Our Lady Peace

Our Lady Peace

Our Lady Peace is an alternative rock band that formed after guitarist Mike Turner and singer Michael Maida (who changed his first name to Raine) met in Toronto in 1991. They added bassist Chris Eacrett and drummer Jeremy Taggart, adopted the group name from a 1943 poem written by Mark Van Doren and began recording with producer Arnold Lanni. The group signed with Sony Music Canada, which released its Naveed debut in March 1994. Naveed went on to sell more than 100 000 copies and spawned five singles, including the title track and "Starseed," and won a 1995 Juno Award for album design. Our Lady Peace's raw rock sound and Maida's unique vocal style caught the attention of American rock band Van Halen as well as of Page & Plant (rock stars Jimmy Page and Robert Plant, formerly of Led Zeppelin), who asked the band to tour with them. Relativity Records issued Naveed in the United States a year after the album's Canadian release, and it came out in the United Kingdom in January 1996.

Duncan Coutts replaced Eacrett on bass for Clumsy, which arrived in January 1997 and debuted at the top of the Canadian sales chart. The title song, "Automatic Flowers," "4 a.m." and "Superman's Dead" were top 10 Canadian hits, with "Superman's Dead" also winning MuchMusic Video Awards for favourite group and video. Clumsy was released through Columbia Records and sold more than a million copies in Canada and 2.5 million worldwide after Our Lady Peace spent 18 months touring Canada, the United States and Europe. The quartet won the best group and rock album awards at the 1998 Junos.

Happiness... Is Not A Fish That You Can Catch was issued in September 1999 and debuted at number one in Canada. It featured the hits "One Man Army" and "Is Anybody Home?," sold more than 300 000 copies in Canada and won two MuchMusic Video Awards. The second edition of Our Lady Peace's Summersault festival travelled across Canada in the summer of 2000 with Smashing Pumpkins, Foo Fighters, Sum 41 and others.

Spiritual Machines, which tried to capture more of Our Lady Peace's live sound, followed in Canada in December 2000 and internationally a few months later. It was inspired by American inventor Ray Kurzweil's book, The Age Of Spiritual Machines: When Computers Exceed Human Intelligence, and featured short readings from the author. "In Repair" and "Life" became major Canadian rock radio hits, helping the album sell more than 200 000 copies in Canada.

While Our Lady Peace had experienced great success through its first four albums with producer Arnold Lanni, it decided to record its next effort with producer Bob Rock (Metallica, The Cult) at his studio in Maui, Hawaii. During a break in recording in December 2001, Turner left the band over creative and musical differences. He was replaced by Steve Mazur to finish recording Gravity, a more aggressive and straightforward album than its predecessors, which came out in June 2001. It entered the sales chart in Canada at number two and in the US at number nine. Singles "Somewhere Out There" and "Innocent" helped push sales past 200 000 in Canada and 600 000 south of the border. Gravity won the 2003 Juno for best rock album and "Innocent" received two MuchMusic Video Awards.

Our Lady Peace's Live album came out in the spring of 2003 and a live DVD followed late in the fall. There was talk of a break-up and it took longer than usual to come up with material for the next studio album, which was again made with Rock. The band recorded 45 songs before deciding on 12 it liked well enough to include on 2005's Healthy In Paranoid Times. The album debuted at number two and sold more than 100 000 units in Canada.

Our Lady Peace's final Columbia album was a 2006 hits collection titled A Decade, which included two previously unreleased songs. The band went on hiatus and Maida released a solo album titled The Hunter's Lullaby in 2007. Our Lady Peace's seventh studio effort, Burn Burn, was recorded over two years in Maida's Los Angeles home studio and issued in July 2009. The Maida-produced album reached number four on the Canadian chart. A second compilation called The Very Best of Our Lady Peace was issued by Legacy Recordings in 2009 and in 2012 the band released a collection of new material entitled Curve. The album, produced by Jason Lader (Maroon 5, Rilo Kiley), debuted at number nine on the Canadian sales chart.

Maida released a solo album titled The Hunter's Lullaby in 2007 and has been working on its full-length follow-up. The Pachamama and Pachamama II EPs were issued in the interim. Maida and wife Chantal Kreviazuk have also produced and written material for other artists.