And the Hi there and welcome to Soja Jaker on Songwriting, episode 234.

I'm Brian, accompanied as always by Simon, and joining us today is a brilliant and prolific

singer-songwriter and musician, best known as a founding member, principal songwriter, and co-lead

vocalist of Bear Naked Ladies, the band with which he spent over two decades.

As this episode reaches you in late summer 2022, he's about to play some long-awaited UK shows and he's putting the finishing

touches to his sixth solo album Excelsior which is due out soon. We got to hear a couple

of tracks from it in advance and we were not the least bit surprised to discover they were very very good

We're chuffed to welcome the marvelous Stephen Page to the show

Our guest was born in Scarborough, Ontario in 1970.

He took piano lessons as a child and also sang in a Toronto youth choir

and along with future friend and bandmate Ed Robertson was enrolled in a program for

gifted students at Churchill Heights Public School. However, the Robertson was Gabriel concert and got chatting. It turned out that Ed was familiar with some of Stephen's

self-pened songs from a band he'd formed with their mutual friend Jeff Pounceet called

Scary Movie Breakfast. Stephen and Ed soon forged not only a friendship but a musical partnership of their own

and in 1988 launched Bear Naked Ladies.

Legend has it they came up with the name while goofing around at a Bob Dylan concert?

Yeah, I think they had lousy seats or something, didn't they?

Yeah, they couldn't really see or hear much of the gig, so they spent most of it making a list of potential band names.

Always a fun way to pass the time.

Oh yeah. Initially an acoustic duo they

independently released several cassettes over the next couple of years but it was

1991's five-track EP the so-called yellow tape that's ultimately won them the attention of the majors.

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