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Quotes and a Poem
on how Raine wrote lyrics for for last Four albums "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
"If you write music it is something you just can't turn off. It can come to you at the most weirdest of times. I remember sitting at a baseball game and all of a sudden an idea popped into Raine's head and he jumps up and runs out to the game and phones his answer machine so he didn't lose it. Duncan Coutts
"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
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"There was definitely a lot of talk around the studio about death and mortality and spirituality and trying to figure out what happens after this,"he says. "That's the one question we can't answer, and it's interesting. It's obvious that it's something that haunts me on a personal level, as I try to fall asleep in some hotel room alone somewhere. I'd rather try to figure it out now than do the typical Turn 65 and try to find God because I'm afraid of dying? business. I don't think life should be like that. There has to be some attention to detail and substance throughout your life. The whole Happiness... thing stems from that. It's about trying to find something in a superficial world that isn't superficial."
-Raine Maida
"There's a connection between the song 'Clumsy' and it being the title of the album. There's a line in the song that says: 'I'll be waving my hand/watching you drown/watching you scream', it's about seeing something but not seeing it for what it really is. It is about decisions. That image of 'waving your hand/watching you drown', is about seeing someone in the water, they're waving back at you and you're just waving back, not realizing that they are drowning. Or, you think they're drowning, but they're just
waving at you. It's those weird situations where you just take something at face value, but you can be so wrong. You have to look deeper and question things. I think it's something that too many people don't do these days. We're so inundated with fucking media, and you just believe it. How many times, not to just focus on us, have we read an interview or an article where we've been completely misquoted? We're just some small band, you think about some of the major players and you really have to question how true it all is." - Raine Maida
Raine Maida: "I never thought about where we'll be until we played and I got $500 and I thought 'Oh, my God, that's not bad...
This tour is not about the fact that there are 10 or 15,000 people in the audience and that we put on a big show now. It still feels very small to us and very true to ourselves ... It's a small insight into the future."
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Raine and Mike on the anticipation before playing the Maple Leaf Gardens:
"I've seen every band in the world there - I think the hairs on the back of my neck will stand up," says Maida. Turner is equally flush. "Until I actually walk on stage I won't believe it. You've got to be kidding me. That's just too wacky. That's the place I go to see bands, not to play."
From the Toronto Star article "Peace on Earth, good will toward band" by Betsy Powell, Thursday, January 15, 1998.
"We want to make sure that people don't ever get the feeling that we just have a couple of hits on the radio," says Maida of his band's success. "We're not a singles band. We want to be known as a live entity, and the way to do that is to tour.
"So, our focus for the next five weeks is putting on a definite Our Lady Peace show in arenas where people have seen anyone from Pearl Jam to Oasis to U2. We want to make sure people leave there feeling like they saw something that was a little bit different. That's the challenge."
(Mike Turner talking about packing clothes for a concert tour)
"Now I know not to wear colours on tour. They're too hard to launder," Mike says. "And Bruce Gordon from I Mother Earth taught me stuff, too. He was showing me how to roll my T-shirts instead of packing them flat. They get all wrinkled that way".
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effectively broke character when he ordered the band to cease in the middle of the title track to the new album, 'Clumsy,' just so he could say to a security guard grappling with crowd surfers, "There's no reason to put anyone in a headlock, man. It's just all about the music here."
-Raine Maida
"You always have to make music so that if no one decided to buy this record it's something that we can have in our CD collection and we'll always be proud of."
-Raine Maida
"If there's one word to describe the O.L.P. sound, it is conviction. (Raine) Maida's singing can cut through a crowded concert hall like a buzz-saw through cardboard, and his intensity's equaled by the instrumental side of the band. They've carved a niche for themselves with their heavy, drone-oriented sound, making them hot on the Canadian circuit."
Raine on his thing he does to get ready before stage
"It's tough to be on level 10 every night. But for the most part, I take good care of trying to put myself in the right frame of mind half and hour before each show. I meditate to try to put myself in that space. If you go on stage with a million business things going through your mind, it's impossible".
- Raine Maida
"If anything it would probably hurt us if people knew how boringly normal we really are. If you want to look at our (tour) rider to see what we eat and drink you can, but do people really care about our personal lives that much?" - Raine Maida
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"I've been able to do all those things I used to hear in my head when I was beginning in music," Maida says, "which tends to be more like those female singers with acrobatic voices. I've been able to implement that more on this record, so hopefully that'll keep happening as I get better as a singer." "...and slowly turn into a woman," cracks Taggart
"Most of the songs ARE almost ballads because a lot of them started on this record from acoustics."
Pointing to Jeremy, Mike remarks, "As soon as HE starts hitting everything, it's like, 'Oh jeez! He's at it again!'" -Mike Turner
"Yeah, we've gotta turn up a notch when Jeremy comes in," jokes Raine.
"We wake up every day and realize how lucky we are to be able to do this as a career. That's what keeps us honest." -Jeremy Taggart
"You've got to keep it pure," says Raine, "You enter as a musician and if you're not careful, you end up as an entertainer." -Raine Maida
"We wake up every day and realize how lucky we are to be able to do this as a career. That's what keeps us honest." -Jeremy Taggart
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"Jeremy lives for the comedy bit. Whether it's putting the most disgusting thing in my shoes, so I'll find them in the morning with my toes." - Duncan Coutts, on the band's weird habits.
"You know, anytime when we're playing abroad, somehow there's always a Canadian. We can be, like, we were in northern France, playing a festival of, like, all U.K. and French and German acts, and somehow there were three Canadians. We're like, 'what the hell are you doing here?' 'Oh, we heard you were playing, man. We had to come.' We're, like, 'Right on.' It's still nice, you know. It's definitely gratifying. Like I said, there's the kindred patriotism, there's also a certain defensiveness that [becomes] supportiveness for a band that you have a history with."
-Raine Maida
"To sit in front of your computer for three hours surfing the web is really no different than watching TV, for the most part," he surmises. "I know there are great websites where you can find valuable information, but most of the kids I've talked to are like, 'Wow, you can play golf with somebody in Saudi Arabia.' Or 'You can play Tiger Woods '99.' Who gives a shit? How is that better?
"That's why for me a live show these days is starting to have much more weight than it did even when we first started out," he continues. "I really respect the fact that all these people are in a room and there's something tangible going on that everybody can connect with. It's this intense situation where we're all equal and they're just as much a part of the music as we are." -Raine Maida
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When Computers Exceed Human Intelligence, which guitarist Mike Turner read first and then gave to frontman Raine Maida.
"It's a book that's pretty interesting," Maida says, "and it inspired some music. The book made me very schizophrenic. You read through some of the stuff, and Ray's obviously brilliant, a genius. There's a lot of stuff where he's like Nostradamus, when he said computers are going to do this and this; so when he talks about how 30 years from now you'll be able to download your brain onto a chip and insert it into this thing that's going to look like you, act like you, be you — I believe him.
"But at the same time, a lot [of the songs] are about finding yourself and finding your soul and being in search of religion and stuff — it goes against what Ray is saying. There's a song like 'If You Believe,' which is about saying 'fuck you' to computers, about having near-death experiences and getting outside your body. You can see there's something afterwards, that we do have a soul."
Raine Maida
along with straight-head Rock vibe Gravity contains some of Raine most intimate lyrical moments
"It really helped recording in Maui beacause it felt like I could says things and they were sacred" he says with a hint of self-con sciousness." I think just being over there made it feel like everything I wrote was kind of like a secret kept within the people that were in the studio, I kept that focus and it allowed me to says stuff that I probably wouldn't have said if I was recording in Toronto or around other people. I wanted to feel that cold sweat as I was singing. It was heavy for me and maybe people, on same level, are going to be able to connect with it, beacause it's real."
-Raine Maida
"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!" -Mike Turner, recalling a
prank they pulled on Vancouver's Salvador Dream while touring with them.
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Jeremy telling a Funny story
We've just had a bus change and Kevin (the tour manager) and Duncan (the bass player) are molten mad at Raine (the singer), Mike (the guitar player) and I. It seems we didn't help the poor fellas move enough gear! Well, I for one take this opportunity to apologize.
Anyway, after that stuff was all finished, I started to get a little bored so I decided to take on the position of "stir it up guy" (a well-known figurehead posture) in the OLP camp and got into a small arsenal of fireworks that had taken residence in my bag (just in case of a rainy day). I then went on to show my wares to Raine and realized from the sparkle in his eye, I need not even pick up a match. I had an accomplice.
We then needed a victim and Mike just happened to walk into the hotel room to use the bathroom (which is the world's best place to spark up one's peaceful moment with a lady finger or two, look it up if you don't believe me). Raine then took the opportunity to arm himself and foolishly try the "stuff it under the door after you light it technique." Next thing you know, Mike has barely sped up his natural bowel movement and Raine has the bells of St. Mary's ringing in his head with a black thumb to boot! Foiled!
Luckily, Lonnie (our guitar technician) needed a fresh towel for the pool. We told him there was one in the bathroom (there wasn't), and this time Raine was armed with about 35 lady's on a string. He lit them and dropped them on his feet, burned his legs, then rolled backwards like an orangutan on crack while Lonnie watched laughing. I then ran from the room and hid on the bus whilst Raine tried fanning the smoke away from the fire alarm that had gone off. Foiled again!
Next up came Duncan. Don't forget our friendly bass playing buddy is in a (very rare for him) sour mood. Raine collected the last of the little lady's and put them in a real Bronx bomber with the help of a handy dandy twist tie and while Duncan was on the phone, Raine cleverly (practice makes perfect) put the crackers in a paper bag next to Dunky's head. Seconds later Dunk comes running onto the bus screaming at the top of his lungs (we were the only ones that could hear him; he certainly couldn't.)
"After all that madness it was time for load in. We were scheduled to do an acoustic show for this cool station, KNRX, at the Boars Head and on our way, we heard from our Columbia promo rep Ray (spin getter and all around regular guy), that The Artist was performing in town. We all realized that this show was a necessity see, after all, it is that guy Prince! Luckily, we weren't on until midnight, so we could see God perform. People, I've seen a lot of shows for a kid my age (22), but this one was some serious schooling. This man d
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