Barenakes Ladies’ Ed Robertson Names ‘Prototypical BNL Song’

2013-11-12

Story by Anne Erickson

Barenakes Ladies frontman Ed Robertson names the song that sums up the BNL

Barenaked Ladies recently released their eleventh studio album, “Grinning Streak,” and — albeit difficult to believe — the release marks the band’s 25th year together. Looking back at Barenaked Ladies’ entire catalog since the beginning is a daunting task, but frontman Ed Robertson says that if he had to pick one song to sum up the band’s entire career, that would be 2000’s “Pinch Me.”

“If I was going to pick up a guitar in rural France where people don’t know my music, career, nothing, and they said, ‘Here, play us one of our songs,’ I would probably play ‘Pinch Me,’” Robertson said. “I think it’s indicative of some things that are unique about the band. I think it’s kind of a prototypical Barenaked Ladies song.”

Fast-forward to today, and Robertson says he couldn’t be happier with the results of “Grinning Streak.” After all, the album packs humor and a natural chemistry– what more could you ask from a Barenaked Ladies collection?

“The record is full of energy and spontaneity and I just don’t want to work any other way from now on,” he said. “We just hit record and played. In the past, we did 10 and 15 takes of songs, and this time, we were doing one or two takes, and Gavin (Brown, producer) was like, ‘That’s deadly! We’re done! Next song!’ So, we were doing two or three songs a day, whereas normally, we’d be happy to get one song done in a day, so it was a pretty great process.”

(Photo by Anne Erickson.)




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