Andy Creeggan has no regrets over leaving his brother Jim's band, the Barenaked Ladies.

 Andy left the Ladies to further his education in music, and the singer/guitarist/pianist is absolutely loving his time studying classical composition at McGill University in Montreal.

 Besides, Jim is also in Andy's band, the Brothers Creeggan.

 "I'm just enthralled by the musical education process," says Andy Creeggan over the phone from Jim's Toronto home. "I just try to take in as much as I can, and when it comes to writing music for me, I try to create a synthesis of everything I'm influenced by, from Bartok to Gavin Bryars."

 Still, the younger Creeggan (Jim's 29, Andy's 28) says the Brothers Creeggan project affords him the perfect opportunity to get out of "theory land."

 Brought up in a musical household in which their mother taught piano and their father played by ear, the Creeggans have always played music together, from high school band through garage bands to the Barenaked Ladies. They produced their first Brothers Creeggan album in 1993, while both were still in Barenaked Ladies, with the second album coming the year after Andy left the group to enrol in McGill.

 While a third Brothers Creeggan project was put on hold as Jim rode the wave BNL created with its worldwide smash Stunt album, Andy says both brothers are pleased to be on tour in support of a new recording, the just-released Trunks.

 "Jim said the other day he finally realized he was on vacation, and I've taken a semester off from school to concentrate on this project and to get into another headspace entirely."

 Though the music of Brothers Creeggan is softer and deliberately less pop-oriented than that of BNL, relying more on gentle swing than driving beats and clever wordplay, Creeggan says the band's sound is the perfect fusion of his and Jim's musical interests (the touring trio is rounded out by drummer Ian McLauchlan).

 "We get a real cross-section of people who come to the shows as well. There are some hardcore Barenaked Ladies fans who are into all the side things that we do, there are some friends of ours, and there are some honest-to-goodness Brothers Creeggan fans also.

 "Of course, there are some BNL fans who walk in and you can see them sort of furrow their brows ... but hopefully they get something out of it."