What were your other goals, besides creating music kids would enjoy? Did you want kids to learn something, or just to enjoy? How important was it that adults like the music, that you like the music?

SP: For us, enjoying the music was the number one priority of the album. Lessons are difficult to make good. School House Rock did it, but it's not that often that that happens. We wanted this music to reflect the stuff our kids liked and what we liked when we were kids. Like "bad day" is just about those feelings you have when you have a bad day. We sang about food because we love to talk about, think about, and connect with food. We like to think of it more as a "family album," though, stuff that parents can enjoy with their kids.

Do your kids think you're cool? Or do even your kids think you're lame?

ER: I have all three stages. I have a 5 year old who doesn't quite get what I do. I think maybe he thinks everybody's dad is in a rock band. Then I have an 8 year old who thinks I'm the coolest thing in the world. He wants to tell everyone we pass on the street that his dad is in the Barenaked Ladies. Then I have a 12 year old daughter who wants me to drop her off outside the school and doesn't want her friends to see her with me.

Wow, so that must be pretty universal.

ER: Yeah. I'm still just her embarrassing Dad to her.

SP: My kids were nervous the kids' CD would be lame or babyish, but we brought them in to sing on it and now they love it. Plus, they saw the music videos on YouTube, so they think that's pretty cool. My kids were never really embarrassed of me, though. I don't think they see the big deal (that I'm in a band.) When my son was in kindergarten, I heard him asking the other kids "what band is your dad in?"

Are they interested in music?

ER: Yes all of my kids are very musical, actually.

So you wouldn't be horrified or scared if they said "I want to be in a band, that's what I want to do with my life."

ER: Absolutely not. It's been a great life for me. It's a difficult one and you're not always guaranteed success, but if it's something you love to do it can be its own form of success. As a parent I encourage my kids to do what makes them happy and not compromise. So many people, when they try to pursue an art education or an art- focused life, they're encouraged to do a business degree too and have something to fall back on. I really don't subscribe to that. You need to go for it whole heartedly. If you have something to fall back on, you will fall back on it. When kids say "I'm going to be a lawyer or doctor," there are no parents saying "well, make sure you do a music degree too, in case med school doesn't work out." I don't think going to med school is any easier than being a professional musician.

When did you write "If I Had a Million Dollars"?

We weren't even 19 when we wrote that.

Okay! Well how have things changed? Now that you're a dad, what would you do with a million dollars?

ER: You have to put most of it away for your kids' college fund. I have three kids in private school so that million dollars is disappearing rapidly.

SP: Yes, I put money away for college funds, plus there is that X-Box addiction. I also spend money on trips with the kids. Time together is short and we like to make the best of it.

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