Barenaked Ladies’ Ed Robertson Reveals the Band’s Secret to Success

Barenaked Ladies’ Ed Robertson has a simple explanation for the band’s successful 35-year career: “I think the secret recipe is giving a s–t,” he tells Billboard’s Behind the Setlist podcast. 

Of course, there’s more to Barenaked Ladies than that. The Canadian four-piece has earned a reputation for crafting witty, offbeat and melodic music with such songs as “One Week” and “If I Had $1,000,000.” And humor, too — that definitely comes across in both the music and the conversation with Robertson. But there’s a reason the band still plays to packed amphitheaters and arenas throughout North America three and a half decades after its first performance — “a fundraiser for a local food bank,” according to Robertson. 

“I think every show we’ve ever done, the audience has never questioned that we want to be there, that we know where we are, that we know who we’re playing for and that the show isn’t going to be like the night before and it’s not going to be like the next day,” says Robertson. “There’s so much spontaneity and improv in the show. I know the songs are going to be great, you know? We’re a good band. We’ve played together for a long time. We’ve rehearsed a lot. Every soundcheck every day is a 90-minute rehearsal where we work on anything that we think needs work.”

Putting on a great live show has given the band license to play with their shows’ set lists. Last summer, says Robertson, the band played eight songs from its 14th studio album, In Flight, that was released Sept. 15 on Raisin’ Records. As long as the band plays the songs people want to hear most — including “If I Had $1,000,000,” “The Old Apartment,” “It’s All Been Done,” “Theme From Big Bang Theory” and “Pinch Me” — the audience is receptive of newer material. 

“My countryman [musician] Kim Mitchell always used to say what he does is rock n’ roll and customer service,” Robertson says with a chuckle. “I believe firmly that you owe your audience a certain number of the songs they came expecting to hear. Now, I think we’re also really lucky because we have a really good relationship with our hits. There’s nothing that was a hit for the band that we were reluctant about, or it wasn’t a song written by somebody else that was forced upon us by the record company. So we have, we have decades of songs that were popular that we still really like. So it’s really easy for us to build a setlist and go, ‘You know what, if we give them these 10 songs, we can kind of do anything.’

“And we also remind ourselves that this band broke in America playing two-hour shows where people knew no songs,” he continues. “We just had a strong enough live show, and a good enough understanding of how to entertain people, that I think we can get away with a lot.”

Listen to the entire interview with Robertson on Behind the Setlist at the player below, or go to Spotify, Apple Podcasts, iHeart or Amazon Music. 

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