Toronto's Barenaked Ladies (BNL) have built their career on their quirkiness; from their on-stage banter between songs and their improvised rapping to their light-hearted, comedic performance style. They are also known for hit singles such as "Pinch Me", "One Week", "If I Had $1000000", and "Brian Wilson".
Their career started in 1988 when founding members Ed Robertson and Steven Page met and became friends after a Peter Gabriel concert. During a Bob Dylan concert that was, according to Robertson, 'lame' and 'horrible', the pair came up with the name Barenaked Ladies. They released their first recording Buck Naked as a duo, in 1989. While touring with the Canadian comedy band Corky and the Juice Pigs, Robertson and Page asked their friends, percussionist Andy Creeggan and bassist Jim Creeggan, to join them. Andy Creeggan had to leave the band shortly afterwards however, and was replaced by Tyler Stewart.
Yellow Tape was a demo tape made to send to record labels in Canada, but no labels were impressed. The band continued to sell the tape at gigs, and word quickly spread; soon people were asking local record stores for the tapes, and eventually BNL's Yellow Tape became the first indie tape to achieve platinum status in Canada.
BNL's first full-length album was Gordon (1992), which spawned the hits "If I Had $1000000" and "Brian Wilson" (named after the Beach Boys' Brian Wilson, who later covered the song). Released on Reprise Records, Gordon eventually went double platinum and confirming that BNL were rising stars. Their fifth album Stunt was their breakthrough into the US market. Stunt remains their biggest commercial success, having sold over four million records. Over their 20-year career, BNL have released nine studio albums, recorded numerous songs for compilation albums, toured extensively, and started their own record label, Desperation Records, making them one of the most successful indie bands in the world.
