Barenaked Ladies Poised To Conquer U.K.

By KAREN BLISS, Jam! Music, November 13th, 1998.

Canadian pop group Barenaked Ladies, whose Stunt album has sold over 1.67 million copies in the U.S. and whose single, "One Week", rocketed to No. 1 on multiple radio formats, will tackle Europe and the U.K. next.

The band will wrap up its current American tour in late November, do the odd promotional concert between Christmas and New Year's, before heading off to Europe in the third week of January for a slew of press and publicity.

The Ladies are already booked on the Beautiful South tour, opening on the group's arena tour in the U.K. from April 13 to May 3, including two nights at London's Wembley Arena.

According to Nettwerk Management's Pierre Tremblay, the Ladies will approach the European/U.K. market the same way it has the American. "Play as much as you can, get in front of as many people as you can and covert fans or make fans," says Tremblay.

"We've seen that from the sales sparks we've had when the guys have done something on TV. TV works really well for them, so we're trying to get as many TV shows for them as possible."

He says, the Ladies laid a fan base in the U.K. many years back with Gordon, but Stunt won't be released there until the guys are in the market to support it.

Other territories, like Holland and Germany, have gone ahead with it. "The countries, who have released the album or have released the single, have had a really favorable response," says Tremblay.

"In Germany, it was released the first week of September and the single is charted; the video is in heavy rotation on MTV Europe. So different markets have different strategies. But by February, everybody will have released the record in Europe."