Pam WindsorContributor Hollywood & EntertainmentI’m a Nashville-based music and entertainment journalist.
It’s been…more than 20 years since their biggest charting hit, but the Canadian super group known for their fun, quirky songs like “One Week,” “Pinch Me,” and “If I Had $1,000,000” can still rock a major music venue. They did a lot of that this past summer while playing to packed crowds across the U.S. as the opening act for the Hootie & the Blowfish reunion tour.
“It was a really good, supportive vibe between the two bands,” notes Barenaked Ladies’ Ed Robertson. “The guys were great to us and we had a lot of fun together. I think we ended up playing to more than 800,000 people over the course of the summer.”
Known for their freestyling approach to live performances, no two Barenaked Ladies shows are ever exactly alike.
“We do a lot of spontaneous, improv moments in the show,” Robertson says. “It’s important to me to connect with the audience and not just with, ‘Hey Chicago!’ I want people to leave knowing I was playing for a specific audience whether that be Los Angeles or Nashville or Columbia, South Carolina. My goal is to have people leave the place happy they spent the money to come see us.”
The crowds seemed pretty happy this summer. Show after show after show, thousands were up on their feet, singing – nearly word for word – to BNL classics like “If I Had $1,000,000.”Today In: Business
Barenaked Ladies has sold more than 15 million albums and while “One Week” was the group’s biggest hit (topping the charts in 1998), Robertson says some of their other songs are even more well-known.
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“Yeah, that was our biggest charting single and went to No. 1, but I think maybe the “Big Bang Theory” (the theme song to the popular TV show) has had a larger reach and broader audience even though it wasn’t a charting single. And “If I Had $1,000,000” was never a single, and yet everybody seems to know it.”
As with all of the group’s songs, each one has its own, unique story. “One Week” was a comic song full of pop-culture references from the late 90’s (X-Files, LeAnn Rimes, Harrison Ford, etc.), that nobody ever expected to take off quite like it did.
“If you’ve seen our shows you know we have a lot of freestyle rapping and that’s how “One Week” was written,” Robertson explains. “I freestyled into a video camera, then I edited out some of the verses. But that song was written in about three minutes. And all of those pop culture references were exactly what was going through my head at the moment I wrote it.”
He laughs, then goes on to add, “Maybe I should do that more often because it’s my only No. 1.”
The “Big Bang Theory,” was also written very quickly. Robertson wrote it while taking a shower and had to call his wife into the bathroom to write down the lyrics, so he wouldn’t forget them.
And that song about a “million dollars” was written long before the band ever came together.
“I was 18 years old when I wrote it, so it was a very silly notion that I would ever actually be a famous songwriter. I wrote that song on a bus on the way home from music camp where I was a counselor. I was just trying to keep the kids from going crazy on the long two-and-a-half hour bus ride home. It was full of specific lines about stupid things that happened at camp just to entertain the kids. And then I thought, there’s something here. If I can find the right silly things to talk about, I think it’ll resonate with people. So, that was the genesis of it.”
Interestingly enough, that summer music camp was where Robertson first met Steven Page. The two became friends and would form Barenaked Ladies as a duo, later adding additional members. During the band’s first decade together, BNL built a following in their native Canada, then began getting attention in the United States. By the end of the 90’s, they were known internationally.
Success continued into the next decade with a steady stream of new projects and albums. Then, in 2009, Page left the band by mutual agreement. The announcement followed a difficult year that included Page’s arrest on drug charges, a plane crash involving Robertson, and other challenges.
Today, Page tours as a solo artist, while Robertson and his fellow band members continue as the Barenaked Ladies. In March of 2018, everyone came together for the group’s induction into Canada’s Music Hall of Fame, but there are no plans for any type of reunion with Page and the band.
“There are no plans to do anything together,” Robertson says. “We decided to move in separate directions and we’re happier than ever and enjoying our career more than ever. So, there’s no interest in going backwards.”
In the ten years since, Barenaked Ladies has continued creating new music. Their most recent album Fake Nudes, was followed by an acoustic version called Fake Nudes: Naked, featuring the same innovative songwriting and exceptional musicianship that has always defined the group.
Robertson says some 30 years after it all began, he’s having more fun than ever before.
“More important to me than the notion that I still luck into some catchy lines and get an interesting turn of a phrase occasionally, is that I still love it. And I love it more now because it’s not accompanied by the same sort of stresses and pressures that it used to be (when the band was at its peak). When I’m writing new material, I’m looking to impress exactly three people, and they’re in my band already. And the way we perform together has an easy, off-the-cuff, strength to it.
The group is currently working on new music and has already announced plans to tour in the United Kingdom in 2020. No word yet on a possible tour in the U.S. or Canada. One thing’s for sure though, BNL fans can definitely look forward to a new album in the new year.
“We’ve got a ton of songs already written and we’re planning to record this winter,” Robertson says.
Then, with his usual good humor, he goes on say, “I can only assume it will be amazing!”
No doubt.
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I’m a freelance writer in Nashville, Tennessee. My work has appeared in AARP, American Way, American Profile, Country Weekly, DeSoto Magazine, and dozens of other magaz… Read More
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