Barenaked Ladies: Revealing Facts : Canadians, Appearing at Rhythm Cafe, Blend Solid Musicianship, Offbeat Humor

Bob Dylan has been an inspiration to multitudes of musicians, but it’s doubtful any of them were inspired in quite the way Canadian pop-rockers Steven Page and Ed Robertson were at a Dylan concert in 1988.

“It was terrible,” Page said. “So boring that we sat there and talked about all these fake bands we’d like to be in, and started coming up with dumb names for them. I don’t know which of us said ‘Barenaked Ladies,’ but we laughed our heads off. It’s something we’d say when we were 9 or 10 years old, a phrase we’d forgotten, so it was charming when it popped back up.”

Page and Robertson had gone to school together in the Toronto suburb of Scarborough, and formed an acoustic pop duo around the time of that Dylan show. When they landed a club gig, and the management wanted to know what name to advertise, they gave the one they had cackled over during the Dylan concert.

Now, “Barenaked Ladies” is no longer just a silly, naughty phrase remembered from pre-pubescent days--it’s the hottest new band on the Canadian pop scene.

“Gordon,” Barenaked Ladies’ debut album, has sold more than 300,000 copies in Canada since its release in July--and in Canada, 100,000 copies gets you a platinum record. Now the band is touring the United States with its Sire/Reprise label-mate, Englishman John Wesley Harding, including a show Sunday at the Rhythm Cafe.

Fans in the 50 states haven’t taken as quickly as Canadians to Barenaked Ladies’ blend of solid musicianship, sharp harmonies, offbeat humor full of allusions to pop music figures, and wistful songs about the emotional upheavals of post-adolescence. Speaking over the phone from Tucson recently, Page, the lead singer, lamented that a scheduled show there that evening had been canceled.

“I think it’s (because of) bad ticket sales,” he said, matter-of-factly. “I feel very unwanted today.”

Page, 22, said he assuaged his sense of rejection at a record store. “I bought a whole pile of CDs. I finally got the new Leonard Cohen, the new Sundays, a Lambert, Hendricks and Ross CD and ‘The Best of War.’ War is good van-ride music.”

The diverse range of Page’s CD haul is telling: the folk-introspection of a Cohen; the clean, catchy Brit-pop of bands like the Sundays; jazzy harmonies akin to Lambert, Hendricks and Ross, and the funk element of War all find their way into Barenaked Ladies’ stylistic wardrobe.

“It does (reflect) our music--all over the map,” said Page, whose big, boxy build, glasses and goatee make him look like alternative rock’s answer to Burl Ives.

Opening for Throwing Muses at Bogart’s earlier this year, Barenaked Ladies’ set included fervent, sensitive tunes like “What a Good Boy,” in which Page’s singing recalls the wounded sincerity of a Tracy Chapman, and “Brian Wilson,” a melancholic’s lament delivered in a Morrissey-like croon.

But Barenaked Ladies’ overriding impulse on stage that night was to have fun, and as the band proceeded through a set that included a humorous but quite able version of Public Enemy’s “Fight the Power” and a closing spoof/homage to hip-hop dancing and human beat box routines, its comic energy proved infectious.

Page, 22, hooked up with Robertson while both were working at a music-oriented summer camp shortly after their graduation from high school.

“We’d met in fifth grade, but we weren’t really friends until I’d graduated,” Page said. “At the summer camp, he was always walking around with his guitar,” and the two began singing and writing songs together. “The singing was a diversion. We never anticipated it would be a band. We just started writing songs to amuse ourselves.”

But soon, the two-man Barenaked Ladies found itself touring Canada as the opening act for a comedy troupe. For a special Christmas show, Page and Robertson recruited upright bassist Jim Creeggan and his piano-playing brother, Andy, whom they had known from the music camp.

“We went, ‘Jeez, I guess we’re a band or something,’ ” Page said. The expanded Barenaked Ladies were buskers at a carnival when they found drummer Tyler Stewart, who at 25 is the oldest band member. They began touring Canada and building a following with an independent cassette of five of their songs.

By late 1991, the band had become sufficiently popular to be invited by a Toronto television station to perform at the city’s annual New Year’s Eve celebration in front of City Hall. In a roundabout way, it cemented the band’s fame in Canada.

“The City Council said they didn’t want a band named Barenaked Ladies to play. They thought our name objectified women,” even though there is no sexist content in Barenaked Ladies’ songs or album packaging.

The band lost the gig but reaped a publicity bonanza.

“It was on the front page of the Toronto Star,” Page said. “In Canada, it became an excuse to discuss the issue of political correctness. It got us so much press, we sold 20,000 cassettes that month, and went gold (50,000 copies sold) two weeks later. It was the first independent (release) to go gold or Top 20 in Canada.” The cassette’s success was keyed by a jaunty, funny love song called “Be My Yoko Ono.”

That song appears on “Gordon,” along with several others that allude to pop icons. Yoko, who has had kind words for the song, appears as an emblem of true love. Brian Wilson’s sad history is invoked as a symbol of isolation and artistic collapse. “New Kid (On the Block)” is a backhanded but somewhat sympathetic portrayal of Donny Wahlberg, the bad-boy teen idol from New Kids on the Block. “Box Set” takes a satiric whack at a creatively washed-up classic-rock purveyor willing to sacrifice all integrity in order to cling to fleeting fame.

There’s a risk that the band’s silly name, its profusion of comical pop-culture references, and its wry, anti-star look could get it pegged as a novelty act, despite the obvious substance in plaintive songs like “Brian Wilson” and “What a Good Boy.”

Page thinks Barenaked Ladies’ more serious intentions manage to surface, despite the antics.

“The choice of singles and videos has always pointed toward the wacky side of the band, and obviously the album graphics don’t lend themselves to the more introspective side of the band. But I’m by no means embarrassed by the goofy stuff that goes on. It’s as important as any other part of the band. But once people hear it . . . most of the people who write us letters really do get it. They get the sense of humor, and at the same time there’s a song like ‘Brian Wilson’ or ‘What a Good Boy’ that they point out has reached them in some way. Now, the songs all of us are writing have much less to do with pop culture. The other guys’ songs are more personal. I think my writing’s a little darker.”

Barenaked Ladies will stay on the lighter side as it tries to widen its appeal in the United States with a video, “If I Had $1,000,000.” After the current, five-week U.S. club swing with Harding, Barenaked Ladies will head to England, then spend 3 1/2 months touring Canada.

“I don’t have my hopes set too high” for a U.S. repeat of the band’s Canadian success, Page said. “Maybe if I had better hair, and a flannel shirt,” he said, in a joking allusion to the uniform of trendy hard-rockers from the celebrated Seattle scene.

“It is a great comfort to know we’re doing well at home and can make a living. But the music isn’t just for Canadians. We know that when we play, people enjoy the stuff.”

John Wesley Harding, Barenaked Ladies and Mare Winningham play Sunday at 8 p.m. at Rhythm Cafe, 3503 S. Harbor Blvd., Santa Ana. Tickets: $16 in advance, $17.50 at the door. Information: (714) 556-2233.