Newly signed to Sony Music Canada is Our Lady Peace, a band that, well... band that we've never heard of before! Probably you haven't either! They're so new, in fact, that they just formed in November 1992, and have only played a handful of gigs - and now they're out with their 11-song debut, entitled Naveed. Now, how can this infant act score a major label deal? Singular named singer Raine filled us in recently.

"The band is just over a year old, and we're all from Toronto," begins Raine. "The guitarist (Mike Turner) and myself played together before, and then we got Chris (Eacrett, bass) and Jeremy (Taggart, drummer), and we started demoing material." Our Lady Peace took their name, according to Raine, "from a poem written by Mark Van Doren. The poem's about a fiddler who talks to an angel who watches over a little town."

It wasn't long before they acquired a producer, Arnold Lanni of Frozen Ghost fame. "We weren't sure about working with Arnold 'cause we only know his work from Frozen Ghost," discloses Raine, "but then everything just took off on a personal level. We actually started recording, and it was an unbelievable experience. We'd go in with Arnold and do stuff live off the floor, just to library stuff - we wrote maybe 18, 19 songs right away. To our surprise it was great - he brought in all these new ideas to us that just blew us away, and it kind of changed our view on him. He's a real honest guy, a straight up kind of person."

Then came management. "Eric Lawrence and Robert Lanni, Arnold's brother are managing us, from 20/20 Management," he continues. "It's the same management as Wild T. We didn't hook up with them until the record deal was almost inked with Sony, but it was the same thing - more of a trust thing. After meeting so many dishonest people out there in the music business, we could trust Eric and Robert to handle us."

Then came the deal, under a year from their formation, A&R'd by Sony's Richard Zuckerman. "When we signed the deal it was really weird. We weren't expecting to get signed right away. Our plan was to release an indie CD, sell it sidestage and all that stuff. Fortunately, Sony came around and they let us do what we wanted to do."

Then came the recording of the record. "We recorded the record at Arnold's studio, Arnyard," says Raine. "It's not the greatest studio in the world - kind of like a clubhouse, not fancy, kind of dirty - but it's the kind of atmosphere we wanted. Sony has their own studio where (label mates) Junkhouse recorded their record, but I don't know how they did it - we didn't want people from the record company hanging around."

How did they get their deal? "This is how it went: We had the demo, and we were kind of selective with the labels we sent it out to on Eric and Robert's advise. We sent them out to a few here, and a couple in the States. We got feedback from the States - from Geffen, and Interscope. The U.S. labels said positive things, but they wanted more stuff from us. But Sony liked us just the way we were. After Zuckerman heard the tape, he called, and then Mike Rhodes called, and like three weeks later we had both Zuckerman and Rhodes, along with (Sony Music Canada President) Rick Cameleri, down at the studio watching us rehearse.

"The U.S. interest is still there," adds Raine. "We've been talking to Epic - nothing's confirmed yet, but our management have been in close contact with A&R."

So why jump on a Canadian deal when you had the American's interest tweaked? "At first we obviously thought, 'Okay, let's get out of Canada,'" admits Raine. "But it was a very nice deal - Sony was offering us everything. Right when we signed, (ex-Sony Music Canada President) Paul Berger had just left for Sony Europe, and the whole agenda of Sony is that Paul Berger is now going to work the Canadian stuff there. We were talking to some people, and they said just sign directly to the label in Canada. It's an awesome label. It's nice because they're in the same city, and it's kind of hands on. When you sign with Geffen in New York or L.A., you don't know what they're doing day to day. Here it's really convenient - it's like a little family the way they treat us."

At first listen, you can really hear the Canadian in Our Lady Peace - bands like Doughboys, 54-40, The Tragically Hip, and even modern Rush come to mind. Their's is a sound that is in one sense dark and foreboding, yet on another it glows with hope and anticipation. Raine describes the indescribable. "It's a combination of a lot of stuff," he attests. "We're so diverse in our tastes - Zepplin, Cream, Carol King, Janis Joplin, The Beastie boys, Rage Against the Machine. We don't sound like any of these directly, but it all kind of comes in. I don't think we sound Canadian, but many way we do. But hey, Canadian music is turning around for the better - I Mother Earth, for example - so if that's going to be the new Canadian sound, then I guess we do. The label kind of thought we had a European flair in our sound. We just took our time to make an album that was listenable all the way through."

Their first single from Naveed is 'Birdman," and it will be followed-up with either 'Hope,' or 'Starseed.' Raine explains the title of the record. "Naveed" is kind of ties in all the lyrics. Naveed is a middle eastern name that stands for the bearer of good news, and a lot of the songs talk about strife and struggle, but it's more on a personal level for me. 'Naveed' talks about someone scared to die, but at the same time interested in it."

And what are their expectations? "Everyone around has high expectations, but the band is happy that our music is recorded," contends Raine. "We learned a lot during it, and it's improved us as musicians. We just want to get out and play...we want to go across the country. That's when we get off on our music - seeing the crowd reaction. We're really young and green in terms of our live show. I think we've played maybe 11 or 12 dates so far as a unit. It'll be great to see how people react to us once they know a few songs."