Sometimes it is necessary to state the obvious.

In the case of the Barenaked Ladies, they felt the strong need to tell the world, they are, in fact, men.

So they named their soon-to-be-released CD, Barenaked Ladies Are Men (Feb. 6) to set the record straight.

While most Canadians are probably well-aware of the sex of BNL, co-frontman Steven Page says sometimes when they play gigs outside the country, people think they are going to see, well, a bunch of naked ladies.

And, he adds, the group wants to emphasize the fact they are no longer the 20-somethings who rose to fame in the early 1990s with such hits as Enid, Be My Yoko Ono and If I Had A MillionDollars.

"We knew people were going to say, 'This is a more mature album for you,' because they say that after every album.

"So this is our way of saying, 'Yeah, I guess you're right,' " says Page.

"There are lots of parts of us that are incredibly immature -- for good and for bad -- but we are seasoned songwriters and we are guys who are in our late-30s and you can't ignore that.

"I always joke we are adult in the way pornos are adult entertainment -- adult doesn't necessarily mean boring."

For the Ladies, a big part of growing up was taking their future into their own hands by starting their own label, Desperation Records.

Page says he never really agreed with the structure of the music industry, which gives record labels all the power.

"The way the music business has changed so much, it's pretty easy to get lost in the shuffle with the labels -- they don't like taking risks, whereas we are quite willing to take risks wherever we can. It's nice to be in control of your own destiny."

The mature Ladies are now touring Barenaked Ladies are Men and the recently released Barenaked Ladies Are Me, which will bring them to the Saddeldome Thursday.

Those attending can expect an ample helping of the hits sprinkled with six or seven tunes from the above mentioned discs.

"You get a taste of it, but we know people don't want to hear a bunch of songs they don't know," says Page, adding the song-list for the Calgary show is yet to be determined.

"Half of our set list is the same every night -- the hits. The other half is completely different every night, but we make a point of doing stuff off all the albums. For us it keeps it fresh by keeping the shows different."

Page says the Ladies, who this week kicked off the Canadian portion of their North American BLAM tour, are thrilled to be back home after months in the U.S. After all, this is where the band's true fans live, but, he adds, you wouldn't know it from the crowd's response at shows.

"Canadians think they are a more vocal audience than Americans because we have a long history with them, but we get out there and they are all sitting down. We have to work our (butts) off the first half of the show just to get them to stand up," says Page.

"I think some of that is people don't want to stand up and block the people behind them -- it's that Canadian politeness. It's odd. This is the only country in the world where that happens -- even in uptight places like New Zealand and Japan, people stand up."

But, Page says, there is a definite upside to playing in Canada.

"Even at the very back of the hall, people know all the songs. That doesn't happen in the U.S."