Barenaked Ladies’ tour stop in Vail will showcase new songs as well at classic hits
Barenaked Ladies drummer shares his thoughts on why the band has stayed together over 35 years
Last Word Features
Matt Barnes/Courtesy photo
In the past 35 years, Barenaked Ladies have left a considerable mark on pop culture. Dip into the band’s canon and you’ll find songs that plug into generation-spanning sitcoms ranging from ’90s behemoth “Friends” (“Shoe Box”), appearing as a guest band on “90210’s” fictional Peach Pit After Dark nightclub (they played a three-song set that included “The Old Apartment”) and more recently, recording the theme song for CBS’s mega-successful “Big Bang Theory.”
And while the band experienced some major lineup changes since starting out in 1988 (percussionist Andy Creeggan left in 1994 while vocalist/guitarist/songwriter Steven Page departed in 2009), the current foursome of singer/guitarist Ed Robertson, drummer Tyler Stewart, bassist Jim Creeggan and keyboardist/guitarist Kevin Hearn have carried on thanks with a combination of passion, kooky humor and pop smarts.
For Stewart, the “joie de vivre” he and his bandmates experience as being a part of Barenaked Ladies is a key to why the band is trucking along towards its fourth decade of playing together.
“Our longevity can be attributed to a couple of factors starting with blind stupidity,” he said with a laugh during a mid-September interview. “But I would also say the fact that we communicate pretty well, get along and give each other space and respect each other’s creativity and personalities. It takes a long time to get to know somebody intimately. We make sure that we take care of each other and take care of the band in the process. I think making new music really helps. If you can go to the well still and find the inspiration to write and record new songs, it keeps everybody energized and I think that really propels us forward.”
A large part of the Barenaked Ladies brand is a combination of infectious mischief and low-key brilliance that informs cornerstones of the Barenaked Ladies canon ranging from “Brian Wilson” (which correlates the main character’s life with that of the Beach Boy founder, who also recorded his own version of the song) and “Be My Yoko Ono” (narrator compares his relationship to that of John Lennon and Yoko Ono) to the rap at the heart of the 1998 chart-topper “One Week.”
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Barenaked Ladies’ interactivity with fans reached “Rocky Horror Picture Story”-type heights where concert-goers would bring boxes of Kraft macaroni and cheese to Barenaked Ladies shows to throw at the band cued by a line in the 1992 hit “If I Had $1000000.” It’s a ritual that’s died down in recent years, much to the relief of Stewart.
“They stopped doing that thankfully,” he said with a chuckle. “As fun as that was, it got to be a little dangerous — having these boxes thrown toward you. But when it comes to our fans, the investment is that we feel like it’s a two-way street. We put a lot into it and our fans give us back a lot. Quite a few of them have been around a long time. The multi-generational thing is really cool to witness where kids and grandkids of people who started out with us in the ’90s are coming to shows. And that’s pretty awesome to see.”
The Barenaked Ladies creative drive has yielded 14 studio albums with the most recent being last year’s “In Flight.” And given that 2023 was Barenaked Ladies’ official 35th anniversary, the band released an expanded version of the album with a batch of live tracks recorded at a 2023 anniversary show.
“We celebrated our 35th anniversary as a band last October and it might have even been late September,” Stewart explained. “We did a live show in our hometown of Toronto at a legendary club called El Mocambo. We set up, recorded and filmed it and had a great time, and I think we played a song from every one of our studio albums, which really is a lot when you think about it. We had a great night and wanted to celebrate somehow, and we thought it was a great chance to do a re-release of our last record with these songs included.”
Currently touring with Toad the Wet Sprocket, Stewart promises fans more of the Barenaked Ladies hijinks fans have come to expect.
“One of the joys of making music is being able to perform it live in front of people that are really excited to be there,” he said. “We’ve been really fortunate over our 35-plus years in the band to always have a great audience. We try to deliver a great show every time by sprinkling in stuff from new records and deeper cuts from our long career. It also provides a little variety for the audience while keeping us on our toes.”
That quest to keep the creative fires burning means new music is simmering on the back burner for 2025 and at the very least, there will be more Barenaked Ladies shows to look forward to.
“Coming into the beginning of next year, there is some contemplation about getting back into the studio and doing another album,” Stewart said. “If we don’t do that, we will probably take the time to redesign and reinvent our live show so that we can get back out on the road next summer for another Last Summer on Earth tour.”
