Our Lady Peace – Renaissance Band
An Interview with Steve Mazur – Our Lady Peace guitarist

Friday February 26th, 2009.

www.ourladypeace.net
www.myspace.com/ourladypeace

By Mike Bax

With Canadian Music Week 2010 just around the bend, I can’t help but think back on last year’s Canadian Music Week, and that I got to see Our Lady peace play a tight set of music to a miniscule crowd of people at the Rivoli on March 12th. It was an odd night for me… my wife was in China on business, and I was alone for my first birthday in a while. I had some dinner with a few folks from Fazer and then headed out into the Toronto night for a number of bands at different venues, culminating with Our Lady Peace at midnight at the Rivoli.

I first saw Our Lady Peace in the mid-nineties, opening for I Mother Earth at Call the Office in London. It was a special show for me, as it was obvious to me that OLP had just as much raw talent as the band they were opening for, and they eventually went on to become a much more successful band.

As the nineties went by and OLP grew in popularity to become a marquee Canadian arena band, I would always reflect on that Call The Office show. It was a bit ironic seeing them at Canadian Music Week in 2009 in a venue SMALLER than the first venue I experienced them in, especially considering their audience is still quite fanatic in Toronto.

So what could be better than catching the band at a venue like the Rivoli in 2010? How does getting to see Our Lady Peace in a theatre playing two of their most popular albums on different nights in entirety sound to you? That’s what Canadian fans will get to experience through March and into May of this year; “Clumsy” and “Spiritual Machines” played from beginning to end, with a second set at each show of selections from their entire catalog (there is a full list of shows and venues after this interview).

March 12th and 13th will see Our Lady Peace play two back-to-back nights at Massey Hall as a part of Canadian Music Week 2010. The following week, there will be two similar shows in London at Centennial Hall and then in Kitchener at Centre In The Square.

Guitarist Steve Mazur was good enough to take a few minutes to talk shop with me last week about these up coming CMW shows, along with where the band is at as musicians in 2010.

Mike: Hello Steve. You are out on the West Coast at the moment, is that right?
Steve: I am…Yup.

Mike: How are things going out there?

Steve: Doing good man, in fact, we start rehearsing tomorrow for the upcoming Our Lady Peace tour. We are rehearsing here in L.A. for about a week and then we go to Halifax and do a few days of preproduction. I heard there was a massive blizzard in Toronto today, so I don’t mind being in Los Angeles where there’s not a blizzard today.

Mike: We’re getting pelted. I’m in Kitchener and we just got a bunch of snow; more snow then we had all winter right now.

Steve: Oh really? Hang on one second; my friend here is from that area, she was wondering what it was like at home.

Mike: It’s crappy! (Laugh)

Steve: (Laugh)….. (off the receiver) It’s crappy…. Cool man!

Mike: So listen a year ago, almost to the day you guys are scheduled to play Massy Hall, I saw you debut songs from “Burn Burn” at the Rivoli.

Steve: Oh, you were there?

Mike: I was indeed; it was a pretty awesome show.

Steve: Oh thanks, that was lot of fun for us, too. Hey, I think that was during Canadian Music Week, wasn’t it?

Mike: It was; it was about halfway through it, I think. That was the first time you guys performed in awhile though.

Steve: Oh yeah, definitely….you mean in general we haven’t played for awhile.

Mike: In general, but yeah… the Rivoli show was the first show in a while, too.

Steve: It was kind of like going, “Do we even remember how to do this?” That was really a special show for us. It’s a small place, the Rivoli, but that was such a fun gig man… very cool.

Mike: It’s been a pretty interesting year for Our Lady Peace, has it not?

Steve: It has, it’s interesting to go back to work.

Mike: You’re doing two special shows at Canadian Music week and they are both at Massey Hall. One of them is going to be a full performance of “Clumsy” and the other one is a full performance of “Spiritual Machines” correct?

Steve: Yes.

Mike: How did you decide on these particular albums to perform live, Steve?

Steve: We always talked about how it would be fun to go to do two different nights and do full album performances now that the band has quite a catalogue built up. We originally talked that it would be fun around Christmas or New Years one year and just do five nights in a row at Massey Hall and play a different album each night. However, we started talking when we were discussing what we were going to do for our 2010 Canadian tour and I had recently gone and seen Devo here in L.A.; they did two nights in a row where each night they did a different record. So we were talking about that and we kind of felt like the last few times we’ve gone across Canada we have done the same things; you know… played the hockey arena in each city. That’s great and everything; however, we just felt it would be nice to do something different. Playing in theaters is so great we thought it would be cool; I know when I saw Devo do that full record, as a fan I loved it. Another favorite band of mine, Kings X, did the same thing a couple of years ago and I know as a fan I loved it. So we were just thinking that it would be a real cool thing for our fans that hold those albums close to their heart, to go up and play the whole record. It felt like kind of a cool thing for us and them.



You asked how we do we come across those two albums? Initially we talked about doing “Naveed” and “Spiritual Machines.” “Spiritual Machines” was kind of always one we wanted to do because it’s definitely a fan favorite that record; it’s personally my favorite record of the bands as well. We just always hear people say, ““Spiritual Machines” is my favorite record, why don’t you guys play more songs off of it?”; that record didn’t sell anywhere near as well as “Happiness” and “Naveed” and all that. So we knew we wanted to do that one but we weren’t sure what to do for the other one. So we sort of threw it out there online via our website (ourladypeace.net) and on our Facebook page and just kind of said, “Hey, hypothetically if the band were ever to go do a tour and play a complete record, which one would you like to see?” “Spiritual Machines” got the most votes and “Clumsy” got a ton. We realized that “Clumsy” for so many people was kind of a soundtrack for when they were in high school or some certain summer. A lot of people bought that record. So we thought it would be a kind of a nice mixture to do “Clumsy” since so many people know it and it sold so much and also do “Spiritual Machines’ because for a lot of our hard core fans, it’s their favorite. So that is the long winded version of how that came to be.

Mike: It’s a good story. These are going to be historic shows. I agree with you, I like seeing full albums performed live and I’ll bet that when the touring cycle was on for these albums, some of these songs may not have even made the set list; this may be the first time the band has done these albums in their entirety on stage, before and audience.

Steve: Oh definitely! There are definitely songs the band has never played live before at all. It’s funny because I joined the band in 2000, I asked a couple of questions while I was learning these songs like, “How did you guys used to do this and that?” and they would say to me, “We never played that song live, ever.” It’s been a challenge man, but it’s been a lot of fun dissecting the part and figuring out how to do it… it’s been a lot of fun for us all so far.

Mike: I read Rolling Stone magazine regularly, Steve. I’m a subscriber. They ran a short article in the front of their magazine recently; it’s got to be in the past two or three issues, stating that bands are {I’m quoting} “resorting” to playing special shows like this to deal with a slumping economy. Whether this is true or not shouldn’t really deter from the fact that shows are actually happening; that they are special and they are likely a once in a lifetime opportunity for Our Lady Peace fans, would you agree?



Steve: I do agree. I don’t know about the slumping economy, it’s obviously true that record sales have been down for years as people are not buying records like they use to. Now with the economy the way it is, touring for everybody across the board is way down, there’s a lot less people coming to the shows. Honestly, I don’t really recall that being a factor in us discussing that though. It just came from something we were really excited about. Doing a tour like this is not the most convenient way, it’s not the most convenient time wise, but it’s definitely not the most lucrative way to tour. For us it was just something we were excited about. I agree very much with that quote that fans are getting to see something special, not just with us, but all these other bands that are doing special shows, whatever the reason, its great; it is a historic thing for sure.

Mike: Well, you mentioned Devo and I did not to get to see those shows when they hit Toronto, but they were on my radar; that would have been really cool to see. I got out to see Roger Waters do the “Dark Side Of The Moon” album and for me it was mind-blowing. They didn’t tour that way back in the 70s’ so what the hell… Of course you’re going to pay the money for it and see it live, right! Any fan would.

Steve: Oh man, how was that was it amazing?

Mike: I went twice. I liked it so much I went back and saw it again… it was just brilliant.

Steve: I would have loved to see it, that’s awesome.

Mike: Are there any plans for you guys to film any of these shows? Either a “Clumsy” or a “Spiritual Machines” show and release them on DVD for your fans?

Steve: We haven’t really had a discussion like that yet, but I believe we are going to have soundboard recording to audio every night… I believe that’s the plan anyway. Honestly, there has been so much stuff last week in getting ready for the tour and this and that, there may be some plans to taping, but none that I know of for sure. The only thing I know of is that we definitely going to try to roll tape and record the audio of the shows every night, maybe somewhere down the line offer something like “here’s “Clumsy” the recorded version and here’s “Clumsy” the live version” in a package. I think we may try to do something like that but that’s hypothetical so far.

Mike: Cool. You mentioned you stepped into Our Lady Peace around 2000, after Mike Turner left. In your head there must be a pre and a post Steve segregation to Our Lady Peace, does that ever trip you up? Is that ever weird for you when you’re playing some of the earlier material?

Steve: Well…

Mike: Maybe that was unfair… Let me first ask you this? Were you an Our Lady Peace fan before joining the band?

Steve: I was, definitely… yup.

Mike: Okay so……

Steve: I remember going to buy “Spiritual Machines,”……. I grew up in Michigan and I remember going to buy “Spiritual Machines” across the border because it came out three months earlier in Canada than it did in the States for some reason. I was definitely a fan for sure. I guess in answer to your question, not really. No. I mean it for me it was just kind of learning the tunes. I knew what was going on with the band from when they started and how they had gotten to where they were. I had a really good picture of what’d gone down and stuff. I guess it had kind of struck me as very cool when I’ve been learning these songs off “Spiritual Machines” because I loved that record when it came out; I still do. So it has been kind of cool to dissect that and really learn all these songs; especially hearing the lyrical things like how when Raine was tying in so many scenes with what was basically a concept album. So reading into all of the songs on “Spiritual Machines” has been very rewarding, it made me remember why I loved that record so much. Also learning all the songs from “Clumsy” it’s just kind of cool to think about where the band was at that time, what they were going through and to hear that in the songs. There are some songs on “Clumsy” where they are definitely sort of experimenting and going for some different things. Some of those songs you can tell they worked on it so hard; we are much lazier then that now. (Laughs)

Mike: Do you remember the first time you became aware of Our Lady Peace as a band?

Steve: I remember hearing “Starseed” when it came out. I remember seeing the video for “One Man Army;” I really liked that song and was talking about it with a friend and he had the CD which he loaned me to check out. I think “Starseed” was the song that put OLP on the radar but then when I heard “One Man Army” that was when I really said “Oh, I want to sit down and listen to these guys.”

Mike: I’ve always found that Our Lady Peace are a proudly Canadian band and I think that a lot of bands, wherever they come out of, tend to really pursue the global domination approach to music and I have always felt that Our Lady Peace has kept that worldwide conquest card very close to their chest. Do you think that’s a fair assessment?

Steve: Yes and no. We would love to be playing all over the place. We definitely spend a lot of time in the U.S. because it’s such a huge market and there are so many people. We do spend a lot of time and effort in trying to get ourselves known down there and build up more of a following. However, we are so grateful for Canada; I mean we’ll always have Canada. Our Canadian fans are so supportive, so loyal that it’s really nice to know that even if no radio stations are wanting to play our songs or our records in the states, Canada is still giving it a shot most of the time; people are still listening to it and still appreciating it and coming out to our shows. I’m so grateful for that, because Canadians in general… I’m American so I can say this… Canadians in general are such loyal, passionate and dedicated fans. Americans are much more flighty and flaky, where they like you one minute and forget about you the next. Canadians are much more old school, once they like a band they are a dedicated bunch. We are lucky with that for sure.

Mike: I’m just trying to get my timing right here, were you playing guitar with Our Lady Peace on the last Summersault tour? Is that about when you joined? I hit those shows a lot too back in the day.

Steve: That was right before.

Mike: Fair enough. Now I understand that Our Lady Peace are already hard at work on a follow up to “Burn, Burn,” is there anything you can disclose about album number eight?

Steve: Basically we stumbled upon a really nice process making “Burn Burn.” The record before that “Healthy In Paranoid Times” was really tough to make, a lot of drama, but this last record “Burn Burn” was very inspiring; we worked really hard on it but it was a great ride so we want to keep tapped into that energy and that flow. I’ve already started writing stuff in my studio and am sending it to the guys. We were in Toronto about a month ago kicking around ideas; we basically just want to stay on that ride we were on making that last record. Once we got in the studio and recorded everything “Burn Burn” didn’t take very long to record, so we are hoping that whether it be a year or two years I’m not sure, but it will definitely not be four years between records they way the last two were.

Mike: Our Lady Peace has been a recording band now for almost two decades. Do you think the band is going through a bit of a renaissance right now?

Steve: Oh, I think so.



Mike: It seems to me there is a reinvestment in Our Lady Peace at this moment that, to me, is exciting. I remember hearing rumors about a break up in 2006 and I was thinking, “Well, that’s a shame”. Then I saw the Rivoli show and “Burn Burn” came out shortly afterwards with a tour. You guys have really been on top of your game again. It’s cool as a fan to see that.

Steve: Honestly, I think what happened was “Healthy In Paranoid Times” was very tough on the band and we definitely thought of not doing it anymore. Then we kind of got away from each other for awhile and that was probably the significance of the title “Burn Burn” for me… was that just everything in making the last record “Burn Burn” was so different than the way we made “Healthy in Paranoid Times.” Not that how we went about making “Healthy In Paranoid Times” was wrong - we try different things all the time - but the way “Burn Burn” from the ground up was written and recorded, everything was just the way the guys wanted the band to operate and the way I wanted it to function as well. We finally figured out how to make that work; how to go about things in the way the creativity flows very freely and everyone feels really good about what we’re doing and their place in the band; we finally fell into that groove. I’d say it would be the first time since I’ve been in the band, maybe the first time ever with the band while making “Burn Burn.” So you said renaissance; I would say the way it feels when we’re making music now, definitely feels that we are reborn.

Mike: I’m ask going to ask this question because I’m not a musician at all. I mean, I’m creative but I’m not creative in the sense that I can craft music. Two decades in, you guys are all older men now, do you feel it’s more challenging to craft relevant songs in 2010?

Steve: I think as long as you are always creating music from the right place, I don’t think that it’s hard to still have things that are relevant musically or lyrically. I know for all of us in the band the reasons why we are still playing music and the reasons we started. I know for me it happened when I was twelve years old, you just get bit by this bug… this music bug. You learn one song on the guitar and you want to learn another one, then you learn another one, you get so turned on by it, It’s kind of like a drug fix. You are always chasing that chemistry. For me it never stopped, it never does, I’m always still chasing the thing to turn me on again next about music. We are all like that, between the four of us, definitely none of us got into music because we wanted to become famous or have our own reality show. We did it because playing music felt so good. For us, as long as it keeps coming from that same spot then I don’t think it’s going to be hard to keep making relevant music and writing relevant lyrics at all.

Mike: Cool.

Steve: You know there are definitely bands that have done it. Look at the band like Radiohead. I’m not comparing Our Lady Peace to Radiohead by any means, but I feel their last record could be the best of their career; and they have been making music for awhile.

Mike: I just played “In Rainbows” this morning. I was listening to it for the first time in awhile and I feel the same way. “In Rainbows” is really good music and nothing like they were doing back in the 90s’.

Steve: I know, right? And still so good.

Mike: So you are going to rehearse shortly, right? You haven’t started touring these ‘full album’ shows yet, correct?

Steve: Yup, we are just doing a week of rehearsal here starting tomorrow, then we go to Halifax and our first show is on March 7th. It’s all coming up quickly.

Mike: I’m looking forward to seeing OLP again. I don’t know if I’m going to hit the Massey Hall shows in Toronto or whether I’ll do London or Kitchener. For me it just depends on my timing and what Canadian Music Week does to me health wise (Laughs) Thanks for your time and I’m looking forward to seeing at least one or two of these shows. I hope the rehearsals go well sir.

Steve: It was good talking to you. See you soon.

*****

As promised – Our Lady Peace 2010 Tour Dates:
7 Mar 2010 19:30 Cunard Centre - Halifax, Nova Scotia
9 Mar 2010 19:30 Olympia - Montreal, Quebec
10 Mar 2010 19:30 Olympia - Montreal, Quebec
12 Mar 2010 19:30 Massey Hall - Toronto, Ontario
13 Mar 2010 19:30 Massey Hall - Toronto, Ontario
15 Mar 2010 19:30 Centennial Hall - London, Ontario
16 Mar 2010 19:30 Centennial Hall - London, Ontario
18 Mar 2010 19:30 The Fillmore Detroit - Detroit, Michigan
19 Mar 2010 19:30 Centre In The Square - Kitchener, Ontario
20 Mar 2010 19:30 Centre In The Square - Kitchener, Ontario
22 Mar 2010 19:30 Centrepointe Theatre - Ottawa, Ontario
23 Mar 2010 19:30 Centrepointe Theatre - Ottawa, Ontario
24 Mar 2010 19:30 Capitol Centre - North Bay, Ontario
26 Mar 2010 19:30 Historic Riviera Theatre Buffalo, New York
27 Mar 2010 19:30 Historic Riviera Theatre Buffalo, New York
27 Apr 2010 19:30 Thunder Bay Community Auditorium – Thunder
Bay, Ontario
28 Apr 2010 19:30 Thunder Bay Community Auditorium – Thunder
Bay, Ontario
30 Apr 2010 19:30 Burton Cummings Theatre - Winnipeg, Manitoba
1 May 2010 19:30 Burton Cummings Theatre - Winnipeg, Manitoba
3 May 2010 19:30 Conexus - Regina, Saskatchewan
4 May 2010 19:30 Conexus - Regina, Saskatchewan
6 May 2010 19:30 TCU - Saskatoon, Saskatchewan
7 May 2010 19:30 Edmonton Events Centre - Edmonton, Alberta
8 May 2010 19:30 Edmonton Events Centre - Edmonton, Alberta
10 May 2010 19:30 Jack Singer Concert Hall - Calgary, Alberta
11 May 2010 19:30 Jack Singer Concert Hall - Calgary, Alberta
13 May 2010 19:30 Vogue Theatre - Vancouver, British Columbia
14 May 2010 19:30 Vogue Theatre - Vancouver, British Columbia
15 May 2010 19:30 Vogue Theatre - Vancouver, British Columbia
18 May 2010 19:30 Port Theatre - Nanaimo, British Columbia
19 May 2010 19:30 Port Theatre - Nanaimo, British Columbia
21 May 2010 19:30 Royal Theatre - Victoria, British Columbia
22 May 2010 19:30 Royal Theatre - Victoria, British Columbia