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The Barenaked Ladies, Seriously
by Alan Sculley for the Daily Local News (West Chester PA)
Published November 12, 2003

Ed Robertson, guitarist and singer in the Barenaked Ladies, knows his band has been confusing some people.

With songs alternately humorous and introspective, the band has divided people about just how seriously to take the hit-making Canadian band. But the new CD, "Everything To Everyone," has a song that offers insight into how the group members view their music.

"I like ‘Testing 1,2,3’ because it approaches that very serious dilemma that we feel, but it’s also a fun song and it’s got some just straight-up jokes in it," Robertson said. "That, to me, is kind of the essence of the band. There is a depth there, but it’s also about entertainment, and itąs fun and it’s meant to be enjoyed and it’s meant to be pondered."

The crux of "Testing 1,2,3" is one of the most serious issues any songwriter can consider: is their music connecting with listeners and does anyone care what their songs have to say?

The theme seemed even more timely, Robertson said, because writing for "Everything To Everyone" happened early this year as the push to go to war with Iraq was causing many musicians to ponder the issue.

"It was a strange time to write a record. It was bizarre," Robertson said. "We’d get together in our basement and Colin Powell would be in the background on TV presenting the smoking gun to the U.N. It didn’t seem to have that much smoke, that gun. But it was just a strange time, and there were all these polls on TV.

"Celebrities were vilified for speaking out against the war," he said. "It was just weird. So here we are in our basement in Toronto going, ‘OK, do people care what we have to say about anything?’ So we just decided, ‘Well let’s just write what we’re thinking about and see what comes out.’"

As it turned out, the Barenaked Ladies didn’t write any songs that deal with global issues. But given the way the band has frequently been dismissed as lightweight or even an outright novelty act, they didn’t need a debate over the war to make the questions raised by "Testing 1,2,3," a fitting issue for the band to explore.

"Itąs something that we have struggled with since the very beginning. And I understand it," Robertson said. "It’s like people don’t have enough time in their day to give every single thing the time it deserves. And we’re confusing. Our singles have been songs like ‘One Week’ and ‘(If I Had A) Million Dollars,’ and people see us goofing around, and we’re often very ironic and our presentation of ourselves is often over the top.

"So we became a target in a lot of ways, and easy to write off," he said. "But that whole time, we knew that we were selling out arenas and selling millions of records. So we knew there were people out there who did get it and did care and were listening."

The new CD might do as much as any Barenaked Ladies CD to draw attention to the group’s more serious side. It includes "War On Drugs," a song that deals with despair, desperation and death with compassion and sadness. "Aluminum" has plenty of bite in likening a person’s shallowness and deceit to the difference between silver and aluminum. Even a tune like "Celebrity," with its cheeky rhymes in the opening verses, gives way to far more serious content.

"That song is about a person who is famous but not successful," Robertson said. "And that must be a very empty feeling. So yeah, that song just analyzes the whole conundrum that is fame, and thank God we have success to go with our fame."

Musically, the CD is a bit lower key than some of the band’s others. There are a few songs (such as "Maybe Katie," "Shopping" and "Upside Down") that fit the energetic pop sound of past hits. But "Everything To Everyone" is more defined by songs like "Celebrity" and "Next Time" (both graceful, mid-tempo pop songs); the gentle acoustic tune "For You"; and the downbeat ballad "War On Drugs." The music is still plenty appealing, but certainly less buoyant than fans may expect.

If anything, the CD may be the best barometer yet of the talents of all five members of the band, which formed in 1988 and debuted in the United States in 1992 with the CD "Gordon."

Before now, nearly all of the band’s material had been co-written by Robertson and singer/guitarist Steven Page. For "Everything To Every-one," the other group members -- bassist Jim Creeggan, keyboardist Kevin Hearn and drummer Tyler Stewart -- were brought fully into the creative process.

The CD was written when all five band members hunkered down in their home base of Toronto for an extended session of writing, rehearsal and demoing.

"It was an amazing process," Robertson said. "It was great to have the input of other writers. I think Steve and I are really competent and confident about writing together, and we’ve done it now for 15 years. It was nice to throw some new variables into that process, and we ended up, I think, with really strong, really interesting songs."

Robertson said he and Page had done the songwriting in the past largely for practical reasons. "In the past, we would tour so exhaustively and Steve and I would have three weeks to write the record," Robertson said. "And it had to get done and we couldn’t afford the time to try any experiments. We knew we could write songs together, so we just did it."

The Barenaked Ladies will perform at the Tower in Upper Darby on Nov. 8. The show is sold out.