PUBLISHED IN THE HAMILTON SPECTATOR TUESDAY, January 13, 1998
By Nick Krewen
TORONTO:
As the combined North American sales of the albums Naveed and Clumsy soar past 1.5 million copies, OUR LADY PEACE guitarist MIKE TURNER says his band has been graced by the good fortunes of another woman: Lady Luck.
"We've been very lucky," admits Turner, 34, as he sips a coffee in a downtown Toronto a few days before Christmas.
"It kind of mystifies me. I don't really have any way to take credit or blame for what's happened. We may not be the most gifted people, but we're probably among the hardest working."
While the toil has obviously vaulted Turner and OLP singer RAINE MAIDA, bassist DUNCAN COUTTS and drummer JEREMY TAGGART into rock stardom -- as a 14-date, SRO cross-Canada tour as headliners that began January 5 in Quebec City and the current Top Ten U.S. radio success of the song "Clumsy" indicate -- there seem to be an inordinate amount of invisible horseshoes hanging around the band member's necks.
The first four-leaf clover was Our Lady Peace's record deal. They were signed to Sony Music Canada with less than a dozen performances under their belts. No loading-into-the-van-and-playing-the-scummiest-dive starving artist apprenticeship here.
The next winfall came with their first arena date: opening for JIMMY PAGE and ROBERT PLANT in Chicago a few years ago, kick started by the U.S. radio success of their song "Starseed."
"`Starseed' really did well on its own merits," Turner recounts. "Even that was lucky. Initially, our U.S. label Relativity serviced it on cassette, and through an oversight forgot the "Do Not Broadcast" title on the promotional copy. Radio stations were so hyped they started playing the cassette on the air. There was no information on the cassette about the band -- just Our Lady Peace.
"Radio jumped all over `Starseed', and we actually had to accelerate the release date of Naveed just to capitalize on it. That enabled us to get out and tour and tour and tour."
The venues only got bigger, as a North American outdoor stadium jaunt with VAN HALEN during SAMMY HAGAR's last stand exposed them to hundreds of thousands of new fans.
Then it was time to record their sophomore album Clumsy, whose multi-platinum success led to a few concerts headlining the Edgefest tour, an opening slot with THE ROLLING STONES that kicked off 1998, and what promises to be a busy year touring in the U.S.
You'd be hard pressed to find a hotter band -- Canadian or otherwise -- at the moment, but Mike Turner thinks Our Lady Peace's success has less to do with personality than with content.
"I think it's our albums," Turner explains. "We try to make them complete albums. We don't accept filler. I'm proud of every song on both records. "Once we've got the album we believe in completely, then we're perfectly confident to go out and tour them for a year or two years and getting in people's faces. To me, that's always been the ultimate judgment of a band -- live, if they cut it. I don't mean if they play exactly like the record, or if they have great huge technical solos. It's the passion. Does it translate? Because we're always honest, I like to think it has."
There is one other part of the equation: producer ARNOLD LANNI. He made his reputation first as a member of Canadian rockers SHERIFF, and later as a co-founder of FROZEN GHOST. But the veteran Lanni remains the only songwriter in pop music history to score a #1 hit with "When I'm With You", five years after Sheriff's breakup.
Turner concurs that Lanni's craftsmanship does give Our Lady Peace an advantage.
"Arn's been around since the beginning," says Turner. "He worked on the original demos that got us signed. He's a genius. He's got this incredible library of knowledge.
"The other benefit of Arn is that he's been through the worst. He's got all the bad stories of how the music industry can be such a terrible monster. He's kept us really grounded by telling us, `Okay, here's the most likely scenario: Two years from now, you'll be dropped, and the only thing you'll have left is whatever memories you've got from making this, and when you're done, you'll be able to hold this CD in your hand and say , "I did this." That's the most likely case. So you better make sure that by the time you're done, you don't have any regret about what you did with this.'
"With that in mind, we just made records that we really like. I don't think we're that different, and maybe that's the thing."
-30-
1994 -- Naveed
1997 -- Clumsy
1999 -- Happiness Isn't A Fish You Can Catch
COLLABORATIONS
1996 -- Various Artists, Q107's Concerts In The Sky
1998 -- Various Artists, Soundtrack -- Armageddon
AWARDS
1998 -- Juno, Rock Album Of The Year - Clumsy
1998 -- Juno, Group Of The Year
THANKS: LORRAINE QUARTARO, JILL MORISON
©1998 Nick Krewen, Octopus Media Ink