Kevin Hearn is best known as the multi-instrumentalist with the Barenaked Ladies.

But when his darker side comes out, that's when things really start to get interesting.

That's when he records the edgier stuff he can't do with BNL, and puts it on a new album with his band Thin Buckle.

And frankly, his new solo recording Havana Winter, will make you wondering why he bothers going back to BNL at all.

Here on his fifth solo album with Thin Buckle (Great Bob Scott and Chris Gartner), is where the multi-talented keyboard player gets to play band-leader to giants of the New York scene -- Lou Reed, Laurie Anderson and producer Mike Rathke -- with guest vocals by Chantal Kreviazuk, Mary Margaret O'Hara and John McDermott.

It's bouncy pop, for sure, but more left of centre and with a spacier edge than the stuff he does with BNL.

"It's like Neil Young meets Pink Floyd sung by Kermit the Frog," Hearn says with amusement from his downtown Toronto condo.

"It was fun and thrilling working with Anderson, who gave me a couple of pointers about how to improve my on-stage performance. I don't crave being the frontman 100% of the time, but I do like steering the ship when it's my show."

Particularly after the year the BNL had in 2008, when lead singer Steven Page left the band after being busted for a messy coke-binge in Fayetteville, N.Y., a month before the band's other frontman Ed Robertson almost died in a plane crash.

"I thought the band was disintegrating," admits Hearn, whose had his own issues with leukemia since 1998. "I was touring with Lou and Laurie at the time, which was a thrill of a lifetime, when I heard that Steven had been arrested. After that, I found it challenging to stay positive. Up to that point the band had a clean image like The Beatles, but after that I didn't know if we could keep it together."

But Hearn and a Page-less Barenaked Ladies are gradually re-emerging from that annus horribilis. They're finishing a new record, one which features more of Hearn and bass player Jim Creeggan's musical input. BNL is planning a national tour late fall or early spring and Hearn hopes to have yet another solo album with Thin Buckle ready for 2010.

"The dark cloud hanging over us is clearing and it's more fun to play again."