Singer/Songwriter Steven Page Explains Why Jay’s Writing Partner Was Right To Leave Him

Don't Be Alone with Jay Kogen

Steven sings some amazing songs and talks about The BareNakedLadies, Trans-Canada Highwaymen, the creative process, blowing up your life, breaking up with your partners, repairing your life, finding freedom working for yourself, being a self starter, zoom shows, Brian Wilson, Yoko Ono, band camp, and getting pelted with mac & cheese.
Bio: Over the last thirty-five years, Steven Page has established himself as one of the most recognizable and enduring voices in music. The release of his latest album, Excelsior, shows that he has no plans of slowing down anytime soon. Since its release, Steven has toured Canada, The US and the UK with The Steven Page Trio, and has performances planned well into 2024. As a co-founder, vocalist and songwriter for Barenaked Ladies, Steven sang and wrote classics like “Brian Wilson,” “If I Had A Million Dollars,” “What A Good Boy,” “It’s All Been Done” and many more. With the band, he sold over 15 Million albums and scored multiple Junos, Billboard Music Awards, SOCAN awards, Gemini Awards and two Grammy nominations. After leaving the band in 2009, Steven embarked on a solo career that has produced five solo albums, including 2022’s Excelsior, and has seen him tour worldwide, from folk festivals to cabarets and theatres, all the way to packed arenas on his recent string of dates opening for rock legends The Who. Steven performs in many configurations, from solo to full band with horn section, but, since 2016, he has been playing most often with his pals in The Steven Page Trio, Craig Northey of Vancouver legends Odds on guitar, and Kevin Fox on cello. The trio configuration provides the right amount of portability, intimacy and power to fill just about any venue imaginable. Steven has performed arrangements of some of his best-loved songs from his long career with orchestras including the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, Victoria Symphony, Symphony New Brunswick and has more symphony shows on the horizon in the next two years. A passionate mental health advocate, Steven has been in demand as a public speaker since 2011, sharing his own story with audiences across North America. In 2018, Steven was inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame with his former bandmates in Barenaked Ladies, at the Juno Awards Ceremonies in Vancouver. In 2020, when work on the musical he wrote with playwright Daniel MacIvor for Canada’s Stratford Festival, Here’s What It Takes, was interrupted by the Covid-19 pandemic, Steven began performing weekly livestream concerts over Zoom, Steven Page Live From Home. These Live From Home shows, sometimes selling 1000 tickets at a time, cultivated a tightly-knit community of music fans from all over the world, and kept them feeling connected when it was most needed. Steven continues to perform Live From Home shows on Saturdays when he’s not on the road, with the 100th episode planned for early in 2023. The Governor-General’s Performing Arts Awards approached Steven in 2021 about writing a song as a surprise tribute to his friend, Ryan Reynolds, and the result was “Canada Loves You Back,” a song as poignant, humourous and Canadian as the actor it honours. Steven is a frequent collaborator with Toronto’s Art of Time Ensemble, made up of some of Canada’s best classical, jazz and pop musicians. With them, he released an album of covers, A Singer Must Die, in 2009, and also appears on their Sgt. Pepper and Songs of Leonard Cohen albums. Along with Chris Murphy (Sloan), Moe Berg (The Pursuit of Happiness), and Craig Northey (Odds), Steven makes up a quarter of The Trans-Canada Highwaymen, four lead singers of classic Canadian bands, whose first album of Canadian covers is set to be released in the fall of 2023.