Our Lady Peace

Several years in the making, the creation of Healthy In Paranoid Times—Our Lady Peace’s sixth studio album–was at once invigorating and at other moments nearly tore the band apart. The 13 songs OLP eventually assembled for the album are some of their strongest, most infectious and most poignant to date.

“When you’re a brand new band, there’s a tingly sort of feeling you get when you play a song that you just wrote,” explains frontman Raine Maida. “With this album, we kept working until we got that feeling from every song.”

Unlike their methodology on previous albums, the process consisted of multiple lengthy writing sessions and time off in between to reflect on the new material. The band pieced together and recorded a full 45 songs before they had the right tracks for the final cut. The paring down process was incredibly frustrating, testing the band’s faith, confidence and resolve. There were many heated debates and nearly everyone threatened to quit.

“I remember Raine once stormed out and walked up a hill and I thought that was it for him,” says bassist Duncan Coutts. “We were having an impromptu discussion about our future on the side of a canyon in Malibu overlooking a cliff. It was kind of metaphoric. Is the band going to fall over the cliff? Is the band going to keep going?”

“I fired [producer] Bob Rock at one point and I think he quit at another,” Maida says. “It was a very emotional process because we were fighting to not compromise our artistic vision and bring as much artistry as possible back into our music.”

Ultimately, the group’s patience pays off. Walking in Circles evolves from a simple, stabbing beat and an encircling pattern of guitar lines to an urgent and explosive climax. Then there’s Boy which combines trickling guitars and buoyant bass with earthy vocals, and peaks with the kind of a mighty galvanic riff that unites nations. And the opening track Will the Future Blame Us—with lyrics inspired by the state of the world and its wars–starts with a driving, ringing rhythm that drops down for the verse before blossoming into an exultant chorus.

For Maida, the intensity of making Healthy in Paranoid Times was equaled by his activities during downtime from recording. As an active member of the charity War Child, Maida has traveled to Iraq, Darfur and Sudan over the past three years to help film documentaries about the poverty, suffering and pride of these third world regions. “Those trips have defined my life even more so than my music,” he said. “And you can’t help but let that stuff seep into the lyrics and even the sensibilities you’re trying to get out of the songwriting and the emotion we’re trying to get out of the music.”

The first single, Where Are You, addresses the search for spirituality in a sea of corruption. “After spending some time in the Middle East and Africa, I came back and saw just how powerful the religious right wing of North America is,” Maida says. “I thought it was a culture shock going over to these places, but the real culture shock was coming back home.”

Now a decade into their recorded career, Our Lady Peace have reached a new creative and conceptual peak with Healthy in Paranoid Times: from challenging themselves with new writing/recording techniques and redefining the goals of the band, to addressing global issues of consumerism and capitalism head-on.

“This record is a perfect representation of our personalities and our perspectives on things at the current moment,” says drummer Jeremy Taggart.

Add Maida: “This is the real Our Lady Peace. It’s the four of us making music together and an honest reflection of the seed of everything we planted 10 years ago.”

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Our Lady Peace has been one busy band in the brief 14 months between the release of ‘Happiness… Is Not A Fish That You Can Catch’ and their new disc, ‘Spiritual Machines.’ In that short period OLP kicked off two national tours of Canada; played extensive U.S. and European gigs; made appearances at events including the MuchMusic Video Awards and the Junos; participated in webchats with fans; worked on various side projects and – perhaps most importantly – found time for a little extracurricular reading. In fact, the array of events and experiences the guys packed in go a long way in explaining the creative spark that fuels ‘Spiritual Machines.’

The album title is taken from Ray Kurzweil’s book, ‘The Age of Spiritual Machines – When Computers Exceed Human Intelligence.’ While on the road, Mike stumbled upon the piece and quickly became inspired by Kurzweil’s potent words. The book describes a world where the line between humanity and technology fades, and the computer ultimately becomes our teacher, companion and lover in a blur of man meets machine.

The energy Mike derived from reading Ray Kurzweil’s work led to Raine ’s eventual investigation of the book. Since then, both Jeremy and Duncan have been absorbing Kurzweil’s ideas through their bandmate’s fascination with the book. Kurzweil’s impact is not only evident in the title of Our Lady Peace’s new album, but also with the band’s work itself.

“Lyrically, this album is about finding the spirituality within ourselves,” explains Raine. The lyrics he brought to this new record draw upon many of Ray Kurzweil’s theories and hint at the blurring distinction between humans and computers. “The lyrics for the track ‘In Repair’ focus upon how people tend to treat each other as machines in our day-to-day life. We really need to take stock and focus our energy towards those in our lives that matter. Sometimes it seems as if we need an oil change,” concedes Raine.

Mike explains his initial interest in Kurzweil “set the mental framework among us as a band for the recording of this album.” To even further this Kurzweil connection, the band personally contacted Ray and a correspondence developed. After these initial communications, Kurzweil agreed to appear on the album to contribute some of his own readings.

Listening to ‘Spiritual Machines,’ it’s obvious that Ray Kurzweil’s ideas lit a creative spark within Our Lady Peace. This album is the unmistakable product of a band on fire. The passion and ideas behind this album will take fans from Happiness…, into the future and beyond.

They’ve always been very kind to me and now they’ve given me the pleasure of telling you the way I’ve seen them evolve since we first meet on a cold winter morning in 1994. They hired me for some pictures in which I had to take off my shirt (I assured them I was no Charles Atlas!) I had to stand in a field in below freezing temperatures, with pigeons all over me. I think that they were surprised that I agreed to take my shirt off. Well I wasn’t going to let a little cold, or pigeon droppings have me run away like a child. I never gave up not even five years later when I had to wear a crazy ninety-pound divers suit ina heat wave during a photo shoot.

They seem to be quite serious about their work. The boys began performing concerts after their release in ’94, playing close to 500 hundred shows in the two years following. My grandchildren have told me of some tours they played, the only name I could recall were the Led Zeppelins, oh and that irate young woman, with the messy hair and that commercial when she’s driving the car and she’s also in all the other seats. They seem to have built up enough steam to gain a lot of fans; it became quite strange when I would be shopping at the mall, and young people would tell me that they knew me! They would say “hey, you’re that guy”, or “hey, nice nipple ring”!

In addition to photos, the band asked me to be in a few TV commercials and one of their music videos. It was called “The Birdman.” Yet again, they had me strutting around with no shirt and posing with pigeons! I really took a liking to each of them; they have such strong personal charm.

They all went to a cabin north of Toronto to write their second record in the winter of 1996, they told me about the solitude of the frozen lake and their strange encounters with ghosts that sometimes lasted for hours. I believe that is when they all started to question what happens to everyone when we die. I’ve tried to calm them down with my theories but they always think about the dark side of the coin. I suppose that’s one of the few things that really effects them, always searching for that answer. But I guess the only answer is that this world is finished when we are.

The boys called me up when they were done recording the second album, to shoot the cover. This time all they wanted me to do was hang by my teeth on a trapeze bar, no problem! They quickly began playing everywhere for about two years. The more I went out the more kids would yell out to me, “HEY, HOW DID YOU HANG LIKE THAT?” or, “NICE SUIT!” I have to admit all these kids have been so kind to me. I began thinking to myself, perhaps I should listen to their music a little closer. I realized that hey! – these boys have the right idea; this music they’re making may not be for everyone but I’m 78 and I think it’s tops!

97-98 seemed to pan out well for the boys winning Juno awards and MuchMusic trophies. I believe they also found some great success in the American youth. I started writing down the names of the bands they boys played with; Everclear, Third Eye Blind and The Rolling Stones were just a couple that I recorded.

I had such a great time posing as Superman – or should I say “Super Sol” for video footage that was used on their North American tour, in the early months of ’98. Once again, I adorned the trapeze outfit with a cape this time, and recited the poem they were named after. It’s a poem written by Mark Van Doren titled “Our Lady Peace.” After all of that touring (straight through to August ’98), they didn’t even take a break. The boys started writing music together two weeks after getting home.

It was wonderful to hear from them again, this past June (1999). They called for me to go to New York and shoot the third cover. This involved a massive heat wave, and walking around in a suit on a beach. I then had to get into a divers suit that weighed almost a hundred pounds, and pace up and down the camera view. I can’t wait until they give my next assignment; these boys make me feel 28 years old again.

They told me about two fresh faces they had in the studio to get some inspiration. The first is a young man by the name of Jamie Edwards from Boston. He’s a jack of all trades if you will, quite the musician. The other fresh face is almost as fresh as I am. Elvin Jones, the legendary jazz drummer, a 74-year-old genius! He was a huge part of John Coltrane’s sound in the 50’s. Jeremy told me that this was a dream come true for him and now they’ve become great friends.

Once more we discussed the great and terrible things that have happened in each of our lives, since the last time we all talked. We discussed loss and what happens when we stop happening. It seems with this record, the search continues for these boys. We concluded that; happiness is not a fish that you can catch.

Thank you for reading my perspective on these young boys and their career thus far. They have been such great fellows with me and it has been my pleasure to inform you on what I have seen.