- Steven Page with Craig Northey, Centennial Theatre, tonight at 7: 30 p.m. Tickets $30/$27. For more details www. centennialtheatre.com.
STEVEN Page and Craig Northey are at it again.
Ever since Page, the former lead singer of the Barenaked Ladies, met Northey in Vancouver more than 15 years ago, the two have been friends and sometime collaborators.
"He's great," Page says. "I've known him since 1993."
Tonight Page and Northey will be playing in North Vancouver at the Centennial Theatre as part of a month-long Western Canada tour. Page says fans can expect to hear songs from his solo career, Northey's career as well as stuff from the Barenaked Ladies.
"We have a lot in common musically," Page says. "He's a prince. I can't say enough good things about Craig."
The tour will see the pair make stops throughout British Columbia and Alberta including Victoria, Calgary, Edmonton, Golden, Kelowna and Quadra Island.
Northey, an avid hockey fan, is looking forward to the upcoming western swing and expects a wide range of conversations during their trip.
"Steven and I haven't really talked about hockey," Northey says. "So I will destroy him by talking about it a lot when the two of us are on the road together. We sort of get down to business on other topics, we love comedy as well and we spend some time on YouTube together showing each other things we have discovered."
"We have spent a lot of time driving together so it will be fun," he adds.
Since leaving the Barenaked Ladies in 2009 Page has continued his career as a solo artist. A year later he released his solo first album titled Page One. Northey cowrote two song's on the disc, "Leave Her Alone" and "A New Shore." While Page has had some success, he admits there are challenges to being a solo artist.
"It's certainly a challenge . . . How do you make a sustainable living? Not being 22 anymore I am not as keen to spend all my time sleeping on people's floors and piled in the backs of vans," he says. "I still want to get out and play for people and I still want to get out music when I can."
On Jan. 17, Page released two singles, "A Different Sort of Solitude" and "Manchild." The first track was produced specifically for the Canadian film French Immersion. The same day the song was officially released it received a Genie nomination for Best Original Song.
"I heard that the nominations were coming up and I had my fingers crossed," Page says. "Any kind of recognition that you get for the work you do is kind of a nice bonus."
He says the song did not receive much media publicity because the song was for French Immersion.
"Manchild" was co-written with Northey and the North Vancouver musician says writing with Page is always an enjoyable experience.
"That was probably one of the funniest times," Northey says. "Everything leads to a diversion or a joke and that one particularly led to a lot."
"A lot of men who listen to "Manchild" can understand where it is coming from."
When Page was 15 years old, he wrote a letter to Stephen Duffy, former member of Duran Duran and The Lilac Time. To Page's surprise he received the first of many letters from Duffy.
"I don't even think he knows why he wrote back," Page says. "He just knew there was some kind of connection."
Eventually Duffy and Page became very close friends and began co-writing for each other. Duffy co-wrote a handful of songs on the Barenaked Ladies album Maybe You Should Drive including "Jane" and "Alternative Girlfriend."
"(Duffy) was really encouraging to me when I was starting out writing songs and making music," he says. "He has taught me so much about the craft and the discipline of writing songs."
"He became my best friend really," Page adds. "I am lucky to have it."
With the advent of social media tools such as Twitter, Youtube, and Facebook the music industry has changed since Page's days with BNL. Since becoming a solo artist he has set up accounts on various social media sites.
"One of the great boons to the success of Barenaked Ladies in the early days was word of mouth," Page says. "Some of the bigger fish tend to complain that it (social media) dilutes the field a bit. So what, at the end of the day I think it's great that people have the opportunity to find more music than they ever did before."
In the past Page has admitted he's suffered from mental health issues and says he is very lucky to have family and friends support him.
"It's challenging for anybody who has to grapple with mental health issues," he says. "I think that the arts, as demanding and as stressful as they can be, are also a little more forgiving."
In 2002 Page was an advocate for In the Skin of a Lion by Michael Ondaatje, on the very first panel of CBC's Canada Reads. The book went on to win the contest. Five years later, Page was part of an all-star lineup on Canada Reads that included the previous winning advocates from the last four years. He advocated for David Bezmozgis' book, Natasha and Other Stories, which finished second to Lullabies for Little Criminals.
"It was a great experience to be able to debate with some pretty heavy minds and learn about some other great new books," he says. "It is pretty amazing how the series has taken off."
On Aug. 27, 2011, Page performed a cover of Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah" at Jack Layton's funeral in Toronto.
"Jack's funeral was a really heavy time for anyone who knew him and loved him . . . I was just focused on doing the best job I could at the time," Page says. "Looking back, I am incredibly honoured that he and his family had me in their plans. They could have chosen from a lot of different people."
