Our Lady Peace

At PEACE with Themselves
An interview with Jeremy Taggart of Our Lady Peace
By Troy Schmidt

I know about two people in the band have college degrees.
Yeah, Raine studied Criminology and Mike studied English.
How far did you get?
Fresh out of high school. I was 17 when I started the band. I didn't have time for college.
Well, what's college for anyway?
Exactly. I was going to go to music school or something anyway, so I kinda got my own degree in music.
The premise of The Age of Machines sounds like the premise of Star Wars or 2001.
Yeah, yeah. His opinions (Ray Kurzweil's, in his book, The Age of Spiritual Machines – When Computers Exceed Human Intelligence, the inspiration for the album Spiritual Machines) definitely rival those of Blade Runner, or almost The Matrix, kinda in living and life style and world. He's very interesting. The thing that I like most about the book—and I haven't read it from cover to cover, I've just skimmed through it, taking little bits from here and there—they are all factual statistics that have been gathered from the last 60 years. Everything that he speaks about towards the end of the book, he backs it up by information that he has been receiving from different statistical reports around the world—about computers and technology. Basically where it has come and where he thinks it should go. Basically how things have come since the 50's.
So in light of that—what is your favorite science fiction movie?
I'm not a huge science fiction guy. I grew up watching Star Trek because it was on TV in the house.
Which one?
The old one. So I never really watched the new one. I think it was the acting that made me laugh most. Yeah. I'm not really a science fiction guy. I was more a regular comic book guy.
What superheroes did you like?
My brother collected comic books and I always stole his. And he was heavy into Swamp Thing and X-Men and stuff like that.
So as we become mechanized, are we losing our souls?
I don't think so. It doesn't seem that is a part of the body that you can't change or that anybody can finger point what it is or where it comes from. So until they do that, I think we are okay. So hopefully people don't rely on trying to change…I guess people try to get the greed gene and all that kind of stuff…they might find it eventually…by then we might be in trouble.
Well, as we look at all your songs, I just saw that a lot them dealt with healing. And how do you/we find it…What is the answer?
Well, I think we've always spoken from an opinionated sense of—well, where Raine writes his lyrics from, are pretty personal situations that have come through his life. But everything that we are taking about opens your interpretations, so it's hard to try and delve into a single thing of what are our views, and get on a soapbox and tell people how they take their own personal lives and follow them. It's not a clear path. It is different with each situation.
So you think your songs are looking for healing or just pursuing a nice feeling?
I think we've always tried to get the optimistic view. You know the light at the end of the tunnel. So, I think that if you take a song like "Life," I mean it's very, healing. It's almost the whole idea of that song. We've come this far. Things may not be great but let's deal with what we have and try and live. Basically to enjoy life. That's all we have at the end of the day. If you think about the good and the bad…your job sucks or your job's great…or you have an alcohol problem or you got caught stealing. You have to realize that you're alive and that's something that should be looked upon as a good thing, not like we are trapped here.
Also as I look through Spiritual Machines, I'm going to give you one word impression that I got and tell me if that's what you think…Confusion, in terms of themes.
Yeah. Well, I think because what happened…Raine's lyrics and what Ray is saying are embracing each other. But sometimes they kinda butt heads. Because Ray's book is very cut and dry of facts. This is the way the human brain works. We're coming from a very spiritual space. We're very concerned with feel and the way things are—the human spirit. In that sense you can probably take confusion. Feeling confused or feeling like it might be spun into a completely other realm we can't control. I think in a way you need that confusion to bring out some kind of an ending, or some kind of closer to the situation. Those are two very specific opinions—Ray's and our spiritual feelings. So once they butt heads for awhile, hopefully we can find a common ground.
That girlfriend "Molly" at the end, that robot—a question just came up—if you could program a girl, like a computer, how would you program her? What would she be able to do?
A program version of myself is basically what "Molly" is. It's basically him as a woman.
Would you like to program a "Molly" like yourself? Or would you like something different?
We're always searching for someone, I guess, people that are into the opposite sex are always trying to find something that your brains can work together, be compatible with. I've always enjoyed relationships with woman that intrigue me with human—or intrigue me with the thought process or intellectual opinions and stuff. So I'd probably design something along those lines, but I'm pretty happy with what I have. My girlfriend is pretty cool.
I don't think I would like anyone like me.
Yeah, yeah. I think if I had someone close to me, I would probably get bored. 'Cause what's the point of making another version of the same thing?
You can just hang out with yourself.
Yeah, I'd probably send me on tour or something.
In light of you trying to get in touch with feelings and that deeper, inner, personal side, you played at Woodstock '99, which now has a reputation of erupting into violence. How did you feel about all that?
I didn't find it to be violent at all. When we played it was very, very great. People were relaxed and listening. We played a lot of new songs that they have never heard and they were really into it.
You were like the old Woodstock.
Yeah. When we came off stage, we were like "Wow. That was awesome." There was a 100,000 people, that 70% of the material we played they didn't know. So for us it was awesome, but later on that afternoon we find out all that bad stuff at nighttime happened. We were out of there before it went crazy. Mind you, I watched Rage from the side of the stage the night before and I went out front to check out Metallica. That was a whole other ball game. You know, it was crazy. People were throwing stuff—it was intense. So when you have a crowd worked up. They were kind of caged and it was pretty hot in a parking lot with expensive food, no water. That stuff is going to happen, if someone is upset after three days.
I was intrigued by one of the lyrics from the one song "Superman's Dead"—"Life's a Subway." I don't know, I was trying to figure out where it was going.
I think its basically saying, "Life is moving fast." It doesn't really stop, it just gathers speed. You can get off or stay on.
Occasionally you trip over a drunk or that sort of thing.
Exactly. Or at least its one o'clock in the morning and you are going to Queens and you don't realize what is happening.
What kind of divergence keeps you sane on the road?
Movies, hanging out on the bus. We always debate and talk. Conversations on different realms. We're pretty laid back. We've actually had more fun on this tour than before—I don't mean drugs or alcohol. I mean, we've kind of relaxed a little more. Our guard is down a little bit. I think the bands that have toured with us before have noticed a big difference for some reason. We're having a little more fun than normal, but I think that would just involve relaxing and not get too worked up about how things are going to sound, or getting upset about things that aren't great after the show, or taking it too personal. I think the shows are better when we are relaxed. If stuff happens, it happens.
You are comfortable, you know you have an audience. You don't have a whole lot to prove.
No, not at all.
So what DVD's do you have on your bus right now?
We don't have a lot of good ones. We've left them all at home and realized we should have brought them. The Big Lebowski is kind of in heavy rotation. It's a great movie.
Now for the Coen Brothers a lot of people don't like that one.
I think its great. I like the new one too. O' Brother Where Art Thou. That's a really perfect movie, I mean I think everything that they have done is great. I don't know…I think The Big Lebowski is a very cult movie. Everybody that I know, who has seen it, quotes it everyday. I think it's awesome.
Fastball was here…in fact they were sitting right there…could not stop quoting Fargo.
Yeah, we are the same way with The Big Lebowski. It's a great movie.
Well, if you ever meet up with them, you can trade Coen Brothers movies.
Yeah. Exactly.
What's the most outrageous incident that has happened while on tour?
We are pretty relaxed. I'm trying to think of one…We've ever really had anything bad happen, like violent or anything, or any crazy fans come back and try and do anything.
Anybody get lost?
We never got lost. We've always had people around us have bad things happen to them. We had a bus driver, who in the same week…he was riding his bike from the venue to the hotel room and some guy drove him over a cliff. He like went over the side of the road and fell like 50 feet with his bike, and the next week in St. Louis he got mugged in an elevator. We've always had bad stuff happen around us, but never to us. Not yet anyway…we've been on the road for nine years. I'm sure something crazy is going to happen.
Were you the one who was mugged?
Yeah, I was…but that didn't happen while we were on the road, that was at home, so it doesn't count.
You feeling okay?
I'm fine.
How long did it take you to recover from it?
About three weeks. I mean it was bad. It was the wrong place at the wrong time. Two kids that had different ideas than I did. When I said I didn't have any money, they figured "we are going to take something from you anyway." I guess that turned out to be a piece of my knee bone. So it was bad. I spoke to some people who've gotten mugged and all of a sudden they had a very bitter view towards society. It didn't really change my view. I just realized that there has always been people who do bad things and there always will be. It just happened to be one of those days when I happened to walk into two of them.
Where is this area, so we'll know to avoid it?
Toronto. But, they didn't have guns or anything. It would have been a lot worse if they did.
Did they know who you were?
No.
A random act of violence.
Completely random.
I thought Toronto was nice.
It is a great, very clean, very safe city.
These were Americans, right?
Yeah, exactly, they were from Rochester.
In many of your songs, I see the lyrics "woo, woo, woo" and "doo, doo, doo." I got the songs here like "Stealing Babies," "Life," and "Automatic Flowers." What is the difference between a "woo" and a "doo"?
One starts with a "W" and one starts with a "D." I guess when Raine…a lot of the lyricists that he likes, like Sinnead O'Connor and Janis Joplin, they tended to use their voice as an instrument. And sometimes they would go off these lyrical tangents that weren't real lyrics, but when you write them down it kinda looks stupid but the idea is just the melody, not the way he pronounces the melody. I don't know what else he could do.
We have a motto at Hard Rock. It's "Love All, Serve All." We usually ask everyone, "what does it mean to you?"
Well, I grew up in a very "Love All, Serve All" family. My parents were both hippy-esque and there was a very commune vibe in my house. I think with that I grew up with the same kind of mentality, which may have been one of the reason's why I wasn't upset when I was mugged. There's bad people and you can't really do anything good about it by taking violent acts toward them, later on. You just have to take it as it is. You get hurt and you have to deal with it, you can't take that pain and put it onto someone else. Sometimes people, something bad happens to them and they take it out on everyone around them, who doesn't deserve it. I don't believe that way of life, that's for sure. It's a waste of time, you end up being tired.

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