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Network
Spring 1996
by Paul Myers
Network: Define BNL in terms of the traditional family dynamic?
Page: Ed's defiantly the father, Tyler is the funny son, I wonder if Jim is the mother
Robertson: Jim is his own mother! Steve could be the serious son...
Page: Yeah, definitely...
Every member of every Canadian family has probably heard at least one Barenaked Ladies song. By selling over 85,000 copies of a basement tape and then going on to sell over 8000,000 copies of their major label debut, Gordon, they became a phenomenon. College kids love 'em. Old ladies love 'em. Heck, even the cast of Friends love 'em. Part of their appeal is the inherent schizophrenia of their sound. Are they earnest post-modernist or are they just wacky? Born On A Pirate Ship, their most recent wacky album yet, reinforces this split vision.
"We've always thought that wackiness and earnestness coexisted," declares singer/guitarist and new Dad, Ed Robertson (the rest of the band consists of bassist Jim Creeggan, singer Steven Page and drummer Tyler Stewart). "We never had a big focus on humour, we just liked funny things and said funny things."
And, says Steven Page, "The Beatles could get away with putting 'Yellow Submarine' on Revolver alongside 'Tomorrow Never Knows.' That doesn't make them a 'novelty' band, it just makes it a great record with lots of breadth to it."
Network: Using the Beatle family role model, break down the Barenaked Ladies?
Page: Geez, that's hard... I think I'm the John, Ed's the Paul, Jim's the George and Tyler is Ringo.
Born On A Pirate Ship (pull the corners of your mouth with your fingers and try to say the title) is the first BNL album to be recorded since the departure of keyboardist Andy Creeggan. It is also a return to the live-off-the-floor sounds of their first album. To "get back" to this sound, the Ladies Re-inlisted Gordon producer Michael Philip Wojewoda and cute most of it live, and well, off the floor. It's taken me up until recently to realize that I sing best when I'm on stage, so that's what I wanted to do on this record, and do it all in the same room. If Michael would say 'I definitely want you to do the vocals separately," because he wanted a great acoustic sound or whatever, then we did the vocals separate," explains Page.
Network: If Oliver Stone were to make a movie about the Barenaked Ladies who would play you?
Page: James Woods would play me.
Robertson: And Brian Dennehy would play me.
Robertson's earnest troubadour voice has never been stronger and songs like "When I Fall" and Same Thing" demonstrate and increased confidence with the recording process. He credits Page for helping him overcome studiophobia. "Steve's helped me to be a lot more comfortable singing in the studio. Even on Gordon, I just felt uncomfortable in front of a mic. On Maybe You Should Drive, I did the vocal for "Great Provider" every night for a week and I was flat, sharp or just terrible. By the time we got it in tune, I felt so distanced from the song. But with this album we did everything so live and relaxed that everything worked," says Robertson.
The last song (and first single) on the new record "Shoe Box" might just be the first BNL song that mainstream US listeners get to hear it already appears on the Friends soundtrack album. "I've only watched it once," says Page proudly. "The week before the soundtrack came out I thought I better watch because people are gonna ask me about it."
Network: Which members of the Friends cast would play you in the Barenaked Ladies movie?
Page: Lisa Kudrow would be Jim.
Robertson: Jennifer Aniston would be me, because of my perky hands and famous haircut.
Page: I would be the monkey.
With so much information flying around on television and the Net, and movies like Heat and Casino weighing in at three hours a piece, what made them put out a lengthy, 14 song album now?
"I think most records are to long," Page agrees. "You don't even end up hearing the whole record. We put "Shoe Box," at the end of this record, so you can leave it out if you want to. Our second record was 12 songs very consciously; this record was intended to be 12 as well but we just ended up saying, 'oh, we can't get rid of this one or that one..."
As for the amount of information on the Pirate Ship, Robertson says, "there's always a sense of change and growth with us. We often feel that once we're at a new stage, we're no longer where we were. It's like a journal, documenting where we are at a time. We said, 'let's take snapshots of where we are now."
Page concurs saying, "It just happens to be this year's photo album...rather than this year's Farmer's Almanac."
Network : Finally, after all the reunion rumours over the past 30 years why did you choose this year to do the Barenaked Six Hour Anthology?
Page: "It was about 15 years since I died, I figured it was about time for a comeback. The question is really 'why didn't' we do it for charity?'" |
