Barenaked Ladies


Barenaked Ladies is a Canadian rock band formed in 1988 in the Toronto suburb of Scarborough, Ontario. The band developed a following in Canada in the early 1990s with their cassette Barenaked Ladies and their debut album Gordon. The band's popularity eventually spread to the United States following the release of versions of "Brian Wilson" and "The Old Apartment" from their 1996 live album, Rock Spectacle. In 1998, Barenaked Ladies released their fourth studio album, Stunt, which contains their highest-charting hit, "One Week", along with "It's All Been Done" and "Call and Answer". Their fifth album, Maroon, also charted well. The band is also known for creating and performing the theme song of the American sitcom The Big Bang Theory. Barenaked Ladies has continued to regularly tour and record new music, having released 14 primary studio albums of original material and three themed studio albums.
Initially a duo of singer-guitarists Ed Robertson and Steven Page, the band grew to a quintet by 1990, adding brothers Jim and Andy Creeggan on bass and keyboards/congas, respectively, and drummer Tyler Stewart. Andy Creeggan left the band in 1995, and was replaced by multi-instrumentalist Kevin Hearn. Page left in 2009, reducing the group to a quartet.
The band's style has evolved, and its music grew to encompass a mixture of pop, rock and folk. Their live performances feature comedic banter and freestyle rapping between songs. They have received a number of Juno Awards, and have been nominated for two Grammy Awards. The group has sold over 15 million albums and singles, and was inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame in March 2018.

History

Origins (1988–1991)

Barenaked Ladies began as a duo of Ed Robertson and Steven Page. Both attended Churchill Heights Public School and met after a Peter Gabriel concert; they were counsellors at Interprovincial Music Camp in McKellar, Ontario. Page was impressed by Robertson's harmonizing when they began playing songs together. While attending a Bob Dylan concert at Exhibition Stadium, they decided on the name "Barenaked Ladies."
They first performed a largely-improvised set during a battle of the bands at Nathan Phillips Square for the Second Harvest food bank on 1 October 1988. The duo opened for the Razorbacks and others, developing their improvised set to include comedy, songs, and audience interactions.
Page and Robertson continued performing, and began writing songs together. Their first tape, Buck Naked, was made with a four-track recorder in basements and bedrooms. They became followers of the comedy group Corky and the Juice Pigs, whom they credited with exposing them to a comedic stage presence. Page and Robertson presented the group with their tape, and were invited to open for the Juice Pigs on their national tour. Page and Robertson invited two friends from music camp, brothers Andy Creeggan and Jim Creeggan, to play with them at a 1989 Toronto Christmas show. With the Creeggan brothers, Barenaked Lunch was released in 1990.
Andy Creeggan left for a student-exchange trip to South America six months later, leaving the band without a percussionist. They met drummer Tyler Stewart in Waterloo, Ontario in the summer of 1990, and he joined the band. The band received attention during Andy Creeggan's absence, receiving the 1990 YTV Achievement Award for Best Band/Musical Group and squeezing into a Speaker's Corner video booth to perform "Be My Yoko Ono". Andy Creeggan returned in early 1991, playing keyboards, congas and other percussion instruments, and the band soon began their first Canadian tour.

Early Canadian success (1991–1992)

The band's first commercial release was the 1991 tape Barenaked Ladies, more commonly known as The Yellow Tape. A demo tape created for South by Southwest, it was the first recording with all five members and was turned down by every Canadian record label. The band sold copies off the stage; people began asking for the tape at local stores, and it was released commercially. Sales increased due to word of mouth and the band's live shows. Page's father, Victor, founded the independent label Page Publications to manufacture and distribute the cassette.
The band received radio airplay with a live cover of Dean Friedman's "McDonald's Girl", which included a rap break incorporating lyrics from the Beastie Boys' "Hey Ladies". Barenaked Ladies contributed a cover of Bruce Cockburn's "Lovers in a Dangerous Time" to the Cockburn tribute album Kick at the Darkness in November 1991, and it was the band's first Top 40 hit in Canada.
The band was removed from the lineup of the 1991 New Year's Eve concert in Nathan Phillips Square outside Toronto City Hall because a staffer for Mayor June Rowlands believed that its name objectified women, a decision affirmed by city councillor Chris Korwin-Kuczynski. The group booked another show at McMaster University. By February 1992, The Yellow Tape outsold Michael Jackson's Dangerous, Genesis' We Can't Dance, and U2's Achtung Baby at some downtown Toronto record stores. MuchMusic offered the band its second Intimate and Interactive special on 17 January and the tape was the first indie release to go platinum in Canada, selling 100,000 copies.
By the end of February, the Toronto City Council revised its rules for event bookings at Nathan Phillips Square. The City Hall story has followed the band, with Robertson crediting it to a slow news week.

First albums (1992–1997)

Barenaked Ladies were signed to Sire Records in April 1992. They performed at Toronto's Ontario Place Forum the following month, and were the quickest act to sell out the venue.
The band's first full album, Gordon, was released in July 1992 and was successful in Canada; by the end of August, it had been certified platinum. The album included some of the band's best-known songs, including "Enid", the first single; "Be My Yoko Ono", which helped fund the album; "If I Had $1000000", spawning a practice of throwing Kraft Dinner during live shows which the band later discouraged; and "Brian Wilson", named after Beach Boy Brian Wilson. A number of Gordon songs were live favourites, and had already been recorded. Although the band was doing well in Canada, US success was elusive.
Their second album, Maybe You Should Drive, was less popular in Canada. The band's US tour lost money, despite an appearance on Late Night with Conan O'Brien. Before the next release, Andy Creeggan decided to leave the band; he had become disillusioned with its direction, and was uncomfortable with their new fame. According to Page, Creeggan had considered leaving during rehearsals for Drive; the band convinced him to stay to record that album and for its subsequent tour. Creeggan wanted to study music at McGill University. Tyler Stewart has suggested that Creeggan had never fully accepted his replacement as a percussionist. He left when band members were tiring of one other, with Page and Robertson rarely communicating; Stewart cites Creeggan's departure as worsening the situation. Page developed alcohol abuse and depression. To reverse their fortunes, they signed with Terry McBride and Nettwerk for management.
The band released Born on a Pirate Ship as a quartet in 1996. The album's "Shoe Box" was included on the Friends soundtrack, and the Jason Priestley-directed video for "The Old Apartment" received notable US airplay. Although the album had better sales than Maybe You Should Drive, it did not match the success of "Gordon". Barenaked Ladies appeared on an episode of Beverly Hills, 90210 performed "The Old Apartment", "Life, In a Nutshell", and "Brian Wilson" at the Peach Pit After Dark night club. Tyler Stewart invited his friend Kevin Hearn to replace Andy Creeggan as a keyboardist for the tour, and Hearn joined the band full time. They had a cameo appearance in the Canadian film The Wrong Guy with Dave Foley in 1997, performing "Gangster Girl".
Barenaked Ladies recorded two dates on their 1996 Born on a Pirate Ship tour and released Rock Spectacle, a live album with a modest American radio hit in "Brian Wilson". The album was their first US gold record, and they saw their next one as a chance to make it big in the States.

United States (1998–2004)">US success (1998–2004)

Stunt was the band's greatest mainstream success; its single, "One Week", spent one week atop the Billboard Hot 100. Stunt reached number three on the US Billboard 200 and number nine in Canada. Kevin Hearn was diagnosed with leukemia shortly after the album was released. He received bone marrow transplants from his brother and missed most of the Stunt tour.
The band toured with friends Chris Brown and Greg Kurstin filling in on keyboards until Hearn recovered enough to rejoin them on tour. The singles "It's All Been Done" and "Call and Answer" were modest hits. The band was asked to contribute a song to the soundtrack of the Fox animated series King of the Hill.
Led by the single "Pinch Me", Maroon reached number five on the Billboard Top 100 and topped the Canadian charts. A compilation album, Disc One: All Their Greatest Hits , was released in 2001. After finishing a tour on 31 December 2001 in Rosemont, Illinois to promote the compilation, the band decided to take a year off before returning to the studio in April 2003.
Everything to Everyone was released on 21 October of that year, coinciding with the start of their Peep Show tour. The album's first single was "Another Postcard ", which received some radio play. "Testing 1,2,3", the second single, had a video but no CD single; "Celebrity" was released in the UK with a CD single, but no video. "Maybe Katie" and an edited version of "For You", from a concert in Glasgow, were released as radio singles. The album, their weakest seller in years, fulfilled their contract with Reprise Records. The group was independent for the first time since 1992, although they retained a distribution relationship with Warner Bros. Records. On its early-2004 Everywhere For Everyone tour, the band began offering live shows and subsequent studio releases for purchase as a download or CD-R on its website.