Our Lady Peace: Artist Of the Year (Part One)
Friday December 08, 2000 @ 11:00 AM
By: Aaron Brophy
Story By Debbie Bento
Photos Courtesy Of Jacqueline Tam
___
Chart Magazine's Artist Of The Year might not be complete fodder
for the media like a certain other Canadian artist who has a
penchant for wearing monkey masks, but Our Lady Peace's Raine
Maida and Jeremy Taggart took their time with us to talk about a
millennial year which included the whirlwind success of their third
record Happiness... Is Not A Fish That You Can Catch and the
awesome Summersault festival. Plus, they wouldn't stop talking
about how proud they were of their latest baby, the new album
Spiritual Machines. Just think of this more as an overview of OLP's
crazy year rather than a rant, kinda like what that monkey guy's
known for...
Chart: So what are you guys up to right now?
Jeremy Taggart: We're finished our record and we're preparing
everything, in terms of playing live, of planning our video.
What's the first single?
Raine Maida: Have you heard any music yet? It's a song called "In
Repair."
That's the one song I took real notice of...
R: The last 14 months have been amazing. We released Happiness, toured
that, did our arena tour and did Summersault which was unbelievable, then
made another record. I think basically, it doesn't happen a lot anymore when
you make records that quickly. It seems like it may be starting to again, but
it's, like, two years before bands put out records. Especially in Canada. It's a
long wait. We're just happy we got the momentum and we'll keep going.
I don't think that trend of making records quickly is going to break
anytime soon.
J: I think people are gonna keep putting out records, but most of them are still
crap. The work ethic is still pretty low and people are pretty much piecing
together two singles and filling up the rest of the tracks.
R: All of the drum takes [on Spiritual Machines] were done in, like, one or
two takes. A lot of the bass stuff was like that. I did my vocals at home. It
was just captured energy.
J: What we were trying to accomplish was five guys in a room just playing
together.
Will there be another Summersault?
J: Oh yeah.
R: We're not sure if it's going to be next summer. We're going to be in the
U.S. a lot next year. It depends. I think festivals are probably done now. But
if you can get the right bands together...
It can work.
R: Exactly. Who cares if it's a festival? To do it just for the sake of doing it is
not right.
J: We wanna do something special for music and obviously for Canada. To
start working on another Summersault now is almost too late to make it really
special. We always want to have a good head start on it and make sure that it
happens properly. It's work in the sense that we're not used to it. You
instantly become promoters and agents, trying to get a hold of bands and
booking people.
R: We try to do it on personal terms, like with the Deftones there were issues
about stuff and Jeremy just called Abe the drummer and tried figuring stuff out
that way, try to remove the other people, but House Of Blues helped a lot.
Our Lady Peace: Artist Of the Year (Part
Two)
Friday December 08, 2000 @ 11:00 AM
By: Debbie Bento
Story By Debbie Bento
Photos Courtesy Of Jacqueline Tam
___
Got some interesting stories of the year, some highlights?
R: We did so much. There was the tour we did with the
Stereophonics that was huge in Europe. It was pretty wild playing
Wembley, and going into Wales and playing really big places. I
mean, they came back and opened for us here. Those relationships
are great. We kinda did it with Everclear on Clumsy where we
played with them in the U.S for, like, three months and then they
came here and played on tour with us. Sparking relationships like
that helps with the grind of the road. But Summersault was pretty
much it, besides the touring. Trying to get that together was one of
our biggest achievements, besides making records. It was pretty
huge.
We learned a lot on Summersault too, watching all those bands play. And we
had a guy, Brendan O'Brien, who mixed this record when we were down in
Atlanta for a couple of weeks. He's worked with a lot of bands that we
respect. It was just a huge experience to hear stories from him and see how
Pearl Jam does in the studio or a band like Stone Temple Pilots or how he
mixed the Soundgarden record. We just realized that we think those bands
are truly live bands and when they go in the studio it's just another extension.
Compared to a U2 who go into the studio for a year to try and make this
masterpiece, and I'm the biggest U2 fan in the world, but I don't think we
want to make records like that.
What do you think of U2's new record?
R: To me it's disappointing. It sounds like demos to me. It sounds like they
spent so much time in the studio working things out that they just sucked the
life out of the songs. And I really don't get that old energy — I do in a couple
of songs. The rest is kind of really weak. Even Pop was a hard listen, but I
got it a year later and I still like it a lot. I think we fall more in the vein where
we just want to make records quickly and get out and play. That's what we
did on this album. I mean, the last two songs, Jeremy was hurt so Matt
Cameron came and played and all those old experiences added up to make
something fresh and real. It's going to be amazing to tour, there's gonna be
such an amazing energy.
How are you feeling by the way, Jeremy?
J: Fine. [he smiles] Back on track.
R: He's getting another dog. More protection.
J: These things happen.
R: It's what makes Toronto exciting.
Words to say about the rest of Chart Magazine's Artist Of The Year
contenders? Let's start with Kittie.
J: Rockin' punk rock girls.
R: It's pretty unbelievable.
J: It's aggressive punk-rock. I think I can hear the aggression and the
greenness of the band and I think it's great. They're having fun. They have a
long career ahead of them hopefully.
Choclair?
R: I'm not gonna say I know too much about him, but I know there's a huge
presence. I think that's amazing for Canada, in terms of hip-hop.
J: I think what's happening now with him and Kardinal Offishall and all these
other Canadian rap acts is they're starting to break the boundaries and starting
to hook up with... you know, Kardinal's doing his thing with Wu-Tang and on
Method Man records. I think it's awesome that finally it's starting to happen
where bands from America are coming up here and realizing there's a real
growth spurt happening in terms of rap. The cool thing is that it doesn't
necessarily have a typical rap sound. It's coming from a different place, a
completely different ethnic background. It's not old-school Brooklyn hip-hop
because that culture doesn't exist in Jane and Finch [Toronto] or in
Vancouver.
Treble Charger?
R: Great songwriters. They've always written great songs.
J: They're all great great guys and I wish them all the luck in the world. They'll
always do well because they'll always write great songs.
Heard of The Weakerthans?
R: Who?
They're from Winnipeg.
J: Great!
Matt Good Band?
R: Derivative.
J: To be honest we're not inspired by his music in the least bit. I think he has
an idea of writing songs, but I think he's listened to one too many Radiohead
records. I've heard "Fake Plastic Trees" a couple of times already.
By: Debbie Bento
Story By Debbie Bento
Photos Courtesy Of Jacqueline Tam
R: We did so much. There was the tour we did with the Stereophonics that was huge in Europe. It was pretty wild playing Wembley, and going into Wales and playing really big places. I mean, they came back and opened for us here. Those relationships are great. We kinda did it with Everclear on Clumsy where we played with them in the U.S for, like, three months and then they came here and played on tour with us. Sparking relationships like that helps with the grind of the road. But Summersault was pretty much it, besides the touring. Trying to get that together was one of our biggest achievements, besides making records. It was pretty huge. We learned a lot on Summersault too, watching all those bands play. And we had a guy, Brendan O'Brien, who mixed this record when we were down in Atlanta for a couple of weeks. He's worked with a lot of bands that we respect. It was just a huge experience to hear stories from him and see how Pearl Jam does in the studio or a band like Stone Temple Pilots or how he mixed the Soundgarden record. We just realized that we think those bands are truly live bands and when they go in the studio it's just another extension. Compared to a U2 who go into the studio for a year to try and make this masterpiece, and I'm the biggest U2 fan in the world, but I don't think we want to make records like that.
What do you think of U2's new record?
R: To me it's disappointing. It sounds like demos to me. It sounds like they spent so much time in the studio working things out that they just sucked the life out of the songs. And I really don't get that old energy — I do in a couple of songs. The rest is kind of really weak. Even Pop was a hard listen, but I got it a year later and I still like it a lot. I think we fall more in the vein where we just want to make records quickly and get out and play. That's what we did on this album. I mean, the last two songs, Jeremy was hurt so Matt Cameron came and played and all those old experiences added up to make something fresh and real. It's going to be amazing to tour, there's gonna be such an amazing energy.
How are you feeling by the way, Jeremy?
J: Fine. [he smiles] Back on track.
R: He's getting another dog. More protection.
J: These things happen.
R: It's what makes Toronto exciting.
Words to say about the rest of Chart Magazine's Artist Of The Year contenders? Let's start with Kittie.
J: Rockin' punk rock girls.
R: It's pretty unbelievable.
J: It's aggressive punk-rock. I think I can hear the aggression and the greenness of the band and I think it's great. They're having fun. They have a long career ahead of them hopefully.
Choclair?
R: I'm not gonna say I know too much about him, but I know there's a huge presence. I think that's amazing for Canada, in terms of hip-hop.
J: I think what's happening now with him and Kardinal Offishall and all these other Canadian rap acts is they're starting to break the boundaries and starting to hook up with... you know, Kardinal's doing his thing with Wu-Tang and on Method Man records. I think it's awesome that finally it's starting to happen where bands from America are coming up here and realizing there's a real growth spurt happening in terms of rap. The cool thing is that it doesn't necessarily have a typical rap sound. It's coming from a different place, a completely different ethnic background. It's not old-school Brooklyn hip-hop because that culture doesn't exist in Jane and Finch [Toronto] or in Vancouver.
Treble Charger?
R: Great songwriters. They've always written great songs.
J: They're all great great guys and I wish them all the luck in the world. They'll always do well because they'll always write great songs.
Heard of The Weakerthans?
R: Who?
They're from Winnipeg.
J: Great!
Matt Good Band?
R: Derivative.
J: To be honest we're not inspired by his music in the least bit. I think he has an idea of writing songs, but I think he's listened to one too many Radiohead records. I've heard "Fake Plastic Trees" a couple of times already.