Our Lady Peace go to paradise and reinvent themselves
by DAVE JOHNSTON

Making Our Lady Peace's latest album nearly killed Raine Maida. Really. The band was holed up in Bob Rock's Plantation Studios in Maui, recording what would eventually become their fifth album, Gravity, when Maida came down with a strange illness. He had been up for days, rewriting lyrics at the behest of producer Rock, who felt that the singer wasn't being clear enough with his poetic objectives, and the effort took its toll.

"I had to fly back to Los Angeles because I developed shingles, and I was down for three weeks," explains a healthier-sounding Maida. "All because I had to rewrite these lyrics, and I wasn't sleeping, so I developed this viral nerve infection. It really felt like I was dying, and I was only thinking, 'Fuck, Bob, look what you've done to me.' I went to a Maui hospital first and I had an MRI and they found this lump in my lung. At first they thought it might be cancer. In the end it all worked out, but at the time I wasn't sure if I was coming back to finish the album."

Maida did return, however, and last summer Gravity was released to a receptive public on both sides of the 49th parallel. The album hit the top 10 in both America and Canada, as did the single 'Somewhere Out There.' For most bands, this would be a crowning achievement, a vindication, an affirmation after years of hard work, critical indifference and unwavering fan support; yet Maida sees Gravity as the product of a band that was sent crashing to earth but is all the better for the experience.

What's past is prologue. In 2001, the group wrapped their tour for their fourth album, the Ray Kurzweil-inspired opus Spiritual Machines, and the machine appeared ready to give up the ghost. Doubt hung heavy over Maida, drummer Jeremy Taggart, bassist Duncan Coutts and guitarist Mike Turner, spurred by tension over what the band would do next, as well as creative friction between the guitarist and the rest of the band.

"It was awful," Maida says about the period. "In our hearts, we felt that we had tapped everything we could do with this kind of band. Not to say that Mike was holding us back, but he was limited to what he could do and play and what he could bring to the writing. Duncan, Jeremy and I had grown a lot as musicians over the years and we felt that we needed someone to challenge us. On the production side as well, we had worked with Arnold [Lanni] for four records, and that's a lot of music to be made with the same guy. It was time to try to do something different. It was scary, but there were decisions that needed to be made--otherwise we would just have to pack it in."

---Between a Rock and a hard place---

The band met with various producers in Los Angeles before flying to Hawaii to discuss options with Rock. The producer had returned home for a two-week break while recording Metallica in San Francisco and invited OLP over to discuss future recording possibilities. Unsure of their own status as a band, Maida and the others boarded a plane and hoped that the fresh perspective of the experienced Rock, as well as the fresh surroundings of a remote tropical island, would yield some renewed enthusiasm among the foursome.

Maida recalls Rock's immediate enthusiasm for the ideas OLP brought with them. "We don't take ourselves very seriously," he says, "but we take the music very seriously, and he found a respect for that--and he was really juiced about the musical ideas we had for some reason. He became a part of the band in a way, because he was so passionate about it. Bob was a real person. I'm not sure if he's like that on every project he takes on, but we developed something special with him."

When Metallica frontman James Hetfield entered a rehab centre, ostensibly putting their record on hold, Rock and OLP took the news as an excuse to carry on from jamming to the recording of Gravity. The challenges Rock presented to the band, such as pushing them to record together in the same room, unwittingly pinpointed the unacknowledged crisis within the group. "He told us that we were a great band," Maida says. "We just had to go into the studio with some confidence and play, but it was really difficult to do that with Mike. That prompted the conversation to make the change."

By their third day in the studio, the band met and discussed parting ways with their friend. Following what Maida calls 'a serious heart-to-heart' with the guitarist, Turner acquiesced and left the group. "It was obvious that we were going in different directions about what we wanted from the band and the music. For him to stay in this band, he would have been cheating himself. If we didn't make the decision, we would have started hating each other, so we tried to pre-empt any bad blood from forming. It's still not easy, but you've got to make hard decisions sometimes. It was really affecting the way the band was operating. Mike is a very intelligent guy, but we needed a guy who lived and breathed guitar, someone who had more confidence in their instrument than anyone else in the group."

---Mazur tagged---

Recording was put on hold and the band invited prospective guitarists to submit audition videos. Of the thousands that were sent in from around the world, it was a particular tape postmarked from Detroit that seized the remaining trio's attention. Steve Mazur was soon on a plane for Maui.

"We sat him in front of Bob," recalls Maida of Mazur's audition. "This guy grew up on the early Metallica stuff, so for him to sit in front of Bob Rock with a guitar in his hands, presented with music we were writing at the time... the sweat immediately started pouring down his forehead. He was so nervous, but he got it together and rocked. That was it for us. He had already been hanging out with us for about a week--we brought him over [to Maui] to get to know him a little bit, and he was a beautiful person, so that part was easy. My concern was finding someone who could challenge us and provide inspiration for everyone. He became that and more, so it was really that simple."

Gravity was completed in 10 weeks--the fastest they've ever recorded an album--grown in the fertile Eden that Rock had created for them. "When we were recording in Maui, we lived together, ate together, everything--we were a real unit, a family," Maida says. "The piece of the puzzle that felt missing--Steve--dropped into the picture, and suddenly everything felt grounded after that. This record became very visceral to us; it felt like gravity."

The singer continues. "This has become the rock band that I've always dreamed of being a part of. It's like growing up with a group since Grade 8 and feeling like these are the people you're supposed to know for the rest of your life. Life isn't like that, and when I thought a band was supposed to be one way, Steve comes along and I realized how different it could be. We are so fortunate to be in this place now."

Something to live for, then? "It is," Maida says. "I'm just glad it finally happened."

Our Lady Peace
With Seether, Finger Eleven and the Trailer Park Boys
¥ Skyreach Centre ¥
Tue, Jan 28

Back