of the band that had been winning them fans since they started -- their live shows. Rock Spectacle was BNL's first record to be certified gold in the U.S., and it paved the way for their biggest album to date.

Stunt, the group's fourth studio effort, was issued in July 1998 and transformed the Barenaked Ladies into commercial heavyweights in both the U.S. and U.K. Buoyed by the chart-topping single "One Week," the album debuted at number three on the Billboard charts and went on to sell over four million units. The band upgraded to stadium performances for their subsequent North American tour, leaving behind the theaters and clubs of their previous shows, but sadness loomed over BNL's carefree effervescence. Hearn had been diagnosed with leukemia earlier that spring and spent almost six months recuperating. Geggy Tah's Greg Kurstin and multi-instrumentalist Chris Brown, a fellow BNL comrade, filled in for Hearn on the Stunt tour. After a bone marrow transplant in October, Hearn was free of all cancerous cells, and BNL were reunited at their commercial peak. Maroon followed two years later and reached platinum status on the success of "Pinch Me," although the group's constant touring was also beneficial. Maroon displayed a more mature (yet still comical) band and netted the band two Juno Awards for Best Pop Album and Best Group, as well as a nomination for a Grammy. A greatest-hits collection, Disc One: All Their Greatest Hits (1991-2001), was issued in fall 2001 and celebrated BNL's work and bond as a musical family.

Two years later, the band released Everything to Everyone and effectively fulfilled their contract with Reprise Records. The album sold relatively poorly, however, and Reprise neglected to offer an extended deal, thus returning the Barenaked Ladies to independent status for the first time since 1992. Unfazed, the group soldiered onward. A holiday record, Barenaked for the Holidays, arrived in 2004, while the companion albums Barenaked Ladies Are Me and Barenaked Ladies Are Men were issued in 2006 and 2007, respectively. The children's album Snacktime! followed in 2008. ~ Andrew Leahey, All Music Guide