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Speaker 1: Look a podcast playground.

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Speaker 2: I'm Buzzsnight, the host of Taking a Walk Music History

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Speaker 2: on foot. Today, our guest is the Grammy winning founder

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Speaker 2: of Bare Naked Ladies. He's bringing his wit and wisdom

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Speaker 2: to City Winery in Boston on May second. You know

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Speaker 2: his classic songs like Brian Wilson, If I had a

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Speaker 2: million dollars, what a good Boy, It's all been done,

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Speaker 2: and so many more. With the band, he sold over

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Speaker 2: fifteen million albums. His voice is one of the most

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Speaker 2: enduring voices of our generation. We'll talk with Stephen Page

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Speaker 2: next on Taking a Walk.

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Speaker 3: Well, Stephen, thanks for being on Taking a Walk. Do

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Speaker 3: you recall how you got hooked on music?

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Speaker 4: Well, you know, there was always music in my house

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Speaker 4: growing up. My parents listened to a lot of music.

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Speaker 4: My dad was actually a drummer, kind of a jazz

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Speaker 4: drummer he grew up being but it played, you know,

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Speaker 4: played in a wedding band, that kind of thing, you know,

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Speaker 4: occasionally New Year's Eve, those kinds of shows when I

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Speaker 4: was a kid, and so I would always you know,

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Speaker 4: i'd hear him practicing, his drums would be set up.

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Speaker 4: But I think the thing that really made me want

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Speaker 4: to like make music was. I mean, I was obsessed

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Speaker 4: with the Beatles as a kid who wasn't in a

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Speaker 4: lot of ways. But I remember once listening to I

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Speaker 4: think it was Paperback Writer, and I had one of

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Speaker 4: those you know, those little tape recorders, portable tape recorders

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Speaker 4: before the before the walkman with the single earphone that

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Speaker 4: would go into the headphone jack, and the earphone came

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Speaker 4: slightly unplugged, and the signal I guess, went out of phase,

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Speaker 4: and all of a sudden, I could hear like the

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Speaker 4: bass guitar by itself, and I realized that that kind

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Speaker 4: of mass of music that I was hearing they just

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Speaker 4: this kind of like I didn't know what it was.

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Speaker 4: I knew I loved the sound of it, but I

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Speaker 4: didn't realize I could identify individual people playing individual parts.

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Speaker 4: And all of a sudden, I could do that, and

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Speaker 4: I went, oh, oh, that's what I want to do.

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Speaker 4: I want to make one of those parts that goes

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Speaker 4: into this kind of mysterious mass of music.

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Speaker 2: And do you remember the first time you performed in

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Speaker 2: front of an audience.

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Speaker 4: Well, I was in the school musical of Wizard of

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Speaker 4: Oz when I was seven, and I have no recollection

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Speaker 4: of it. My dad says that he remembers watching me,

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Speaker 4: so you know, it was just whatever, one of the whatever,

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Speaker 4: the Lollipop League or something like that.

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Speaker 1: But I remember my dad saying that.

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Speaker 4: When I walked on stage, I was a very shy

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Speaker 4: and really quiet kid, and all of a sudden going

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Speaker 4: on stage and watching my face kind of light up

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Speaker 4: and kind of become this different person. I think he

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Speaker 4: felt like then that was the thing that that showed

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Speaker 4: him I was as meant for the stage.

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Speaker 2: Well, besides your dad and the Beatles who you mentioned,

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Speaker 2: who were some of those other early inspirations.

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Speaker 1: Well, you know, chorl singing.

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Speaker 4: I sang in a choir all the way through high school,

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Speaker 4: this kind of all city choir of one hundred students

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Speaker 4: from Scarborough, Ontario, where I grew up, and it was,

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Speaker 4: you know, certainly not the coolest thing to be part of,

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Speaker 4: you know, not the kind of thing I'd go to

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Speaker 4: school the next day and tell my friends about. But

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Speaker 4: for those three hours of rehearsal every Wednesday afternoon, it

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Speaker 4: was the most amazing sensation.

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Speaker 1: To be.

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Speaker 4: Singing with these other people and making this noise that

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Speaker 4: is you can't make by yourself. You know, you can't

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Speaker 4: just do this thing by yourself. All of a sudden,

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Speaker 4: your voices are combining and you're stressing, and you're striving

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Speaker 4: for something that is beautiful, and maybe you can't as

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Speaker 4: a teenager, express that desire to make something beautiful, So

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Speaker 4: then you just do it. And because I wasn't a

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Speaker 4: sports kid, right Like, I didn't play sports, I didn't

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Speaker 4: really follow sports, so I didn't have any idea what

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Speaker 4: it was like to be on a team trying to

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Speaker 4: make something great and be excellent, and singing in a

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Speaker 4: choir did that for me, so that was a big thing.

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Speaker 4: But also I became kind of addicted to collecting music

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Speaker 4: by the time I was maybe fifteen, where I had

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Speaker 4: started to understand that, like buying a new album could

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Speaker 4: provide me with a whole set of new feelings or

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Speaker 4: a place to go if I wanted to feel a

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Speaker 4: certain way, if I wanted to either be comforted, or

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Speaker 4: if I wanted to enhance the feeling that I had,

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Speaker 4: or if I wanted to obliterate a feeling that I had,

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Speaker 4: I could put on a different album. And so I

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Speaker 4: would just spend time buying albums. I remember my mom

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Speaker 4: yelling at me for spending all my money on records.

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Speaker 4: Sarted buying cassettes because they'd fit in my coat pocket,

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Speaker 4: and then she wouldn't know I'd be coming home with records.

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Speaker 4: So that time when I was, you know, fifteen sixteen,

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Speaker 4: and I was buying, whether it was just anything I

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Speaker 4: could find in the in the in the cutout bins,

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Speaker 4: like where the where the deleted end of run records

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Speaker 4: were that were two ninety nine, and it could be

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Speaker 4: The Talking Heads, or it could be Dexi's Midnight Runners,

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Speaker 4: or it could be Japan. I would just become completely

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Speaker 4: obsessed with that stuff.

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Speaker 2: And what was your first concert that you went to?

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Speaker 4: Because my parents were musical and I actually actually ran

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Speaker 4: a folk festival, the Mariposa Folk Festival in Toronto when

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Speaker 4: I was really young, I would go to that. But

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Speaker 4: I guess the first concert that I went to without

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Speaker 4: my parents would have been Queen at Maple Leaf Gardens

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Speaker 4: nineteen eighty one.

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Speaker 1: I think I have goosebumps.

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Speaker 2: How amazing was it?

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Speaker 1: It was great?

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Speaker 4: It was amazing, Yeah, it was it was. It was

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Speaker 4: kind of mind blowing just knowing that I was in

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Speaker 4: the same room as those guys and those are records

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Speaker 4: that I really had gotten to know so well, but

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Speaker 4: you know, the shows that really kind of like really

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Speaker 4: changed the way I looked. I remember being a little

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Speaker 4: bit younger, my parents taking my brother and I to

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Speaker 4: go see Harry Chapin, and the way he talked to

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Speaker 4: that audience and connected with them to me had such

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Speaker 4: a huge influence and impact. And then later when I

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Speaker 4: was a teenager going to see artists like well, Billy

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Speaker 4: Bragg would be a great example another person who was

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Speaker 4: like socially conscious, a great sense of humor, at a

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Speaker 4: real sense of connection to that evening's audience. He would

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Speaker 4: always he'd be in Toronto and he'd be talking about

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Speaker 4: Toronto politics or something and think, how does this guy

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Speaker 4: from England know about what's going on here? But that

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Speaker 4: really affected me, and I think it really influenced how

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Speaker 4: I relate to audiences even to this day.

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Speaker 3: So besides musicians who taught you uh and influenced you

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Speaker 3: on storytelling, who else shaped you in terms of your storytelling?

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Speaker 4: You know, I think they're there. There are certain there's

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Speaker 4: certainly people in comedy that I admire. Comedians who can

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Speaker 4: make you feel more than just kind of like just

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Speaker 4: more than just cheap laughs. I mean I love a

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Speaker 4: good cheap laugh, Don't get me wrong. I mean I

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Speaker 4: love I love slapstick and I like a good bit

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Speaker 4: of cheap comedy. But I think people who really make

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Speaker 4: you think connect. So whether that's Richard Pryor or or

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Speaker 4: somebody like, uh, another songwriter, but would be would be

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Speaker 4: Randy Newman where there's a sense of kind of comedy

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Speaker 4: and uh storytelling that is has multiple to pull layers,

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Speaker 4: I guess, And that's that's always been a big, a

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Speaker 4: big thing for me.

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Speaker 2: So Boston is a very special place for you. Can

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Speaker 2: you talk about what Boston means to you as you'll

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Speaker 2: be coming to City Winery?

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Speaker 1: Yeah, sure, I mean we used to.

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Speaker 4: When I was in the Barnaked Ladies, I mean we

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Speaker 4: played Boston so many times, and the Boston area I remember,

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Speaker 4: you know, playing at the Berkeley School of Music and

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Speaker 4: the Somerville Theater and.

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Speaker 1: Like, you know, smaller places even.

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Speaker 4: Before, like Paradise Rock Club and stuff in the early days,

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Speaker 4: and then just slowly but surely through the mid to

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Speaker 4: late nineties, it just kept kind of growing and growing

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Speaker 4: in a way that was outsize to the rest of

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Speaker 4: the United States, where every time we'd come back to

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Speaker 4: the Boston area would play a bigger and bigger place.

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Speaker 4: I remember playing at what I don't know is it's

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Speaker 4: still called Harbor Lights. It's not still called Harbor Lights.

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Speaker 1: Is it. Yeah, it's got to have it's got to have.

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Speaker 4: Some dot com whatever it is now Crypto Crypto likes.

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Speaker 1: But you know, I remember.

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Speaker 4: Playing down there and kind of like feeling that it

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Speaker 4: was just on the on the verge of something huge,

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Speaker 4: Like you just feel this excitement in the audience. There

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Speaker 4: was always this great connection, just a sense of, uh,

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Speaker 4: something really special every time we played there. I mean

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Speaker 4: we we did have We had a record company guy

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Speaker 4: Andrew Gavazzos, who worked for for Repris our record company,

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Speaker 4: who worked harder and better than just about anybody else

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Speaker 4: I knew, And I mean we just loved him so

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Speaker 4: much and he loved us, and we would kind of

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Speaker 4: do anything for each other. So we had this kind

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Speaker 4: of like sense anytime we came through town that we

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Speaker 4: were going to do something amazing. So then when when

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Speaker 4: Stunt came out in nineteen ninety eight, our album Stunt,

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Speaker 4: I remember we were in New York City playing I

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Speaker 4: think it was the Today show that morning, and we

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Speaker 4: had a record really in Boston that day. It was

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Speaker 4: the day the album came out, and we were going

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Speaker 4: to come up. It was originally supposed to be at

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Speaker 4: Newbury Comics, and then they said, well, let's do it

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Speaker 4: somewhere bigger because it's gonna be a bigger a bigger audience,

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Speaker 4: so we'll do it at City Hall Plaza. And so we, uh,

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Speaker 4: we decided, okay, that's fine, we'll do this at City

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Speaker 4: Hall Plaza. We get in the bus in New York

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Speaker 4: City in the morning and drive up and as we're

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Speaker 4: pulling into Boston, the traffic is ridiculous, like there's just

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Speaker 4: it's at a standstill, and we're like, what's going on?

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Speaker 4: Why is this so insane? And they, Andrew Gravatzo's turned

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Speaker 4: to us and said, you're what's going on? Everybody was

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Speaker 4: heading into City Hall Plaza and we go and set

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Speaker 4: up there, and we were set up essentially for what

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Speaker 4: would have been like an in store performance, what we

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Speaker 4: would normally the collection of instruments we would bring into

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Speaker 4: a record store to play. We set up in front

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Speaker 4: of what ended up being like thirty five thousand people

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Speaker 4: people in the parking garages all around us, on the rooftops,

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Speaker 4: in every window, and we stayed, we played, and it was,

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Speaker 4: you know, the biggest audience we'd ever played for. And

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Speaker 4: we stayed and signed autographs until late that night, probably

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Speaker 4: nine or ten that night. We signed autographs until the

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Speaker 4: last person was signed for and that kind of that

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Speaker 4: kind of sealed the deal for the special relationship with Boston.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and you were like practically almost like the house

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Speaker 2: band for a while with.

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Speaker 5: WBMX, right, Yeah, but you know they were there were

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Speaker 5: multiple radio stations that were I mean, that was one

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Speaker 5: thing was quite often there'd be an artist that like

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Speaker 5: only one station would play, and there are multiple stations,

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Speaker 5: The River, et cetera that played us in Boston.

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Speaker 1: All at the same time.

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Speaker 4: We had this great, great relationship we were lucky to

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Speaker 4: have that were kind of across the board.

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Speaker 2: And it's still a great relationship to this to this day.

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Speaker 2: It still means a lot. So can you describe the

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Speaker 2: joy of performing after you know, COVID and just coming

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Speaker 2: back to life. How special is it for an artist?

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Speaker 4: It's really I mean, in the summer of twenty twenty one,

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Speaker 4: when things started to open up the first time, it

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Speaker 4: was like it was the most kind of moving and

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Speaker 4: weird thing. Remember my first show back was in New

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Speaker 4: Jersey and it was in a park. It was a

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Speaker 4: free show in a park, and you know, thousands of

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Speaker 4: people showed up for this thing, and it poured rain

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Speaker 4: so bad that they had to turn the PA off

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Speaker 4: because I think we're going to start, you know, blowing up.

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Speaker 4: So I did this show completely acoustic in the pouring

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Speaker 4: rain for this audience who just stuck around, and we

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Speaker 4: were so hungry for live music. I think now what

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Speaker 4: happened in the in the year and a half since

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Speaker 4: then is that everybody in the world went out to

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Speaker 4: try to make up all the dates that they missed

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Speaker 4: during COVID, and that became The competition out there is

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Speaker 4: so strong that it's really hard to tell whether a

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Speaker 4: show is going to like either be wildly sold out

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Speaker 4: or completely empty. It's it's really unpredictable out there right now,

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Speaker 4: and I don't I don't know the full explanation.

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Speaker 1: I think people have a lot of choice right now, and.

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Speaker 4: They're trying to figure out how to spend their concert dollars.

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Speaker 4: So if they decide they're coming to spend it on me,

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Speaker 4: it seems like everybody else is coming to spend it

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Speaker 4: on me.

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Speaker 1: If they're coming to.

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Speaker 4: See something else through their town, then you know that

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Speaker 4: I might be the one who suffers.

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Speaker 2: So talk about your current bandmates who are they, and

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Speaker 2: talk about the art of collaborating.

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Speaker 4: Sure, I travel with the Stephen Page Trio, which is myself,

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Speaker 4: Craig Northy on guitar. Some people may know him from

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Speaker 4: his his own band, The Odds, who are one of

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Speaker 4: the great Canadian rock and roll bands, and he's just

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Speaker 4: a fantastic songwriter on his own, but he also does

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Speaker 4: some writing with me. And then I have Kevin Fox

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Speaker 4: playing cello. I've known both these guys for over twenty years,

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Speaker 4: both Canadian guys who've just I've always really admired, and

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Speaker 4: we've played together as a trio now for I guess

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Speaker 4: about eight years, and I can't imagine any other way.

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Speaker 4: We become really close friends and just you know, we

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Speaker 4: have that kind of sixth sense that really good collaborators

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Speaker 4: end up developing where you don't have to say what

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Speaker 4: you want or need most of the time you can

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Speaker 4: really predict the other person's movements and not in a

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Speaker 4: way that feels like that they are hackneyed, but just

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Speaker 4: in a sense that like we're just really tuned into

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Speaker 4: each other's I guess I'm gonna say vibrations. Yep, I

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Speaker 4: just said it, vibrations.

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Speaker 2: It's okay to say it. So what's your writing process?

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Speaker 2: Do you write every day?

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Speaker 4: I don't every day. I think I should write every day,

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Speaker 4: but then I don't. Then I go, then I have.

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Speaker 1: A See.

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Speaker 4: I'm actually surrounded by about four different notebooks right now

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Speaker 4: with bits of little songs, and then I'm writing things

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Speaker 4: into my notes app and my phone, and then I'm

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Speaker 4: writing stuff into my pages app on my computer. So

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Speaker 4: I have like scraps of stuff everywhere and voice memos,

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Speaker 4: and then it's the matter of getting back to them

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Speaker 4: and kind of finishing songs. That's the part. I'm not

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Speaker 4: good at starting songs. I'm very good at finishing them.

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Speaker 4: It takes a little bit more concentration and dedication. For instance,

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Speaker 4: I'm working on a new record right now, a follow

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Speaker 4: up to The Vanity Project, which is a record I

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Speaker 4: did with the English singer songwriter Stephen Duffy. I did

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Speaker 4: that about twenty years ago and we're doing a follow

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Speaker 4: up now. And I know I have some lyrics to finish,

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Speaker 4: and every day I get to the studio and think,

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Speaker 4: let's finish those lyrics, and then I find something else

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Speaker 4: to do, so it'll get done. It'll all get done.

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Speaker 4: You know, sometimes you really have to force yourself.

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Speaker 2: So in closing, can you just describe how special music

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Speaker 2: is and why it's so important to us?

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Speaker 4: Well, music, even if it doesn't have lyrics. I mean,

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Speaker 4: music is a way for all of us to express

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Speaker 4: the things we can't express on our own.

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Speaker 1: You know.

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Speaker 4: I think when I'm writing a song, it's a gift.

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Speaker 4: I try and make it a gift to somebody out there,

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Speaker 4: somebody that I don't know and may never know, who

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Speaker 4: doesn't even know they need that song to help them

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Speaker 4: process how they're feeling about something. Because the greatest pieces

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Speaker 4: of music for me have taken me by surprise when

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Speaker 4: I think I didn't think anybody else had thought about that,

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Speaker 4: or even just instrumentally, it takes you to another place.

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Speaker 4: And like I was saying earlier, it's a matter of

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Speaker 4: like does it comfort you or does it enhance a

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Speaker 4: good feeling? Or does it help you concentrate on why

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Speaker 4: you're feeling a certain way, or does it help you

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Speaker 4: cover up the bad feelings like those are all valuable things,

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Speaker 4: and music, more than I think just about any other

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Speaker 4: art form, has that power.

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Speaker 2: Well, I can't wait for everyone to see you May

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Speaker 2: second at City Winery Boston is a special place for you,

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Speaker 2: Steven Page, and thank you for the joy and the

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Speaker 2: music that you continue to give us.

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Speaker 1: My pleasure. Great to talk to you.

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Speaker 3: Taking a Walk with Buzznight is available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts,

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Speaker 3: or wherever you get your podcasts.