Food is providing the bridge back to pop stardom for Steven Page. The musician is on the phone to talk about The Illegal Eater, his hip new travel and food show on the national channel Travel + Escape, in which the former Barenaked Lady explores different cities’ buzzy underground food scenes.
The guy’s always been a nut about food, hitting restaurants with vigour at each tour stop of his world-famous band and seeking out the underground food scene in cities across the globe. But c’mon, it’s Steven Page!
The last time many people heard from him was 2009 after he was arrested in Syracuse on a cocaine-related drug charge, which was subsequently reduced to a misdemeanour then dropped.
He has released a number of solo albums in addition to working with Toronto-based Art of Time Ensemble, but nothing seems to have resonated with audiences the way BNL did.
Now, however, the 43-year-old has once again found his groove, returning to the spotlight.
Food may be the fuel behind Page’s comeback, but before we can launch into his new TV program, it’s our civic duty to find out what’s up with one of Canada’s most beloved bands.
“We don’t talk,” Page says of his former bandmates, Ed Robertson, Tyler Stewart and Kevin Hearn. “I don’t think it’s uncordial — we only wish good things for each other — but we’re not pals. It’s like what you’d find at the end of a long marriage: there’s mutual respect there and the sting might be gone, but now we’ve lived a bunch of years apart from each other. We’re split. And we’re pretty happy about where things are.”
Page, one of the founders of Barenaked Ladies, which came to life in 1988, is known for a lot of things — some good, some bad — but he undoubtedly ranks as one of Canada’s iconic musicians. After all, his band not only filled the gap between Justin Bieber and Rush, reintroducing the Canadian sound to American audiences, but he helped spawn interest in a little channel called MuchMusic in the process.
All of which makes both the tabloid headlines and the ensuing discussion of his bipolar disorder so hard to stomach.
Where did our wacky novelty singer-songwriter disappear to? And who’s the dark, tortured artist who took his place?
Today, what Page is banking on, and what his producers at Travel + Escape seem to sense, is that audiences are ready to get their friend back: the busker. The rapper. The ham.
“I’ve always been a big food person, as you’ve seen in my fluctuating weight over the past 25 years,” says Page, whose show tracks the artist on underground food missions in cities such as Toronto, L.A. and Chicago. Meeting chefs and exploring restaurants, tasting far-out, exotic cuisine and dining with a who’s who of culinary experts, Page is now competing with Gordon Ramsay. He says he’s hungry for new ideas.
“The idea of being able to put together a show based on what I’ve been doing already for so many years — investigating the food culture of different cities — seemed like a nice way to celebrate what I’ve learned and what I love.”
Page’s first love, of course, has always been music, and most of us know him for feel-good ear worms like “One Week” and “If I Had $1,000,000.” But Page says that, during the years he spent on the tour bus, both as a rock star and as a struggling musician, he’d always seek out interesting food choices.
Now, with pop-up restaurants, food trucks and underground dining becoming the foodie’s preferred meal of choice — not to mention the influx of celebrity chefs — Page thinks the culture at large has caught up with his tastes.
“I got into sites like Chowhound, but it seems a little bland now, and you end up with reader polls where [places like] McDonald’s win best hamburger. Part of the fun of the show is meeting people on the ground in the city,” says Page.
“We talk to a chef somewhere, and he says, ‘This is where you want to go!’ In terms of food culture, the excitement is there.”
The show is jammed with food like an overstuffed bowl of ramen. Whether Page is in Los Angeles with his buddy Jason Priestley tasting Indian food or rummaging across South Carolina in pursuit of “guerilla cuisine,” (which, we can assure you, is not hamburger patties made from gorillas), the program practically comes equipped with exotic tastes.
Page is a polygamist when it comes to eating, devouring meats and fish and vegetables at an equally feverish rate.
In one episode, Page is on the hunt for balut (a.k.a. fertilized duck embryo) in New Orleans.
In another, he’s at an underground seafood broil in Brooklyn. Each episode is a foodie’s travel paradise, and what brings all of the amazing dishes together — the pop-up restaurants and the bacon, the rock star chefs and Chinese-Venezuelan food — beyond the curious recipes and exotic locales, is the tone of the program. And that’s what’s so quintessentially Page.
The funny thing about Page — perhaps the thing that first made us fall in love with his band — is how funny he is.
Unfortunately, because his last few years have been crowded with serious discussion and the dissolution of his group, Page knows that his fans have had to re-address him.
However, he insinuates he’s still that same goofy guy you saw singing on Speakers’ Corner. And he’s happy to use his travel show to remind audiences he’s still the same nerd you love.
“The show’s full of laughs and that’s a big part of me — I know people might have wondered if that was gone. It’s not! I mean, I hope that’s refreshing. I think people are sick of hearing about the tragic side,” says Page, who has addressed his bipolar disorder in the past and says he wanted to be part of the mental health discussion but that he doesn’t want his health to continue being the defining part of his life (or career).
“I feel like I can pull off this TV show and that it’s a nice way of not having to make it about any more of the scandalous, troublesome parts of my life. I’m having a great time travelling and growing. I’m loving life.”
Now, Page is older, wiser, a bit bruised, and dusting off the remains of his long-broken relationship with his BNL brethren. But he’s back on his feet, and he’s hungry.
This is the first step on what he perceives to be a long, and fruitful, comeback tour.
“I wonder if this is my third act of a Shakespeare play or, better, my third act in a movie. I’m just glad it’s no longer a bit where I die this painful death,” says Page.
“The only way that I’d die now is if I was attacked by a blowfish.”
The Illegal Eater premieres Oct. 22 at 9 p.m. on Travel + Escape
