The CultureMap Interview

Onto a different Page: Barenaked Ladies open up on band changes

The Barenaked Ladies are all about the 4 now.
Steven Page is out and the band's moved on.

In marriage or band membership, often times it's what is not said that speaks most about a divorce. Such is the case with a very amicable Canadian rock band.

Barenaked Ladies is in Houston for the first time Wednesday night as a quartet, playing the Verizon Wireless Theater.

In February of last year it was announced that guitarist/singer-songwriter Steven Page — arguably the most well-known member of Barenaked Ladies (BNL) and the voice behind past hit singles "One Week" and "It's All Been Done," — was leaving the band by mutual agreement. Both Page and the band made the announcement at the same time and niceties like "for 20 years the relationship has been fruitful" and "All agree it's time to move on" were volleyed about with great diplomacy.

The finest of spin doctors couldn't have produced a more professional and less dramatic separation between lifelong band brothers.

With time and more space to talk, however, some of the latent, simmering frustration that must have been building behind the scenes started to seep to the surface in fragments. Put all the pieces together and a second picture starts to unfold.

In retrospect, one of the first red flags was waved a year before Page left the band. After eight albums and 15 years of rock that saw BNL play its way out of Ontario, Canada and onto an international stage with well over 10 million albums sold, the band decided to briefly abandon lucrative rock radio to make the children's album, Snacktime!

Apparently Page was not completely on board with this project.

"...It wasn't my idea. I was along for the ride," Page was quoted as saying to the Ottawa Citizen last year about Snacktime! (although, curiously, he is credited with writing one-third of the tracks). A drug arrest two months after the album's release probably did nothing to help endear Page to his bandmates or the kiddies and parents who might be buying the album.

Other bombs started to burst after the split as it appeared Page thought — very incorrectly — that his departure might signal the end of Barenaked Ladies all-together. Apparently the remaining members — guitarist/vocalist Ed Robertson, multi-instrumentalist/vocalist Kevin Hearn, bassist Jim Creeggan and drummer Tyler Stewart — had a different plans that included the creation of the just released first post-Page BNL album, All In Good Time.

Earlier this year Page told the Toronto Star that he thought it was weird that the band didn't change its name when he left and that they continue to perform songs that he wrote. He went on to say that he has no plans to rejoin the band in the future.

Even now, with BNL in Houston, the remaining band members mixed feelings toward Page can be heard both in what is said ... and what isn't.

"The changes were necessary which is difficult to admit," Hearn tells CultureMap. "But a lot of the feedback we've been getting after concert is that this is the best we've ever sounded live."

The multi-faceted BNL does have one advantage over bands that depend solely on one member for lead vocals. With the exception of drummer Stewart, all the other members of the band write and sing songs on every album. With Page gone, it was simply a matter of reinventing the songwriting formula and redistributing the duties among the remaining members for the making of All In Good Time.

"I'm working a lot harder now," says Hearn who wrote three songs for the album. "I feel more present. Physically on stage, Steve used to stand in front of me. Now I'm front and center."

Hearn has some new duties, but it's Robertson who has been asked to truly take center stage in place of Page, both as a songwriter and a singer. In addition to writing over half of All In Good Time, including the first two singles, "You Run Away"and "Every Subway Car," he's also taken over the vocals on many past favorites and hit singles.

"If Chris Martin left Coldplay it might be difficult for them to carry on," Hearn says. "But for (BNL), we all had a voice and have all worked very hard on this over the years to carry on.

"Bottom line is we're having fun again."

That "again" being the key as to why BNL is now a quarter, not a quintet.

Movie Review

Fun final act isn't enough to make Clayface DC's next great movie

Tom Rhys Harries and Naomi Ackie in Clayface

Photo by Parisa Taghizadeh

Tom Rhys Harries and Naomi Ackie are patient and doctor in Clayface.

The history of DC Comics in movies has been hit-and-miss, especially when it comes to anything not directly involving Batman or Superman. Over the years, films have been headlined by heroes like Catwoman, Green Lantern, Aquaman, Shazam, the Flash, and more, and while some succeeded, none left a lasting mark on moviegoers’ imaginations.

Much like they did with Joker, the powers-that-be behind DC Studios productions are trying to entice viewers with a no-holds-barred story in Clayface. Matt Hagen (Tom Rhys Harries) is an A-list movie actor with both critical and commercial appeal. Unfortunately, a night of celebration for his recent Oscar nomination leads to him sleeping with Theresa (Ruby Sear), the girlfriend of Markos Szabo (David Dencik), a prominent mobster in Gotham City. Markos then enacts revenge by taking a razor to Matt’s face.

Desperate to find a way to look like his old self again, Matt seeks out Dr. Caitlyn Corr (Naomi Ackie), who’s conducting cutting-edge nanotechnology research that can heal any kind of damage. While the solution works on Matt, it also has the side effect of his body doing unintended things, even morphing into those with whom he comes into contact. After initially struggling with his new body, Matt decides to use his powers to enact revenge on those who’ve done him wrong.

Directed by James Watkins (Speak No Evil) and written by Mike Flanagan (The Life of Chuck) and Hossein Amini, the film is only intermittently entertaining as it tries to sell its ridiculous premise. Right from the start, it seems like the filmmakers have been given a limited budget, as everything from the sets to the CGI to the stilted dialogue feels cheap. For a film coming from a major studio, the whole thing comes off as schlocky and undercooked.

Watkins and his team try to make up for that shoddiness by delivering R-rated thrills like nudity and body horror, but those elements can only distract for so long. Much of the film is spent dealing with Matt’s trauma, and the downbeat nature of his body issues combined with very little action makes the movie not very fun to watch. The film also tries to make hay with more than a doctor-patient bond between Caitlyn — who has a boyfriend on the police force — and Matt, but like the most of the film, it never connects.

It’s not until the final third of the movie that the filmmakers land on the tone they should have been using the whole time. Matt’s ability to transform himself, while illogical and confounding, provides multiple over-the-top, funny moments and some legitimately creative kills. Instead of taking forever to set up Matt/Clayface’s origin story, Watkins and his team should have just cut to the chase and let him loose to see what the character could truly do.

This is the first big role for Welsh actor Harries, and while he’s not exactly magnetic, he proves himself worthy of the lead role. Ackie is also fine, but after several years of trying to advance up the Hollywood ladder, she may be running out of time to show she’s a star. The supporting cast has a couple of familiar faces, but it’s mostly lesser-known actors who do nothing to indicate they deserve bigger showcases.

It’s difficult to imagine any non-DC Comics fans having a strong attachment to the character of Clayface, and the film fails to make the case that he should be a continuing character. The poor quality of almost everything that appears on screen is indicative of the kind of effort and money that was put into the film, and sometimes you really do get what you pay for.

---

Clayface opens in theaters on October 23.

movies film clayface

Loading...