Mike Turner, guitarist for Our Lady Peace, is in great spirits today; despite his hangover and deadbeat status following a latenight crawl with Vancouver's own Moist. Carousing with music biz heavyweights after dark appears to agree with him.

"We really enjoy being on tour with Van Halen," confesses the bleary-eyed musician. "We've been treated extremely well. They're a ridiculously nice bunch of guys. Alex has even gone as far as adopting Jeremy our drummer. He calls him "Little Al". It's funny though because we had actually turned down this tour three or four times before we agreed to do it. We kept looking at it like: us, Van Halen, us, Van Halen? I don't see a link musically. I wasn't a really big Van Halen fan. I came from more of the punk background. They were the furthest thing away from what I was into musically."

So what finally happened that would allow Our Lady Peace to accept the kind of touring package most bands would ordinarily kill for?

"We'd like to be judged on our live show," says Turner. "We're proud of the record and everything that it has done but the reason we made it was so we could go out and play live. Being on tour with a band as big as Van Halen meant that we'd be playing in front of a bigger audience than playing in front of a club-sized crowd. It meant that more people would be exposed to our music. People seem to understand a band better when they see them live."

Unfortunately, Our Lady Peace was forced to drop one week with Van Halen, cancel a three week Australian tour and a European showcase due to lead singer Raine's back problem. They plan on taking a month off to allow him ample time to recuperate.

Our Lady Peace have been touring in support of their debut release Naveed for the past eighteen months, so the obvious question is: when are we going to hear some new material?

"We have had this horrible thing going on with staggered releases," explains Turner. "It came out almost a year to the day later in the States, so we had to go down there and tour because it was brand new. Then it was released in Australia. September first, it came out in most of Europe and in January it gets released in the U.K." Says Turner with a laugh, "We could make this a career touring this one fucking album!"

"But one thing we're planning on doing with this month off is a lot of writing. We hope to have something out by next spring-summer but realistically, we won't be able to get into the studio until at least January. We really want to get in as soon as possible. We have actually got to the point where we enjoy recording. The creative process is great!"

After one month's rest, it's back on the road for more touring in the United States until Christmas. They resume in Los Angeles on October 14 and then hope to do a U.S. college tour with Better Than Ezra.

Life on the road has resulted in a "weird state of arrested adolescence" according to Turner. "People tell you everything. Be here at this time, eat at this time, do this, do that. Every responsibility is taken away from you." But Turner isn't really whining. "It's not that you fight them or anything like that but it's sort of a weird thing. Like when you get home you realise `I have to cook for myself' or `nobody told me what to do today. Wow that's kind of neat.' Your time is not your own. Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining. I'm the luckiest guy I know. I get to play music for a living. How hard can that be? But it would be nice to have [more] control of your time."

Adolescence is a word that certainly comes to mind in reference to that long-standing tradition concerning end-of-tour pranks. Since Vancouver is the last show for O.L.P. on this run, Turner shudders to think of what could happen on stage later on that night.

"We've had pranks played on us and we've done it to other bands," says Turner. "Van Halen have told us what they've done to other bands, possibly giving us a hint of what to expect. They've Crazy-Glued the drummer's hi-hats together, poured honey on the drummer's set, poured honey on the drummer from the lighting truss... they generally go for the drummer because he can't leave. He can't run! And being that Alex has taken such a liking to Jeremy, he might be in a bit of trouble tonight."

Our Lady Peace are not exactly perfect angels when it comes to this interesting ritual. With a devilish grin, the guitarist fondly recounts a tale about a tour with Vancouver's Salvador Dream: "We put vaseline on his kick pedals, condoms over the microphones, and baby powder in the hi-hats so when he went to play them this cloud of baby powder filled the stage and didn't clear up for the next three songs! It was classic!" Just for the record, nothing extraordinary happened during their set that night. Maybe the band's paranoia surrounding the final gig was a prank, in and of itself.

Landing on a mega-bill with an outfit like Van Halen, naturally begs the musical question concerning crowds and their response to OLP's material. "Lets face it," says Turner, "most people who come to a Van Halen show are of a particular type. They come to see Van Halen. But generally the response from the audience has been good. I mean, some nights it's been like washing dishes. It's been a job. It's more fun sometimes when you get that initial bad reaction," he says while imitating crowd booing. 'Hey I haven't done anything yet. I can't suck yet!'

"You know. It's cool because you can watch people... usually it'll be a row of guys, not doing a thing. Then a couple of songs into the set you'll see one turn to the other, `They're not bad' and by the end of the show they're totally into it.

"It's a good feeling when you can win over a crowd like that. We've been so spoiled by playing and touring for people who have been exposed and are into the music, that to play in front of people who haven't, forces us to go out and play even better than before. Which, in the long run, has made us a better band."