Behold the Canadian celebrity.
No ... not that guy.
The one beside him. The one who looks like a Co-op bag boy.
Yeah, him, he's a Canadian celebrity.
And make no mistake, in this country it's always celebrity with a lowercase 'c'.
Or, as Barenaked Ladies member Ed Robertson jokingly puts it: "Being a celebrity in Canada is like a dress rehearsal for being a celebrity in the U.S. -- you deal with all the same things, just on a slightly smaller scale."
He should know.
Since its inception almost a decade and a half ago, the Toronto pop act has gone from indie act, to national success story, to international superstars, making them more than qualified to tackle the subject on Celebrity, the bouncy first song from their latest release, Everything to Everyone, which hits stores today.
But below the surface of that track is a more serious tone -- something that's present throughout much of the album and reflects the time in which the material was written.
While Everything to Everyone was recorded with the band holed up in a studio in the U.S., the songs, for the most part, were written by Robertson and partner Steven Page at the beginning of the year as they sat in Canada and looked down at what was transpiring below.
In a sense, because they're Canadian celebrities, they were allowed to be impartial observers. Ultimately, though, being international stars, they also had a stake in things.
"It was a really strange time to write a record," he says.
"It was weird coming to a point in a song and going, 'Aw, geez. I don't know what to do. I don't know where to go with this verse' and turning on the TV and there's Colin Powell at the UN delivering his 'smoking gun.' And just sitting there and looking at Steve and saying, 'Does that look like a smoking gun to you or does that look like a pop gun ... with the smoking man lurking in the background?'
"Add to that the polls on CNN at the time trying to vilify Susan Sarandon and anybody who spoke out against the administration or the country -- (they were) vilified and made to look like a buffoon.
"There was all this, 'Do you listen to celebrities? Eighty percent of people say they don't care what celebrities think. They only care what they eat, watch, drive, wear ...'
"So we spent a lot of time staring at each other and going 'Do people care what we think? What do people want from us if they don't want our opinion?'
NEW PERSPECTIVE
"It was just a weird time and I think it forced us to examine ourselves and what we were saying a little closer.
"That's part of Everything to Everyone, where that idea came from."
What the band is saying may have changed, but how they're saying it hasn't.
Check for example, the upbeat party song Shopping, which Robertson jokingly refers to as the Barenaked Ladies "gay anthem," but which also cloaks a more serious message and commentary.
"There's an undercurrent of wryness that I think is great about it," Robertson says of Shopping, which also features the three original members of Blue Man Group.
"The lyric stems from Bush's post-9/11 encouragement of people to just go shopping because that will fix everything! This has nothing to do with foreign policy or the fact that the economy is in the gutter -- just get out there and shop!
"But most of all it's just a really crazy, fun song."
Of course, craziness aside, making your opinions -- political or other -- known is one thing, backing those beliefs up is entirely another -- something the Barenaked Ladies have happily used their celebrity to do over the past several years.
The band is one of the most active -- in Canada or anywhere -- when it comes to lending its name, time and money to charities and causes it believes in.
Be it the fact they've donated all proceeds from Toronto shows since '98 to various causes, or that they've appeared at concerts for everything from cancer research to Music Without Borders, or even that Robertson produced and offered to fund the solo disc by songwriter Jason Plumb, BNL look at it as one of the most welcome by-product's of fame.
"It's a great part of the many great things about our good fortune and success-- when we lend a hand to something, it tends to make a difference ...," Robertson says
"It's a great and extremely soul-cleansing thing."
And as for the less philanthropic aspects of celebrity (i.e. indulgence), well, let's just say comedian Harland Williams, BNL member Kevin Hearn's cousin, has called the group the worst millionaires he's ever seen.
Robertson's description of a recent road trip to Vegas illustrates that fact, as he and his companions had a difficult time parting with more than $100 at the blackjack tables.
Why?
"You can take the boys out of the blue collar but not the blue collar out of the boys -- it's that simple," he laughs.
"We're Canadian superstars through and through."
