GARY GRAFF
SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH NEWS
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arenaked Ladies would never claim to
be the biggest band on the planet, but
you'll hear a couple of songs on the ra-
dio.
Their biggest hit, however, has be-
come a messy proposition. The song is
called "If I Had S1000000," a typical-
ly twisted love song in which singer-guitarists Steven
Page and Ed Robertson muse on what they'd do if
they hit the jackpot — "I'd buy you some art, a Pi-
casso or a Garfunkel."
Aal-i, but fame won't spoil them; they'll still eat
Kraft dinners, they declare. And that's the signal
for their audiences to shower the stage, Rocky Hor-
ror Picture Show style, with as much macaroni and
cheese as they can smuggle into the shows.
"They used to just throw full boxes, still closed,"
says Page, 25. "Now, people have started throw-
ing actual noodles, which leads to some pretty se-
vere lacerations. The worst is when they open the
cheese packets — that's something I would suggest
no one do."
Still, Page finds some advantages in the ritual.
"I'll usually have a little bit during the show," he
says. "It's crunchy, like cereal."
Ultimately, a macaroni noodle — even an un-
cooked one — is a small price to pay for fame. The
end of the year finds Barenaked Ladies, who are ac-
tually four (usually) fully clothed guys from Toron-
to, at something of a crossroads. The group staked
its reputation as something of a novelty act, blend-
ing witty, irreverent lyrics with catchy melodies for
songs such as If I Had $1000000" and "Be My Yoko
Ono."
That led to a debut album, Gor-
Barenaked Ladies:
don, that sold almost a million
Prospective poster
copies. But the group took a more
boys for Kraft
serious musical route on 1994's
macaroni and
cheese.
"Maybe You Should Drive,"
spawning another radio hit in "Al-
ternative Girlfriend," but not selling nearly as many
copies.
The humor wins out on their next album, Born
on a Pirate Ship, which is due out in March.
Barenaked Ladies has been together since the
late 1980s; Robertson and Page, a "Reform but quite
observant Jew" raised in suburban Toronto, went
to high school together but didn't become friends
until they both attended the same music camp in
Perry Sound, Ont. "He was always walking around
with his guitar, singing," Page remembers. "We end-
ed up singing together, just for fun."
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