After more than three decades as the lead singer and guitarist for Barenaked Ladies, Ed Robertson has a routine when it comes time to start writing songs for a new album. "I tend to get ideas while I'm driving up to my lake house," he says. "I record voice memos along the way, and then I listen back and try to make sense of them and mix and match the various ideas I've come up with. On a typical drive, I'm happy if I get six or seven-eight ideas would be a good drive.

"For this album," he continues, "on my first writing trip I had 21 different song ideas. I thought, 'Wow, this is really cool.' Then I sat down to write, and I thought if I could finish one of them-get the verses, get the bridge, get the chorus in one day-then I'll know this whole writing period is going to be good. And I finished eight songs. I sat down at 10 in the morning, and I looked up at 9:30 and I hadn't eaten, I hadn't moved from the writing table. It was exciting. I've never felt that before."

The results mark a new chapter for a band that's sold more than 15 million albums, earned Grammy nominations and won multiple Juno Awards, and in 2018, were inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame. In Flight, BNL's eighteenth studio album, retains the dry wit and keen observation we expect from Robertson, bassist Jim Creeggan, keyboardist/guitarist Kevin Hearn and drummer Tyler Stewart, but adds a strong sense of maturing and lessons learned.

"I think as I age, I get less self-conscious," says Robertson. "I had a goal to write simpler songs on this record, to not out-clever myself and be a little more direct, more emotionally present and honest. And when I listened to what I wrote, I heard what I've been talking about for the last couple of years-ruminations on gratitude, getting older, cancel culture. It was everything I've been thinking about, distilled into songs."

While BNL's last album, 2021's Detour de Force, looked closely at the perils of contemporary, alternate reality media, In Flight offers a sense of joy and appreciation, exemplified in the first single, "Lovin' Life," in which they unironically sing "We're lovin' life/We love it so much that we wanna live it twice/We're lovin' life/We take it high, we take it low/We ride that rollercoaster anywhere it goes." (Robertson wrote the song with Better Than Ezra's Kevin Griffin and Steve Aiello of Thirty Second to Mars; elsewhere on the album, he co-wrote "I Am Asking You" with Donovan Woods).

"It's very easy to get overwhelmed by the firehose of bad news that we're all pretty tuned into, and it is real," says Robertson. "But I think it's really important to remember to still be grateful. I guess I'm just trying to take in the negativity that surrounds us and learn about it and grow from it. 'Lovin' Life' is about experiencing the positivity, because that's there, too."

He points to the recording of the song "Too Old" ("You don't scare me a bit/I'm too old for this shit") as a pivot point for In Flight. "The demo had this arpeggiated acoustic guitar and it was almost melancholy," he says. "It was pretty, but It made it a little more distant from the message. When we started jamming it in pre-production, it turned into this Tom Petty-ish, guitar driven thing, it had a little bite. That was the moment where we were just letting shit happen organically and it felt great."

Even at this point in a legendary career, Barenaked Ladies were open to altering their work habits and finding ways to better serve the new songs. "Typically in the past, we've done all the guitar overdubs, then we go in and do percussion, then do all the keyboard parts," says Robertson. "With this record, we put up a song and said, 'What does it need?,' then put up the next song and finished song by  song. So it demanded everyone's attention all the time, as opposed to just concentrating on their parts or the week where they're focusing on their instrument. That kept everybody invested and involved all the way through."

Of course, a band known for hits like "One Week" and "If I Had $1,000,000" isn't going to put out an album without humor-or Canadian Content. Kevin Hearn presented the group with "See the Tower," a song telling the story of the structure that highlights the Toronto skyline. "It's got a kind of sentimental approach, in all the right ways," says Robertson. "It reminds me of a song on Sesame Street or a kid's book about the CN Tower."

Hearn contributed three more songs to In Flight, including one about local Toronto legend "The Peace Lady" and a biting fantasy about a real place in New York City, "The Dream Hotel." Jim Creeggan co-wrote two of the tracks, adding the sweet devotion of "Just Wait" and "Wake Up" (on

which he collaborated with Max Kerman of the Arkells).
Robertson is confident that the album's more thoughtful songs, like "Waning Moon" and "Fifty for a While," will play just as well on stage as the comical material. "On the last tour, the songs that I thought we wouldn't even try live ended up being real highlights of the show," he says. "We ended up doing 'Man Made Lake' every night, and it was a real anchor point. 'Live Well' was another one-the most vulnerable, personal, raw, emotional songs. And it's always been like that, we've always had 'One Week,' but the flip side is the reflective nature of 'Pinch Me,' and our audience accepts that from us."

With the song "One Night," Robertson even addresses this unique relationship BNL has with its fans. "We were trying to write something sexy that wasn't just about a steamy night between two consenting adults," he says, "but rather the magical connection that happens between a whole audience and a band. When it goes right-which it almost always does-for that 'One Night' it's a very intense connection."

Barenaked Ladies have become an institution, with a passionately dedicated audience (enough for them to headline their own cruises and have an ice cream flavor named after them) and a constant flow of new fans (plenty of whom discover the band through their theme song to the endlessly popular The Big Bang Theory). Maybe it's just the passage of time, maybe the joy of getting back on the road after the COVID lockdown, but Ed Robertson has noticed a change in his own attitude which adjusted his tone on In Flight.

"I was talking to my daughter the other day," he says, "and I told her that there would have been a me in the past that was standing on stage going, 'Okay, seven more songs and then I get on the bus and go to the next city, and then it's only six more shows before the end of the tour, when I get to go home and be with my family.' Now I find myself looking out and going 'We sold out Red Rocks-again!' I feel very connected to how lucky we are that we still get to do this.

"I think this band is the underdog success story of the century," Robertson continues. "Show me another band with a 35-year career, 15 million records sold, number one hits worldwide, and has never been on the cover of any major music publication. We're a band that has committed to being who we are and what we are, and being as good as we can be-doing the best shows we can do, writing the best songs we can write-and we've done it for 35 years. I'm super proud of that."

Guster Easy Wonderful

Pop quiz, no cheating: Name a band that, 15 years on, is operating at the absolute peak of its creative powers, making the most inspired, timeless music and playing to the largest audiences of its career? The answers don't come easily, but we have one: Guster.

Few would have predicted the evolution that Guster has undergone, but then, Adam Gardner, Ryan Miller, Brian Rosenworcel and Joe Pisapia have been quietly confounding expectations since Guster began recording 15 years ago. With their new album Easy Wonderful, the quartet has made a piece of art that rewards each listen. With the reflective opener "Architects and Engineers," the pop gem "Do You Love Me," the optimistic anthem "Bad Bad World," the wall of sound production of "What You Call Love" and the haunting ballad "Stay With Me Jesus," Guster have created the best album of their lives.

The four-year gap between their last album, 2006's Ganging Up on the Sun, and Easy Wonderful was a bit longer than the quartet had anticipated. Miller admits, "I wish that it had taken two months instead of this long, but I feel like we did everything we had to do to make a great album." Work commenced in 2008--which was a big personal year for Miller, Rosenworcel and Gardner, as they all became fathers for the first time. To accommodate their growing families, the band decided upon a different tack in songwriting. Miller says, "Rather than the way it was before where we would live together for four months, this time we would work for like a week or two, break for a couple weeks, work on stuff on our own and then come back. We worked really well that way."

When Guster started thinking about going into the studio, they decided they wanted to work with an outside producer. Gardner explains, "We did the last record ourselves. But this time we thought, 'We all now have kids, we're all going to be fragmented, we're all going to be coming in and out of this process, we need somebody who's got their eye on the prize the whole time.'" After trying out a few different people, David Kahne (The Strokes, Paul McCartney) became the clear choice. Pisapia says Kahne impressed him with his ability to get inside their new material. "His notes on the songs were so astute and so attentive. He knew every part of every song and what was special about it. He spent a fair amount of time with us in rehearsal before we even went into the studio and he'd have very specific suggestions about certain parts--even how to play them."

The recording sessions were quick and efficient, but the group didn't feel fully satisfied with the results. Gardner says they made the decision to take a break from the recording process. "We all retreated to our corners. We all had to step away from it to see what we needed to do to improve it." During this break Miller started writing a couple of new songs by himself, but found he couldn't recapture the spark that had made the band's first group of songs so compelling. Miller credits a deep and soul-searching conversation with Rosenworcel in breaking his creative logjam. Miller says, "Brian and I had a conversation and it was like, 'Right, we can do this.' And I just kind of let go of everything. I just decided I was going to write music and I didn't care what it was. And then the floodgates opened, like it never had before for me. It was really amazing." In an explosion of creativity, Miller penned six songs in a couple of weeks. The band listened to Miller's demos and were thoroughly reinvigorated by the new material.

Guster reconvened in Nashville at Pisapia's brand new Middletree Studios, which the talented multi-instrumentalist built by hand with his fiancée. He says he wanted to make a comfortable place to work where "you could take a record from A to Z." And his three bandmates agree that he succeeded in creating a work environment that brought Easy Wonderful to the next level. Gardner says, "Physically and emotionally Joe's studio was so different, we'd been in this basement studio in New York City, cramped in this space with no windows that we jokingly called 'The Dungeon.' Joe's place is totally the opposite--this stunning open-concept studio that has a great vibe. We found ourselves hanging out there even if we weren't recording. There was an immense feeling of freedom the moment we left New York and started recording in Nashville."

The quartet quickly recorded Miller's new compositions as well as tweaking a batch of songs they recorded with Kahne. The end result of the two recording sessions is what Pisapia calls "the classic Guster pop record. And that's what I always thought we should do. We had our period where we've tried on a lot of different hats and different musical costumes, which is a lot of fun. But this record feels a lot more germane to who the band really is."

Rosenworcel adds, "When I try to describe our album to people I've been saying, we really just honed in on trying to write 12 great pop songs. I think Easy Wonderful is more consistent than anything we've done."

Gardner says that the process of creating Easy Wonderful has been a turning point for Guster. "I feel like we learned a lot and came out of it as stronger players, writers and record makers. We feel more energized about our music and playing together than ever. I think we've shot past where we've been and we've made a better record than we've ever made before."

So how does an album end up being called Easy Wonderful? Miller says his family was driving through Brooklyn one day when his wife spotted a sign that said "Easy Wonderful Corporation." Miller then told his bandmates about the sign in passing one day. "We had been talking about the album title and I told the guys my wife saw that sign. And Brian immediately said, 'I like Easy Wonderful a lot.' And I was like, 'That wasn't even a suggestion!'" Gardner feels the title is appropriate for the album he's most proud of in Guster's career. "It's a really accurate description of what making the record at Joe's was like. It was our best recording process ever. I think we're in the best spot we've ever been as a band working together, and it shows on this album.

website:

http://www.guster.com/

"It was just circumstance," Tony Scalzo says of the eight-year recording gap that preceded the new Fastball album, Step Into Light. "We've always been active, and we've never really gone a year without doing a bunch of Fastball shows. But things are really picking up now, and things are rolling like crazy."

The 12-song Step Into Light, on the band's own 33 1/3 label, embodies all of the qualities that have endeared Fastball to listeners during the trio's twenty-year-plus career. Such catchy, compelling new tunes as "We're On Our Way," "Behind The Sun," "Best Friend," "Love Comes In Waves" and "I Will Never Let You Down" continue the band's longstanding legacy of infectious songcraft and pointed lyrics, as well as playfully inventive arrangements that lend additional depth and resonance to Scalzo and Miles Zuniga's distinctive songwriting.

"My favorite kind of songs," Zuniga says, "are the ones that have hope in the face of hopelessness. Songs that say 'Life sucks and everything's against me, but I'm gonna smile and survive anyway.' That's the essence of rock 'n' roll music for me, and I think there's a fair amount of that on this album."

Fastball recorded Step Into Light in its hometown of Austin, Texas, with the three bandmates co-producing with longtime friend Chris "Frenchie" Smith (Slayer, Meat Puppets, ...And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead) at Smith's studio, The Bubble. The album was mixed by legendary engineer Bob Clearmountain, who also handled mixing duties on two prior Fastball albums.

"We consciously decided to make this record in a short period of time, so we just went in and knocked it out," Zuniga explains. "I really liked working that way, and I think the fact that we recorded it in under two weeks made it a better record. We didn't have the luxury of getting too precious about things, so we gave ourselves a hard deadline and pretended it was the 1950s-the record light's on, let's do it! It also helped that we've grown a lot as musicians, so we have the ability now to get things right pretty quickly."

"We had a great time making this record," asserts Shuffield. "Working fast was really positive for us, because we had a lot of adrenaline going and there was no wasted time. A lot of the stuff we did was one or two takes of all three of us playing together in the same room. You can't really do that as a new band, but the fact that we've been together so long creates a certain unspoken communication that saves a lot of time." The resulting album extends and expands Fastball's widely-loved body of work, which encompasses such acclaimed albums as the band's 1996 debut Make Your Mama Proud, their 1998 platinum breakthrough All the Pain Money Can Buy (which spawned the Grammy-nominated Top Five hit "The Way"), 2000's The Harsh Light of Day, 2004's Keep Your Wig On and 2009's Little White Lies.

While it's a natural musical successor to the band's prior work, the self-financed, self-released Step Into Light-the first Fastball album to get a vinyl LP release-also continues Fastball's seamless evolution into a resourceful, self-contained D.I.Y. combo. "We were one of the last bands who got to go into a big studio with a major-label budget, with runners and assistant engineers and cool rented gear," Scalzo notes. "We were fortunate to have that, because it was a great learning experience and it taught us to be producers. There's a time when you're the big new thing and everyone loves you, and then there's a time when nobody's returning your phone calls. We're lucky that we survived that and came out on the other end, and we're a stronger and better band because of that."

Step Into Light demonstrates that Fastball's collective creative rapport, forged over two decades of writing, recording and touring, remains as potent as ever. "There's nothing more satisfying than being in a room with those guys and making it sound like a Fastball song," Shuffield says. "That chemistry has always been there, from the very first time we played together. Our history, and the musical journey that we've been on together-all that stuff comes out when we play together."

"The three of us all have our own individual preferences and baggage and whatnot, but there's a certain sound that comes out when the three of us play together that we can't get anywhere else," Zuniga adds. "We never have to worry about it, it's just always there, and it's been there from the beginning." "We never really blew it," Scalzo says. "We've had plenty of chances to embarrass ourselves and do some of the stupid things that bands do, but I don't think we ever have. Considering how long we've been together, that's a real achievement." Another continuing thread in Fastball's musical life is the band's loyal fan base, which has continued to support the band through thick and thin. "I'm continually amazed," Shuffield says, "that we'll play deep cuts and lesser-known songs, and people will know every single word to every song. It's extremely gratifying to know that you had that kind of effect on someone, and that the music you created resonates with them so strongly. Now it's become a generational thing; our original fans bring their kids to the shows, and then the kids become fans."

With a beloved body of work under their collective belt and Step Into Light making it clear that their musical light still burns as brightly as ever, Fastball is entering a positive and productive period that promises all manner of musical riches. "When I was younger, there were all sorts of ulterior motives for being in a band," Zuniga reflects. "It wasn't just music, it was all the vices that go with being in a rock band. But I'm not concerned with any of the other stuff anymore; I just want to make good music. I think that we're all enjoying the band more than we ever have. We're in a really good spot right now, and we just want to make as much music as we can, while we can." "We're really excited to get out there and play this new material," concludes Shuffield. "It's a blessing to have been doing this for so long and still having new music to play, and we're thrilled to be able to keep doing this."

Website:

http://www.fastballtheband.com/