Barenaked Ladies singer-keyboardist Kevin Hearn not only has played in Lou Reed's backing band, but Reed plays on Hearn's fifth solo album, Havana Winter. "Believe me, I was kicking myself...," Hearn says. "I got to work with my hero." (Stan Behal, Sun Media)

Barenaked Ladies singer-keyboardist Kevin Hearn sometimes can't believe he has Lou Reed playing on his fifth solo album, Havana Winter (named after Hearn's five-year-old daughter), which was released in the summer.

"I know it's weird -- we're friends," said a smiling Hearn, seated in his downtown Toronto loft recently.

It helped that Hearn also has a steady side gig as a part of Lou Reed's backing band.

"Believe me, I was kicking myself," said Hearn, who -- at the time of this interview -- was just about to join Reed in rehearsals in New York for his Lollapalooza gig in front of 60,000 people in Chicago.

"But it all makes sense in a weird way. It's just so strange. I always loved his work. Walk On the Wild side changed my life when I heard it when I was nine years old. I'd never heard anything like it. He sort of hired a Lou Reed expert to be in his band. So I feel I'm suitable for the position."

To backtrack, Hearn and Reed met on the phone a decade ago through the head of their mutual record label. After Hearn went into the hospital in 1999 for a bone-marrow transplant, he got an e-mail from Reed while recovering at home in an incredibly weakened state. (Hearn's initial two-a-week trips to the hospital now stand at two-a-year.)

"It said, 'Hi Kevin, it's Lou. I hope you get back to your music soon.' And it was so sweet. He didn't really know me. And he took time out of his busy day and life to send me that. That gave me the energy to get back to my music. That was the first day I was able to walk down the stairs."

Eventually they would meet in person in New York where Reed was handed a copy of one of Hearn's previous solo albums and he and his longtime band members -- bassist Fernando Saunders and guitarist Mike Rathke -- became fans.

"Whenever I was in New York, they'd come to the show, not Lou, but Mike and Fernando, and Mike said, 'Hey, when you make your next record, I'd love to play on it.' "

And so Hearn eventually flew Rathke up to Toronto to play on Havana Winter.

"Mike went back after that session and I guess he was talking to Lou and said he had a great time and Lou invited me down shortly after to audition for him," Hearn said.

All of which led to Reed playing on Hearn's album and a blossoming friendship.

"I've done a couple of tours with Lou, and Lou recommended I work with (his partner) Laurie (Anderson), so I've done a tour with Laurie.

"A lot of the last couple of years in Barenaked Ladies-land has been publicized as being an awful year for the band with arrests and crashes.

"But for me personally, it was one of the best years of my life. I got to work with my hero."

Hearn and Page come together, right now

Singer-keyboardist Kevin Hearn will reunite on the weekend with his former Barenaked Ladies bandmate Steven Page, who left the group earlier this year.

Both men will take part in an all-star Abbey Road 40th anniversary celebration on Saturday and Sunday with the Art Of Time Ensemble at the Enwave Theatre in Toronto.

Hearn and Page will sing You Never Give Me Your Money together while performing a number of other Beatles' classics from the album either on their own or with others -- plus the AOT Ensemble players.

"Well, we don't hang out at the pub every night -- but each of us have our own different thing," Hearn said of Page.

"I still consider Steve a friend."

Page left the group after he was arrested last year in New York state for cocaine possession. A few months later, co-frontman Ed Robertson crashed his plane.

"It's been tough -- not the studio part -- just making those tough decisions to make big changes, and to move forward or not move forward," Hearn said.

"I mean, it goes beyond the four or five of us. It goes to our crew, it goes to our families. It affects a lot of people.

"And for 20 years, we sort of had a routine, we had an act. We had all these songs. It wasn't very difficult for us to function and adapt to different environments. But it was sort of starting to be forced and not fun anymore. And although it's sad that it had to come to an end the way it did, it's also exciting in a way because four of us enjoy making music together.

"And we went to the studio and had to re-invent things a little bit."

Hearn has been in the studio with the remaining Barenaked Ladies since May working on their new album, which has been mixed, with no release date yet.

"It's inevitably different but it's still the four of us," Hearn said of the new album's sound.

"So it's like new Coke," he added with a laugh.