They've gone gold in Canada, but the four members of Our Lady Peace don't expect to make it big in the U.S. overnight

Here's a stumper for you. What Canadian musical act has played shows in the past year with the Ramones, Page and Plant, and Ned's Atomic Dustbin? OK, let's get the usual suspects out of the way. Bryan Adams? Nope. Celine Dion? Unh, unh. The Tragically Hip? Not even close.

No, the band that may be Canada's first alternative rock band to make significant inroads into the American market -- Nova Scotians Sloan and Jsle are still out of the commercial loop -- is none other than Our Lady Peace. Already a bona fide hit in the Great White North, where its debut album, Naveed, has gone good, the band has started a slow, protracted attack on the lower 48, developing a grass-roots following that -- they hope -- will eventually carry them to the next level.

"Right now it seems like we've been selling out 500 seat clubs in about 10 or 15 markets in the U.S.," says lyricist and vocalist Raine Maida. "If we can play a great show, that's all we expect to do on this tour. Even if we left today it seems like there's a small following to remember us next time around."

Maida is fairly rooted in the philosophy that if it's meant to be, success will happen -- but that doesn't mean it has to happen overnight; signed to Sony Music Canada, Our Lady Peace chose Relativity Records, an independent label with international distribution, for its U.S. debut.

"We were talking to Epic and Columbia, but Relativity was really into it -- they knew all the songs. We figured if we were going to go down to America we'd rather be with a small label that was still about the music, instead of getting thrown into a corporate machine."

But a small label that cares about the music won't be able to overcome one of the biggest obstacles in the band's way. Although Naveed has been out in Canada for more than a year, Our Lady Peace will inevitably be tagged as Live wannabes -- their music and Maida's voice fall into the same hard, melodic rock vein of Pennsylvania's favorite sons. But that's what they said about Stome Temple Pilots, right?

"About a year ago no one knew that much about Live and I was listening to that record big time," Maida says. "They were young like us -- we probably come from some of the same influences. Hopefully we can grow with them -- there's room."

One of the many places Our Lady Peace diverges along a path less taken is in its decidedly positive outlook. The album's title was the name of an Iranian college friend of Maida's. "I asked him what his name meant one day and he said Naveed was an ancient term for the bearer of good news. When we were recording the record there were a whole lot of bands being angry for the sake of being angry -- we didn't get into that."

Naveed opens with a driving montage of rhythm and electric guitar on "The Birdman," as Maida's voice freely dances through his range, from low ruminations to controlled wails, occasionally hearkening back to another screaming rocker from an earlier time.

"When people would say in Canada that I sounded like Robert Plant, I'd be like, 'I don't know what the fuck you can hear of me in Plant,'" he remembers. "But I've been getting that a lot. It was weird to have the Page and Plant [shows] happen. We were never really big fans of theirs. But then after getting to meet Plant it was kind of cool. He's still got his ear to the ground of what's out there."

While Maida's vocal coaches range from Otis Redding to Janis Joplin and Sinead O'Connor, his bandmates look in other directions for inspiration. Guitarist Mike Turner is a punk baby, having been born in Yorkshire, England, and also adds some Middle Eastern influence to the band. Bassist Chris Eacrett is into the experimental poise of bands like Rage Against the Machine. And drummer Jeremy Taggert grew up around the music of Miles Davis and John Coltrance.

Maida and Turner began playing together about three years ago after meeting at the University of Toronto, but they found their bandmates stifling.

"It was too stale because we were all into the same stuff. Any writing we were doing wasn't fresh," Maida explains. "Then we found [Eacrett and Taggert]."

"Jeremy's dad was a jazz drummer. His understanding of time signatures was beyond ours, so it was great for us to learn from hearing him. We needed someone really melodic on bass because there was only one guitarist." The resulting foursome has honed its talents by sending over a year on the road, putting nearly 100,000 miles on an old school bus. Maida reads voraciously, and literature informs his lyrics.

"I've read the Bible, I've read Dylan," begins the song "Supersatellite," from Naveed. "I'm reading People now because it's much more chilling."

The band's name, in fact, came from a poem by Mark Van Doren -- father of Charles Van Doren of Quiz Show fame. "It's a pretty dark poem -- about a mother figure watching over this town. There's some sort of desperation happening in the town, but this pied piper shows up and, in my mind, is the voice of optimism."

The members of Our Lady Peace may not be pompous enough to consider themselves the Pied Pipers of Toronto, but the music they're making is powerful, arresting and it gets under your skin. It draws you in -- kinda sorta like a pied piper.