Forever Young

By Brian D. Johnson - Tuesday, April 5, 2011 at 10:22 AM - 5 Comments

Photographs by Jessica Darmanin

It’s a sub-zero Sunday evening in Toronto. Under an unheated canopy, a gang of fledgling rock stars wait their turn on the red carpet, shivering in T-shirts and black leather. They’re Down With Webster, a Toronto rock-rap band of twentysomething sensations whose album, Time To Win, has scored a string of platinum hits. The occasion is the 40th anniversary of the Juno Awards at the Air Canada Centre. The band will get to kick off the show, which is a big deal for them. Earlier in their dressing room, these amiable pop idols had been finessing last-minute details, planning a run from the stage into the crowd and voting down a plea from the drummer to shoot video during the performance for the band’s Facebook page. Then, after correcting their hair, rummaging about for their sunglasses, and freshening their breath with gum from a bowl on the buffet table, they head outside, so they can re-enter via the red carpet.

Huddled in the cold beside the Barenaked Ladies, the boys wait for their cue, as Drake, the show’s emcee, is whisked through with his entourage. “Twenty-two years for this s–t!” yells Ed Robertson of the Ladies. “My Junos are getting cold!” He’s joking. But there is something so forlornly Canadian about frozen rock stars queuing up for their turn on a red carpet. When Down With Webster finally gets the nod, pandemonium erupts. Throngs of young teenage girls, pressed against the barricades with outstretched arms, scream their names at an ear-splitting pitch: the sound of Beatlemania, or Biebermania, on a smaller scale.

Later, a grizzled old dude in a long black coat, black hat and red scarf enters to a decidedly less hysterical response. Many of the kids don’t even recognize Neil Young.

Continue…

Barenaked pictures

By Andrew Tolson - Tuesday, March 16, 2010 at 1:29 PM - 0 Comments

With last year’s departure of Stephen Page, the Barenaked Ladies could have faded into Canadian music folklore. But they’re back with a new album, All in Good Time, and a renewed sense of purpose. I spent an afternoon with the Ladies as they rehearsed for the their upcoming tour.

Top 10 lead singers who ditched their bands

By Tom Henheffer - Monday, November 9, 2009 at 11:21 PM - 14 Comments

The Macleans.ca Interview: Steven Page

By Nicholas Köhler - Thursday, February 26, 2009 at 4:53 PM - 23 Comments

Q: What’s this all about, you’re leaving the band?
A: It’s a 20-year career. It’s a big decision for all of us. But it came to the point where I think we all realized that we had different ideas about what we wanted to do in the future. It was a while in the works. Nobody’s taking it lightly but it’s one of those strange things where you’re kind of nostalgic in a way and also incredibly hopeful for the future.

Q: I just read the vague descriptions of what you plan to do. Can you go into any more detail?
A: I’m working on a new solo album right now. The band wants to make a new BNL record ASAP, and I realized that if I was going to jump in to do that, that’s another two-year investment, writing, recording, promo, touring. And we’ve all for so long had to juggle our whole lives, our family lives, our personal lives, and then all our side projects. And side projects became exactly that, they’re just things you do on the side and never really get the full attention that they deserve. And I kind of realized that I need to be clear about what I want to do. Doing the solo record is one thing. I’m doing music for Stratford again this year, it’s the third year I’ve done it and that’s a job I really love and wanted to be around for the rehearsal process. I did As You Like It and was really a part of that and totally loved it. A couple years ago I did Coriolanus and couldn’t be around for the rehearsal process and really felt like I missed out. And I recorded an album with a group called The Art of Time Ensemble, which still hasn’t been mixed yet, but we’ll hopefully get it out in the fall. So it’s a bunch of different stuff. On top of that I have my eyes on writing a musical and I’d frankly like to get in and do some performing, some musical theatre performing. Just, you know, spread my wings.

Q: The question obviously arises, did your trouble in the summer play any role in your departure? Was it kind of a catalyst or did your plans predate your difficulties?
A: Plans? I hadn’t planned on leaving and they hadn’t planned on having me leave. But it was always something that I had become conflicted about. And I think we’d all become conflicted about how to balance our lives with the band being kind of the number-one focus. After the summer—the biggest thing when you’ve had a huge trauma like that is you have to sit down and go, ‘Okay, what do I want from my life, what am I aiming towards and where do I see myself in five years?’ And you gotta take a good hard look at yourself that way. We all had to be completely honest and open with each other. Which in a certain way brought us closer together. I think when we realized that we weren’t all on the same page so to speak. That was when we realized we had to split.

Q: The question I had, ever since I started reporting the story that we wrote in the summer, is what happened?
A: What happened with the arrest? Continue…

Like Woodstock, but with buffets

By selley - Thursday, November 13, 2008 at 12:00 AM - 3 Comments

If history repeats itself, on the morning of Feb. 2, 2009, half a day into the third annual “Ships and Dip” music cruise, the Barenaked Ladies and several hundred of their most dedicated fans will assemble on the deck of the Norwegian Jewel for a group photo in the Caribbean sunshine. Before you ask, yes: they will all be bare naked. “My God, what an icebreaker,” says P.J. Evans, a 36-year-old Web developer from Oxford, England, who’s twice sailed with the Ladies, along with his wife and young son. And while the famously outgoing Toronto band is the only one promising full-on nudity, they’re far from alone in offering an intimate musical experience on the high seas. Sixthman, the Atlanta-based promoter that pioneered the phenomenon, has four other music cruises scheduled this winter, with headliners as diverse as classic southern rockers Lynyrd Skynyrd, singer-songwriters Lyle Lovett and Emmylou Harris, and pop-rock heartthrob John Mayer (on the appallingly named “Mayercraft Carrier”). As a musical venue, it doesn’t get much less rock and roll than a cruise ship. But in an era where fans expect far more access to their musical heroes, the cruises are proving a perfect fit for artists with devoted, affluent, thirtysomething or older fan bases. “It’s the ultimate place to host a festival,” says Andy Levine, Sixthman’s owner. Continue…

BTC: Come together

By Aaron Wherry - Monday, October 6, 2008 at 2:01 PM - 8 Comments

Let’s all parties agree here and now to support the arts.

Because if they don’t, the artists will be angry.

And if the artists are angry, there will only be more songs like this.

Let us promise now not to leave our children a world where crap protest songs are tolerated.