Toronto rockers Our Lady Peace, working in Maui with producer Bob Rock (Metallica), are twelve songs into the follow-up to 2002's Gravity. After a tour beginning Saturday and scheduled to run through August, the band will return to Hawaii to complete the album, set for a January release.

Inspired by Rock's work on Metallica's St. Anger, the band has done all the recording live. "With Metallica, he just recorded everything -- no ProTools, no overdubbing, no fixing stuff -- and then picked the best pieces and put them together," says OLP frontman Raine Maida. "We're trying to take that approach, where it's that raw."

Maida, drummer Jeremy Taggart, bassist Duncan Coutts and guitarist Steve Mazur (who replaced longtime member Mike Turner halfway through Gravity) are working together more closely -- and quickly -- than ever on this record. "We write songs in like five minutes now," Maida says. "The energy's there."

"We're now at a level musically where, as soon as a song is finished, we can just record it in two or three takes," Taggart explains. "We could never have done that before."

OLP also have a new live CD, culled from three Canadian concerts in January, and they plan to release a live DVD this fall.

"This whole thing is like closing the chapter on the old Our Lady Peace," says Maida. "It's nice to have something to really put perspective on what we've done, and look forward."

Our Lady Peace tour dates:

7/5: Muskegon, MI, Summer Celebration
7/6: Columbus, OH, PromoWest Pavilion
7/8: Lansing, MI, Adado Riverfront Park
7/9: Fort Wayne, IN, Allen Co. Mem. Coliseum
7/11: Craven, SK, Rock 'N the Valley
7/12: Camrose, AB, Stage 13
7/16: Denver, Fillmore Auditorium
7/18: Minot, ND, North Dakota St. Fair
7/19: Billings, MetraPark Arena
7/20: Cheyenne, WY, Frontier Days
7/22: Kansas City, KS, Memorial Hall
7/24: Knoxville, TN, Knoxville Coliseum
7/25: Stone Mountain, GA, Stone Mountain Park
7/26: Antioch, TN, AmSouth Amphitheater
7/29: Little Rock, Riverfest Amphitheater
7/31: Costa Mesa, CA, Pacific Amphitheater
8/2: Great Falls, MT, Montana State Fair
8/3: Sturgis, Legendary Buffalo Chip
8/4: Sioux Falls, SD, Sioux Empire Fair
8/8: Chicago, New City YMCA
8/9: Cleveland, Tower City Amphitheater
8/10: Cincinnati, Riverbend Music Center
8/12: Escanaba, MI, Upper Peninsula State Fair
8/13: Midland, MI, Midland County Fair

KAREN BLISS
(July 3, 2003)