olp quotes

"(Raine)doesn't like (the sex symbol title). He's very uncomfortable with that but people perceive what they want to perceive. Raine is a good looking guy which can be a little detrimental because I think he is a brilliant lyricist and I think the message of hiw lyrics sometimes gets obscured by the fact that people will read them with the script of him being this sex symbol boy. Not that there's anything wrong with being a thirteen year-old girl but I'm sure some of them are missing possible meanings of a song because they want to hear it as a love song and anything that (is detrimental to) the music to us is bad." --Mike Turner

"Age is not something you've got to earn, you grow older by yourself and I don't understand why a lot of people think you have to look down on youngsters. Maybe they've already fogotten that they were young once" --Raine Maida

"The Canadian bands that are making it right now are making great records...There're a number of bands in the States and world-wide that have been propped up on one single, who sell millions of records and then go away,'cause after that one single, there's no depth on the record. I think a few Canadian bands have got it down to being like the old days. They're building a career on great records" --Raine Maida

"The more general and open-ended you can leave lyrics, the more people are going to be able to take home for themselves and put their own perceptions on them, and not be so narrow-minded because someone is telling them specifically what you need to take out of a song," --Raine Maida

"They're meant to be interpreted," he explains. "I have a huge fear of being pretentious or grandstanding with my lyrics. So I try to make them a little bit more ambiguous, just to make the more universal, just so that each listener can approach it from every angle and take whatever they want from it, rather than me just sitting there telling them about my problems. They're really not that unique." --Raine Maida

"I never want to say 'this is what the song is about" even if we have the absolute definitive version sitting on a sheet of paper somewhere. It's up to the listener to bring a lot to it. I always love when I listen to an album, when I was younger and even now. "Man, that sounds like Dave. You know my friend Dave? This song sounds just like it could be about him man, totally." That's what I've always liked, I'd hate to hem any of our stuff." --Mike Turner

"I don't think that if you gave Van Gogh a couple more colours to paint with...that would necessarily be a bad thing." -- Duncan Coutts of Our Lady Peace discusses the band's use of guest musicians to augment their sound

"Musicians are not our profession.. Its not what we do, its what we ARE." - Raine Maida

"That's Our Lady (not of!) Peace; we aren't a religious band, just named after a poem by Mark Van Doren. Perhaps we weren't too bright when we overlooked the religious implications of the name, but then again, we didn't claim to be brain surgeons (or theology students)." --Mike Turner, on the band name

"For 'Naveed', I wrote things in a certain way, to almost protect myself. With 'Clumsy', I just wrote strait from my heart, telling stories. It's just kind of there and you can take it or leave it. There were some cases where there were alot chords and melodies already there. The four of us get in a room and we interpret whatever we have, that's just the initial spark. Things really happen when we start playing" --Raine Maida

"If you don't get depressed sometimes, there's no way you're going to be able to realize when your happy and things are great" --Raine Maida

"We're all in the gutter, but some of us look up to the stars, and you can be happy in the gutter if you don't know to look up. So the people who can become addicted and driven and sort of obsessed by music are the ones who look up and see the heights they can try to get to. But that drive never lets them be happy where they are" --Mike Turner

"We made the first video for Canada, and we took some liberties because of our success up.. there, and we didn't put much band footage in there. So we decided to go for a different looking video for down in the US. So we put more emphasis on the live performance. " --Duncan on the two SD videos

"I'd rather people listened to the music than jump on each others heads" -Raine on moshing

" When they were playing trapeze duncan has a little singing solo I guess....but he was laughing about something and could barely even finish singing cause he was laughing sooo hard......then after the song mike asked raine what word he said in some part of the song and they laughed cause I think he said the wrong word....not that we would know cause we had Never even heard the song before...." -OLP

"We're musicians...not actors."- Mike Turner

"Duncan has a fetish for stealing wheel chairs at Airports."- Jeremy on The band's weird habits.

During the story Raine tells before "Trapeze", the overhead spotlight on him went off for some reason and he looked up at the operators on the lighting truss high above the stage and said, "Hey, turn that light back on, I'm trying to tell my friends a story here."

This is the story that Raine tells before BDR. but remember, this is just what he thinks of the song, everyone is free to their own lyrical interpretation:
"We were at friend house and this one person had a really cool looking gun. He told me it's a Beretta. It's like a handgun, a real gun right. So my friend decide to take a shower, so i take the gun and play with. I used to be this super huge Starky and Hutch fan. So i'm holding the gun thinking i'm pretty cool i guess. I take the clip out because i don't want to hurt anyone obviously. So i put the clip back in the box thinking i'm fine. I go to is bathroom and sneak behind this corner and i can see him with my left eye. I decide that i'm gonna scare him. So when he shut off the shower, i come around and i say BANG!!! and he falls on the shower floor very scared! He's laughing and crying. I just pointed his Berettas's on him (my best friend). He said, "Do you know that a Beretta have 13 bullets and there's a bullet still in the chamber !!! You know!"

This is the story that Raine told before Edgefest for the song carnival:
"Hey, you all remember that game where you're, you're like 8 years old or 9 years old, You'd be walking home from 4th grade, Remember 4th grade? Remember your 4th grade teacher? mine was Ms. Bealak, she was a real bitch. Remember 4th grade and you're walking home right, all of a sudden you're jumping, like this, right? You're avoiding the cracks, you're not steppin' on the cracks because, remember that game?,Don't step on the cracks, don't break you're mother's back, well we're playing in Denver, it's hot as shit and we're all exausted by the heat and all, Mike and I are walking right, and we start hopping over the cracks like a bunch of idiot's, hold on, you don't understand, In my crazy head i start thinking about this silly kids game, it's supposed to be this silly kids game where you hop over the cracks, you don't break your mother's back, I'm thinking: you know what this isn't a game, this is like preparation for being an adult, or being like a teenager, and what happens, hold in, is those cracks become the math exam you failed, or the girlfriend or boyfriend, and now you're having a baby, They're pregnant, or the day your parents sit you down and tell you that they're getting a divorce. Those are the cracks that you have to hop over, you guys get that? this is what I'm thinking, and you're mother's back becomes your back. And no shit that it is to hard to take and sometimes you're gonna break right? Well this next song is about those days when you feel like you're surrounded by the cracks, they're all around you, It's called 'carnival'"

Here is the story that he told for trapeze (i got this off of TH)
Each night the circus tent would be pitched. Supports would be raised, and preparation for the acts would begin. The pride, joy and sensation of the carnival were the two acrobats who used the trapeze. They were married and they loved one another. Each night the husband would climb up his tall steel tower on one side of the tent. He would sit upon his perch, his trapeze, and than watch his wife. His wife in return would climb her tower on the other side of the tent and sit on her perch, her trapeze. The husband would look at his wife and smile, than, he would blow her a kiss. They would dive towards each other and he would catch her. The crowd would cheer. Every night. He loved his wife, from the moment they met. From the beginning up to the end, he loved her, and she loved him. Their life was simple, routine. Each night she would place her life into his hands, and he would place his in hers. Every night, from a far back as he could remember, he would look upon her body sitting there in anticipation. He would smile at her, and she would smile back. He would blow her a kiss, and she would embrace it. These subtle and loving actions had become routine, almost cues. But, none the less, he loved her as she loved him. As before, and as always, he climbed his steel tower. He felt the metal rods; he felt them groan and quiver when he applied his weight. They sang to him, as always. He climbed the girders and reached the top. He felt the lights as they felt him. He sat on his perch, on his trapeze. As he looked across the tent, to meet the eyes of his wife, he shuddered. Something was different. >From as far back as he could remember he would climb his tower and sit on his perch, his trapeze, and meet the eyes of his loving wife. He would smile, she would smile. He would blow a kiss, and she would embrace it. But something was wrong, something was different. As he looked over to meet the eyes of his wife, they did not meet his back. He had watched her body, from upon his perch climb up her steel tower as always. He had watched her crouch and rest on her perch; her trapeze but he did not meet her eyes. Instead, he saw that they met someone else's. He watched as a man looked at his wife, and the man smiled at his wife, as she smiled back. He watched as the man blew her a kiss, and he watched how his wife embraced the kiss. And as he watched this he felt his heart shatter into shards of crystal tears. This couldn't be, I love my wife, and she loves me. Everyday I climb up my steel tower and I feel the girders sing to me. I reach my perch, my trapeze, and watch my wife's body climb her steal tower and come to rest on her perch, her trapeze. And I would look to meet her eyes and I would smile to her and she would smile back. And I would blow her a kiss and I would watch as she embraced it. He couldn't understand this. Why? How could this happen? But then, he began to think back and remember the days, weeks and months before this and it began to make sense. Slowly their daily routine had become a routine, had become a cue. My wife is fucking the human cannon ball. Now the drum roll had begun and he could feel the spotlight as it felt him. He would swing across and his wife would put her life into his hands. But now the routine had changed. He was angry. Will I swing across and meet my wife, and catch my wife who has cheated on me? Or shall I, could I miss and let her go? He knew that she would fall to her death and as she fell, she would wonder what had happened, what was different. And than she would realize that her husband had broken their routine, that he had not caught her, and that she would fall to her death. And she would pray for her life and for her routine, and pray for a net. And her lover, the cannon ball, would feel his heart shatter and wonder what had happened to their routine. He had watched her body climb the steel tower and come to rest on her perch; her trapeze, and he had watched her look down on him and they had smiled, and he had blown her a kiss. He would watch his new love fall to her death, and he would never understand. I would be happy, I would have my justice, and I would also have damnation on my soul. I would break the hearts of two, to heal my one. He climbed the steel tower and felt the girders sing. He rest himself on his perch; his trapeze, and he watched as his routine stopped, and how his wife loved another. He heard the drum roll and felt the spotlight as it felt him, and he grabbed his trapeze as he saw his wife grab hers, and they dove towards each other. I let go. He began to fall towards the floor and heard the audience cry. He had let go of his perch; his trapeze and as he fell to his doom he looked at his wife and met her eyes. He smiled at his wife and she smiled back. He blew a kiss to his wife and he watched her embrace it.

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