"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 "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 "[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 his 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 Our Lady Peace are not exactly perfect angels when it comes to this interesting ritual. With a devilish grin, the guitarist fondly recounts a tale about a tour with Vancouver's Salvador Dream: "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!" 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.
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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!
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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!
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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.)
"Everyone is bitter and angry and they have this angst nowadays, but they don't know what they are angry at. When someone says something, people can tend to automatically take it as a slight but if we say that person isn't trying to be mean, they are just a little clumsy, the word gives the inherant ability to forgive and so we liked it," -Mike Turner |
