The Audio Of Being Our Lady Peace

07/31/09 2:25pm

by Michelle Singerman (CHARTattack)

There was perhaps no bigger Canadian band in the mid-'90s and early 2000s than Our Lady Peace.

But then, after the release of 2005's Healthy In Paranoid Times, they kinda disappeared, only to return just this month with new album Burn Burn.

CHARTattack spoke to bassist Duncan Coutts and band ambassador and drummer Jeremy Taggart about their recent exploits.

CHARTattack: So the LP just came out. What's the plan?
Jeremy Taggart: Well, we're just rehearsing and getting everything ready for summer touring. Just, ah, playing in the songs, you know. We're happy that we're finished because we had a really good time recording these songs and they're gonna be fun. So we'll see... It's going to be on CD and vinyl. First time for vinyl.

Why vinyl this time?
JT: It's viable. People are into it. It sounds really good and, to be honest, just for personal reasons, just to have it ourselves.

Duncan Coutts: I recently got my record player back out again, and my old clutch back out again, and I really want an OLP record in my record collection.

JT: And it's not just that. For us, I really think we made — for us — we made an old school record. And that's a 10 song, five songs on either side, record. And it feels like a record, it plays like a record and we're really excited about that.

There's something about the tactile touch of a record.
DC: It's a lost art.

With a return to basics — vinyl and back in to studio, no producers, and such — how did it all feel to be back together?
JT: It feels good. It's amazing. I think from the big picture after six albums, a lot of talented people, you learn a lot.

I think at this point we're at our best when we're recording as fast as we are writing. This record enabled us to do that by Raine [Maida, vocals] having a nice studio with a great board and mics and a lot of opportunities for quick set up. It would take us 10 to 15 minutes to get a song out and we'd be recording. And a lot of the songs on this record are, like, one or two takes on everything because we had great momentum.

We would work and work and work and probably ended up with a couple dozen songs… instead of dwelling on 10 of them and trying to make those 10 better, we just kept recording and let the 10 kind of pop out on their own.

DC: Yeah, we weren't precious about the ideas. And the thing is, it's that yes, it took us almost three years to make a record. That first year off we really didn't talk to each other very much, except just saying "hey" once in a while. But we really just took a break from each other.

And the actual recording process, we never really recorded for more than 10 days — that was the most. And for the first while it was really only a week at a time. Then we'd take two or three months off. And the cool thing about that with us producing ourselves is the one thing you're in danger of is not getting respected, but when you take two or three months off you may come back to hear an idea you thought was gold is really not gold.

When you come back, because you haven't listened to it... so we were able to get perspective that way. So we really took like 10 weeks, 12 weeks maybe recording this whole record.

JT: We're good (jokingly), put us in a room next to Blink 182 and let's see how fast we can track a tune... 'cause it's about that now. It's all about stats. One, two-takes, I don't listen to musicians that do five takes anymore. Once you start getting the numbers out... the blogs, imagine the blogs, the comments.

You guys chose to do this one without producers. Where does that idea stem from and why?
DC: Like Jer said, we've done six records with other producers and we've learned a lot from them and it was just time to.

We are really kind of almost going indie on this in the sense that yes, we're partnered with a record company, but really it's all up to us and we're doing it in Raine's studio with no one telling us, "Hey man, the clock is ticking with the cost of this recording studio." And we just were completely autonomous, so it was just a natural progression.

JT: And it just seemed like the best parts of making records was being "in the moment." It was just good momentum, no stops, no walls, it was just real simple.

What music should be.
Both: yeah!

JT: The way people, bands go into the studio and the thought of it being this big thing — it's not at all. It's a recorded performance, like, we're a performance-based artist and it shouldn't be that hard. I know a lot of bands nowadays will go in and make the record in a week and it sounds great and it ends up being on the charts, and that mentality 10-15 years ago wasn't around.

People thought that wasn't, you just can't do that. You can't make a record... like The Black Crowes were the only band that made records fast, but people thought there was something wrong with it or something. You had to take six months.

It's the most, biggest abscess in the face of music was how fat music got from 1970 to 1990 to 1995. You could see the excess and the amount of money which was just being thrown around.

And here we are back at square one. We have people that are making huge records in two, three years. Bands in Canada — I mean almost all those Dine Alone bands — make records pretty quick. Bands like The Waking Eyes, they go in [studio] when they're on tour. And there's a reason why they're as good live because it sounds like the record. Because they do it fast.

You call Burn, Burn a record that's meant to be played live. Aren't they all?
JT: The excess of the past, you can't live up to that. It's like, when we have the Limp Bizkit era, you can't sound like that live because there's 30 guitar tracks, 15 drum program tracks. It's so thick and they go live and they're playing along with all this stuff, and it's cool, but it's like, that's what it is.

It's impossible to try and think, to recreate that, where you have to play everything, you can't step out... it's nuts, it's like working in a circus. And that was accepted normal, you know. And now people are like, "What the heck, man? What happened?" It's just cash.

Record companies throwing 30 grand at a band for a month of tour support because they think they need that. "We need explosions or else it's not going to work, man." "This song needs fucking cannons, seriously man!" "We're fucked without those bombs." You know that's happening.

Even what's in the background, Dylan's playing.
JT: Well, that's "Desolation Row." He's playing with that whole idea, that whole concert. His idea is you're supposed to arm 'em up and blow the whole scene. The powder keg is kinda frazzled; it didn't explode like when Nirvana did it. It didn't happen like that, it just kinda happened through the internet and all these current bands that are coming up.

It's actually pretty interesting if you're a fan of music to try and find something to live with for, like, five years, like a favourite band if you can keep going 'cause there's so much stuff coming you think, "Oh man, that's not cool, man. Six months, old man. Forget it!"

All these years later, looking back to past songs you've done, like, "Clumsy" or "Life," do you guys still feel those same things you did when you wrote those songs?
DC: They should, I mean our thing, we're lucky that a lot of our songs still do. There are certain songs on certain records that you try and fire back up again and they don't resonate.

JT: I think that's more a musical thing. Yeah, it's always songs people probably wouldn't expect to hear anyway.

Might those songs perhaps have been pressure from the label.
JT: No, 'cause they're not singles.

DC: We kind of always would take left turns and right turns and it was kinda cool for us because we're always just trying new things and it kept up fresh and learning about each other as musician, so sometimes you hit, sometimes you miss.

You guys say you didn't want to compromise anything on the album, which is why your returned to basics. Looking back, do you feel you were successful?
DC: I think so. I'm 100 per cent with this record.

JT: I think it's, I don't know, that to me, when you say back-to-basics, it sounds like we're reverting from something, where we're not. We're still making music and we still look back at our previous work as the same idea. We never went into something and looking back felt, "Oh that was a big mistake."

You say the songs picked themselves. But you recorded something in excess of 30 songs and narrowed them down to 10. How'd you get those 10?
DC: Well, yeah, but we weren't precious with the ideas, right.

JT: Some of them suck.

Which was the first song that you knew had to go on?
JT: "Escape Artist."

DC: When we finally got "Dreamland," that was when we had four songs or so that we knew were really good. And then when we got "Dreamland" it was like, "OK, we really have a cool record now."

JT: You need to kind of have a couple really musical musically influenced songs for us to structure an album. Once we have something like that we know is gonna cut live, in terms of make us push each other and give us an opportunity to push our instruments, those are the ones that kind of give us a real perspective. But we still maintain the goal of trying to create something that's going to strike a match with us creatively and is interesting.

Will you complete something and if you still don't feel like you have hit go back to it?
DC: It's hard to go "Yeah, we need a #1 radio hit." On this album, it was a tempo issue. But I think the songs that you hear on the radio are obviously songs that you would hear on the radio as opposed to previous records, it seems.

We didn't necessarily reach to get there, but we kinda know how to get them in a sense. And they are what they are. They speak like that, they're more universal songs.

How do you choose the ordering of songs. Why "Dreamland" second and "Paper Moon" last?
JT: It's the big battle of creativity versus marketing. When you put on headphones and listen to a record from beginning to end, and that's how you kind of want it to sound and some people completely disagree with that. There's gotta be a happy medium, but thank God a fast song always never hurts to start off the album, and we've always done that.

DC: And we wanted to finish strong and not put an afterthought at the end of the record. Not that we feel there are really any afterthoughts on this record, but that's why "Paper Moon" is last because I think all of us would hope that could be a radio single, even when you listen to the radio you know that's not what goes on the radio... but it's a special song to us and it's the album closer. End of side two.

Raine called what you're doing now "proper mature rock" album. What is that?
DC: To me, it just sounds like a musical dynamic record. At times makes me want to drive too fast, which is always a good sign for a song, for me. And at times it just takes me away to different spaces, and that's also a good sign.

JT: Honestly, everything has its stamp and every other record has its stamp and the biggest stamp is where you are at the time. We're proud of the record. I think it's at a place that we probably wouldn't have seen a long time ago, but, I mean, we're still being able to be musicians for a living...

What did it take for you to get to that spot?
JT: I think it has a lot to do with just pushing each other, and not accepting certain things and accepting other things and not realizing that just sticking together is almost the hardest and most important thing to do. And realizing that at the end of the day that becomes the most precious thing, you know.

I think from the beginning we always just wanted to make good records that we're making and not really think about what we're doing a year after that. If we were not playing in this band, it wouldn't really have been a big deal. And that almost still happens in this band, like it feels like we're just making this record now and that if we're not together next year it wouldn't be surprising, but that's just the way we've been from the beginning as a band.

It's funny, here I am 17 years later, half my life, from 17 years old and I'm the same — I'm so attached to this, but so not attached to it. That's the way we all are. We all have amazing lives and we are happy every day to be alive and to be in the band.

DC: And just pushing each other is a big thing, you know. We really do push each other.

Artistically, or in every way, how a sibling would push you?
JT: Not like siblings 'cause I think siblings you know, we may be harder on each other than siblings. When you have that mindset of "We're only into being inspired by each other. If it's not happening, then this is the last fucking thing I would want to do."

So everybody has that in mind and that's why we've been together this long because we're constantly reaffirming our respect for each other.

You've been through a lot in that time frame, some guys have left, some were sick. Shit's happened. Was there one thing you guys came out of and realized you were better for it?
JT: You see all these other bands that break up and get back together for reasons that we're still together. We went through that, too, like, just figure it out. It's all personal stuff. If you don't air out your laundry it's just gonna turn sour, and that's it. You're done. It's happened with almost every band that we started with.

We saw it happening and like, man, these guys are not talking and man, you could just pick them apart. It got to the point where we had pools going on bands that were opening for us and I don't think I lost one... I said, "These guys are gonna be done by the end of the tour" on a band that I can't say the name because it happened.

You just see it happen. But you just see tension and you realize that if it's not going to get out it's just going to get worse. And that means if somebody wants to make music on their own accord that's cool, just realize the music isn't owned by the band, it's only just this part of it.

With that, if there was something bothering you, do ever let it go?
JT: We talk about it.

DC: Rarely, we let it go. Most of the time we get in each other's faces.

JT: We've learned a lot from bands like The Tragically Hip 'cause we see that there's all kinds of stuff that can go on when you're a band after 15 years. We have so much respect for the guys to just get together.

And those guys are the classiest dudes in Canada. And that's no small feat just to be together that long. And there are no egos and the fact that they can check them all and still make records together and deal with all the bullshit that hangs on to stuff when you start making money and people start bugging you on the street and stuff...

DC: Especially a band in Canada, 'cause as people we're very accepting of what people do, we're very understanding. For a band like that to be together for that long and go through all those manager changes and stuff like that, that's it, they are the best band in this country and will be until they break up. Them and Blue Rodeo and Sloan to some extent. Those guys all deserve massive props for keeping it together.

Are they your role model?
JT: One hundred per cent, from day one... like back in the day we'd be like, "Did The Hip do this?" If they didn't, we wouldn't. If they did something, we did it. That kind of helped us a lot, like, picking TV shows and stuff like that.

We thought they were cool enough to figure out to pave the way. They actually, they probably would have overexposed themselves 10 times over, but they've been really smart about how they've gathered themselves.

Real music needs inspiration. Think of the stuff going on in world, economically, politically, socially. Did all the turmoil right now help you guys make the record?
DC: Well, you'd have to add "personally" to that list as well. But yes, I would say all of those factors together influence us. I mean, we're just people making music, right? And if we're just making the music that comes out of us as people, then wherever we are or affected by or influenced by comes out in the music. It's just who we are.

It seems simple, but really...

Some say they write better when angry, etc. If everything's fluffy, then maybe music would be too, but if there's real emotion behind it…
JT: Well, I think it depends on what you're writing about. A lot of the times when something bad happens it affects us in a certain sense, but there's so much bad happening that you could be in a bad mood for the rest of your lives if you dwell on how horrible things are. But I think at the end of the day we play music to get out of that, you know.