How Barenaked Ladies Made A Million Dollars...And More
It's hard to believe that it has been a whopping 33 years since the Barenaked Ladies launched their musical careers in Toronto, Canada. Out of sheer desperation to get paid by playing music, and the definite need to start turning profits fast, Steven Page and Ed Robertson jokingly called themselves the Barenaked Ladies. Exclaim reports it was a feeble effort to get noticed during their contributions to a charity show, and the gentlemen had absolutely no idea that this name would not only stick, but would become legendary in Canadian history, and in the history of music, on a global scale. Best known for their iconic song $1,000,000, during which they aspire to earn a million dollars, the band went on to make much, much more money than that as they climbed the ladder of success.
It was 1988, in a city called Scarborough which is just east of the big city of Toronto, when Ed Robertson and Steven Page began a band that would one day become synonymous with Canadian fame, and would shatter music records across the globe.
The unsuspecting friends were humbly introduced to one another after they both happened to come from a Peter Gabriel concert and head to Harveys for a burger. They bumped in to one another and started chatting about the concert, and their mutual love of music. It turned out that they went to school together, and became closely bonded over their ability to harmonize perfectly as a pair.
While attending a Bob Dylan concert, the young boys became silly and pretended to be rock critics. They created a fictional band called the Barenaked Ladies, and mocked the name as they role played.
Shortly thereafter, Robertson was asked to play a gig, he jokingly gave the name The Barenaked Ladies as the name of his band, and invited Steven Page to join him.
It was all fun and games at first, but it didn't take long before the name of the band became a highly controversial topic of discussion in the streets of Toronto, and the newly and accidentally formed band called The Barenaked Ladies truly took flight.
Their name originated from a joke about how they'd look at women's underwear in Sears catalogues, but when push came to shove, the success of the Barenaked Ladies was absolutely nothing to laugh about.
The more music they released, the better they were received, and before they knew it, even bad press... was good press. When they were kicked off the roster for a huge gig in Nathan Phillips Square in Toronto, due to the name of the band, people seemed to pay even more attention to them. A little bit of controversy went a long way, and the band saw the addition of the Creegan brothers to the group.
They began to pump out hits like Be My Yoko Ono and If I Had $1,000,000, which were catchy, and picked up well on mainstream media. During their visit to theJust For Laughs Festival in Montreal, Robertson discovered the musical comedy troupe named Corky and the Juice Pigs, which went on to be a pivotal influence on the band's style and form.
Their roaring success was soon marred by their inability to connect with their American audience, and the death of Robertson's brother in a tragic motorcycle accident left him unable to commit to music in a fruitful manner. The pressure of the 2nd album, the follow up to the hugely successful first one, Gordon, proved to be too much for Andy Creeggan, who ended up leaving the band. Maybe You Should Drive went double platinum in Canada, but flatlined in the United States, and in spite of its North American success, the overall success of the album still paled in comparison to Gordon.
The band began to fall from grace, and Page began to drink heavily. A failed tour was followed by Matt LeBlanc and Lisa Kudrow pulling out their promise to star in the video for Shoe Box, and it seemed the group couldn't regain traction.
After a series of ups and downs, and changes with management and band members, the group starts to see a change. Born On A Pirate Ship, and Rock Spectacle failed miserably, but soon enough, after many wild rides, success came their way.
According to Exclaim; "On June 2, 2015, Barenaked Ladies release their 11th studio album, Silverball, which is produced by Gavin Brown. The title and album cover are a reference to Robertson's love of pinball machines. In an interview with the Toronto Sun, Robertson explains that this album found the band relieved of the stress they felt with previous albums."
This stress continued to build with the very publicized departure of Steven Page. in 2009. He was arrested for possession of cocaine and eventually released a statement saying his departure from the band was 'mutually amicable,' but fans weren't ignorant to the strain it put on the success of the group. Gavin Brown stepped in to lend his talents in the area of production, and the band continued to release a series of albums with huge success. Creating the theme song for The Big Bang Theory was a huge money-maker for the band, leading them to wild levels of fame and fortune beyond the wealth they had already accrued.
In March of 2018, the band was inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame and the band reunited again to play alongside former members Steven Page and Andy Creeggan.
In response to their cancelled tour amid the pandemic, the band began releasing performances from their webcams which they called the #SelfieCamJam, as a way of continuing to entertain the masses while isolating.
Their thirteenth studio album is nearing its release date, and fans are eagerly awaiting the drop. Detour De Force, is set to be released July 16, 2021. That's a far cry from two young boys that made up a fake name and didn't have any cover songs or singles to share with the world. The Barenaked Ladies have defied the odds, and have truly managed to find the way to the top, and stay there, in spite of conflict, controversy, and the fact that well over a= $1,000,000 had already been earned.
Sources: Exclaim, Forbes, The Globe And Mail
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