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Pop Art: Our Lady Peace Walks the Fine Line Between the Concept and the Hook
interview Page 2
Page 1 of interview
Concepts and technology aside, the true unifying theme of Spiritual Machines probably has more to do with the songwriting talents of Raine Maida and the rest of the band. As was true with the group's three previous full-lengths, a great deal of effort is put into making sure the songs hook listeners. While most cynics and indie rock elitists probably view this as a calculated attempt to score huge radio hits, it probably has more to do with the band's influences and tastes. This kind of pop bashing has been going on for a long time, when fans argued that the Beatles were a measly pop band, while the Stones were a ROCK band. Keep in mind, rock 'n' roll has always been pop music (in the "popular" sense) and many of the best acts in its history—from the Beatles and Stones to Van Halen and Rush to Pavement and Nirvana—have paid much attention to classic song structures, catchy melodies, and hooks. Where pop goes wrong is when it is artificially manufactured and shoved into the mouths of overly-styled acts.
Mtc: How important is a hook to a song?
MT: It keeps our attention.
Mtc: You get pegged as a pop band, because you write songs that get stuck in your head.
MT: Yeah.
Mtc: Do you set out to do that or does it come naturally?
MT: Those are our tastes. We're very lucky in that we're not really very different from our fans, so, you know, if we pursue the things we enjoy, then we can generally have a pretty high level of confidence that our fans are going to like it. We all like pop music and I don't have a problem with being called a pop band. I don't think we're necessarily pop in an especially N'Sync kind of way, or any of that currently being called pop. But in terms of classic song structure, classic song elements, I'm fine with being called a pop band. That's the music I love the most.
Mtc: You always seem to get pegged as the one liking punk music, like the Sex Pistols and the Jam.
MT: I mean, come on, the Jam—Paul Weller, what a great pop songwriter. You look at bands like 999 or Generation X, and the same thing applies. Short, tight, pop song structures, delivered with a maximum sort of vitriol and passion. No loose, baggy, rambling bulls**t.
Mtc: As with a "concept album" or art rock—I think a lot of people are placing Spiritual Machines in that vein…
MT: Yeah, it's not Ronnie James Dio, just back away from that. That's why I said we're not comfortable with the term "concept record." It was only when the record was done that we looked back and said, 'Hey, whaddya know, that damn book is here again.' As you probably gathered from my previous ranting, I'm pretty into that stuff and I'm not frightened of sharing it with anyone. Maybe you're not even listening, but as long as you're stationary, I'll talk to you about it.
Mtc: It seems like you guys have been influenced by literature from the get go.
MT: I guess. We're all somewhat mentally restless. And, in a band, it's real easy to—on the bus—go for the intellectual sedatives, rather than try to challenge yourself a bit. We've always opted for the latter.
Mtc: Do you prefer to be in the studio or on the road?
MT: Depends on when I'm at it. Right now, I'd rather be on the road. Towards the end of being on the road, I'll be glad to get back in the studio. There's a sort of natural ebb to it. You spend too much time in a studio and you start to go insane and want to just be a rock band again.
MT: And get back out with the fans again.
MT: Yeah, exactly. This tour has been so awesome for us, just doing the clubs and stuff. It just feels like we're really connecting again. Every time we start a new tour, it seems to revitalize us.
MT: It seems like your fans are quite rabid and connected. We got about 80 e-mails from your fans requesting that we review the record. It seems like that was an organized campaign and the sort of forward thinking that's going to help you guys in the end. Do you feel a strong connection with your fan groups?
MT: Oh, absolutely. On our second record, we started a little threaded newsgroup bulletin board called the Clumsy Congress. We watched it develop and I post on it and keep track of it. It really developed into its own community. They would talk about things other than the band, and we, maybe to the record company's chagrin, fully endorsed that behavior. Now, we spun it off into its own Web site, and now the site is probably more about the fans than the band. They do talk about the band, because that is their unifying interest. There's sections where they talk about Kurzweil, and I've read some of the most cogent, well-organized arguments about the issues presented in Kurzweil's thinking—I mean, you always end up face-to-face with philosophy when you deal with the man-machine and mortality; you end up in a philosophical diatribe—and I've read some of these incredible, well-organized arguments, only to find out they're from a 13-year-old kid. That's one thing I really love about the reaction and the interaction we have with our fans on the Internet: it's completely stripped of context. It's purely the value of the ideas. At that point, you can really trust the information you get, because you know it's not burdened with 'I'm trying to be cool, because I've got the cool clothes' or any of those things. There it is, in text, what you've got to say. That's something that I really value as a connection with the fans.
That connection between Our Lady Peace and its fans is sure to stay strong, especially if the band keeps writing the sort of high quality material it delivers on Spiritual Machines. Mike Turner and his band mates are going to need those rabid followers to defend them over the years, because they are operating in a time when "pop" is considered a dirty word (and coming from Canada—the land of Bryan Adams and April Wine—probably makes it even harder). None of that seems to bother these guys, however, as they seem quite comfortable with their position in the music world. You can bet on one thing, though: considering the number of times Mike, Raine, and the others have had to answer for their "conceptual" indulgences, their next record will probably steer far clear of unifying themes. Which will be just fine, as long as they continue writing good pop rock songs and maintaining their intelligence in the face of a dumbed-down and teched-up society.
by Lem Oppenheimer
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