Barenaked Ladies

Fake Nudes (2017)

Julie River

“I thought that this was supposed to be PUNKnews!” “‘Punk’news has jumped the shark yet again.” “I like bare naked ladies, but not the band. Heh heh. Get it? I mean in my pants.”

These are some of the comments I expected to see in the comments section, so I figured I would get them out of the way before we begin. The truth is, I was told that at Punknews I could write about anything at least tangentially related to punk, and to me, the Barenaked Ladies are just that. Because, you see, the Barenaked Ladies got me into punk.

I know that statement sounds ridiculous, so let me explain: my ex used to like to talk about gateway bands, mainstream bands with elements that lead you to checking out better, underground punk and indie rock bands. BNL, in addition to making me fall in love with chunky, chord based songs, helped me realize that what I really wanted was music that had a sense of community, and BNL, at least in America in the 90s, had a strong fan community due to their cult status. (As opposed to Canada, where they achieved superstar status.) Punk was that community based music I finally discovered, and it was all thanks to this Canadian adult alternative band.

And there were so many stories about how the Barenaked Ladies were badass in their own quirky ways. There was the time I first saw them live where they left the stage at one point and came back with all five members in construction helmets and hazmat suits and proceeded to play their song “Some Fantastic” on five keytars. Or, during the same concert, where everyone cleared the stage except bassist Jim Creegan who then played “Crazy Train” on an electric cello. Or when, at another show, someone was talking on her cell phone so singer/guitarist Ed Robinson took the woman’s cell phone and told the person on the other end that her friend had been arrested for streaking and needed someone to come pick her up. Or the stories of their integrity, like when their first album, Gordon, hit #1 in Canada and they could have filled any stadium in their home, but they were touring the US at the time and refused to cancel any of their US tour dates, even though they were only playing to half a dozen people a night in dive bars. Or when “One Week” became a huge hit and the label was pushing for lots of promotion and a quick follow up album but their keyboardist, Kevin Hearn (who had only just joined the band for their latest album), had just been diagnosed with leukemia, so they scaled back promotion and refused to work on a new album until Hearn was better. (Kevin Hearn pulled through and is with the band to this day.) I named one of my poetry chapbooks A Hardcore Punk Tribute to the Barenaked Ladies, because that’s something I always wanted to see happen. I’ve fantasized about putting together a punk band that plays nothing but BNL covers and calling it “Nude Chicks.” My point is, BNL are, in my mind, as punk as you can get, and no matter how deep I got into different types of music, I would always check in periodically to see what the Barenaked Ladies were up to.

That all changed in 2009 when the unthinkable happened: co-lead singer and co-founding member Steven Page, “left” the band. I put “left” in quotes because I’m fairly certain he got kicked out, despite what the official press releases said. Page’s departure came shortly after his arrest for possession of cocaine. While doing coke is just another day on the job for most rock stars, Page’s arrest was the epitome of bad timing, because the band was promoting their children’s album, that had been released two months earlier. (I love the part of the story where Page tried to convince the police that the cocaine was “calcium powder,” as if they weren’t going to test it.) The band was forced to cancel a few dates promoting the album at Disney sponsored concerts. Within a year, Page was out of the band by “mutual agreement.” With one of the two lead singers ousted, the other singer, Ed Robertson, took over the lead singer duties, although keyboardist Kevin Hearn and bassist Jim Creegan, who had been known write and sing a song of their own from time to time, were suddenly promoted to secondary and tertiary lead singers respectively. In live performances, Robertson took over Page’s songs (something few bands in similar situations, like the Pixies, have had the gall to do) while songs that had been equally shared between Page and Robertson, like “If I Had 1,000,000 Dollars” and “One Week,” now became duets between Robertson and Hearn. The band adjusted to having only one guitarist as well as they adjusted to having no keyboardist for their third album, and things continued on. But Page had been my favorite member. His voice, distinctive without ever being off-putting, carried a markedly different tone than Robertson’s that really brought out the clever irony of the group’s lyrics. Without him, I found it hard to listen to the band, and have sworn off seeing them live (despite their spectacular live shows) until the day hopefully comes when they reunite with Steven Page.

Now here comes November 2017, and the Barenaked Ladies are on their fourth album without Page. It seems like making a go of it without one of their founding members is something they’ve actually committed to at this point. So I decided to give it a try and check it out. What I found, from reading online, is that Fake Nudes—its title a clear dig at Donald Trump’s famous phrase, “fake news”—is the first album of the post-Page era where Robertson actually shared vocal duties equally with Kevin Hearn, as equally as he used to with Page. Robertson sings seven songs on the album, Hearn sings six, and Creegan one. As far as songwriting goes, Hearn and Robertson collaborate on a lot of the songs, while there’s a little outside help from Better Than Ezra founding member Kevin Griffin, and one song with a little help from career songwriter Sam Hollander. That one song Hollander contributes to is “Lookin’ Up,” which is, naturally, the album’s first single.

“Lookin’ Up” and their other early single “Bringin’ it Home” have iHeartMedia’s fingerprints all over them. With quirky little keyboard riffs and flute solos that sound like they were plucked directly from an Imagine Dragons tune, the songs show little of BNL’s personal musical style and more of a style custom fit for modern radio. Still, The Barenaked Ladies’ sense of humor manages to undercut this a little, adding their own stamp on some songs that have already gone through the cookie cutter.

The opening track, “Canada Dry,” is impressive as it weaves together genuine sentiment with a bunch of inside jokes about Canada. Hearn’s “Invisible Fence” is an instant BNL classic, with the invisible fence being both a metaphor for not accepting people into your life, and a vehicle to take vague shots at Trump’s impossible border wall. Another Hearn track, “Dusty Rooms,” is one of the most delicate songs BNL has ever pulled off, and its meticulous precision is what makes its depressing story work so well. Creegan’s number, “We Took the Night” is surprising because Creegan, being the bass player, has been known to contribute songs with unique rhythmic properties. “We Took the Night,” however, is a pretty straightforward pop-rock tune that just works and satisfies on every level. “Navigate” reminds us that Robertson (the man who brought us the nonsense rapping of “One Week”) loves to dip his toes into hip-hop without going in all the way, as he puts a hip-hop beat under a really pretty acoustic ballad. Hearn’s closer, “Township of King” sounds like a light Irish folk song, that’s carried by the perfectly harmonized vocals of the rest of the band.

Paul McCartney himself once said of the Barenaked Ladies: “Their harmonies are right on. They could outsing us any day of the week. I don’t think John and myself ever had the sort of range they do.” He’s right, of course, and with that level of singing talent, musicianship, and some of the sharpest wits in pop music, it’s no surprise that a four-piece, Page-less version of the Barenaked Ladies works really well. But it’s never going to work as well as it did with Steven Page in the band. The way he and Robertson played off each other was really the heart of the band, and to add him back into the new dynamic where he, Robertson, and Hearn take equal responsibilities would make for the best version of the Barenaked Ladies we’ve ever seen. Sadly, I don’t know what stands in the way of that reunion, whether it’s the band’s animosity towards Page or whether Page is prideful enough to think that someday he might have an artist bio that begins with something other than “Founding member of the Barenaked Ladies.” But after the Misfits got back together, I don’t think of any reunion as being impossible. Whatever it is that remains between them, I do hope it gets worked out eventually, and in the meantime, they’re still making quality music.