January 21, 1997
A Peace Of The Action
Duncan Coutts Signs on With One of Canada's Top Rock Bands
By MIKE ROSS -- Express Writer
If Duncan Coutts were to read his horoscope for October 1995, it might've said something like "second peace offering brings good fortune." That's when the 27-year-old bassist became the "new guy" in Our Lady Peace, pulling off the musical equivalent of hopping onto a runaway train. Keeping an impressive momentum nearly four years after its debut album Naveed came out, Our Lady Peace releases its follow-up today. It's called Clumsy - an interesting title for such a confident and calculated album. Coutts replaces Chris Eacrett, who left the band due to "musical and personal differences." Coutts had actually turned down the gig once before; he wanted to finish up his degree in filmmaking - but then Our Lady Peace was just a garage band at the time. It didn't even have a name. One can imagine Coutts doing a Homer Simpson - "doh!" - as he watched what happened next. Like a perfect rock 'n' roll fairy tale, the band was signed to Sony Music on the strength of a single demo tape. After three solid years of touring, including opening slots for Jimmy Page and Robert Plant, Van Halen and Alanis Morissette, Our Lady Peace sold more than 500,000 copies of Naveed in North America and became one of Canada's top modern rock bands. Says Coutts, "Inevitably, when you're seeing Naveed being played 25 times a day, you start to think, `Hmm, I wonder what would've happened if ...' But who knows? I'm a much different bass player than Chris was and I guess everything happens for a reason. It's funny how it's all sort of come full circle now, because when I got a call, it was a very big shock. It was absolutely out of the blue. "Maybe there was some karmic force happening," he laughs at the suggestion. "I'm not sure. I'm not going to dismiss the possibility of it." Freed now from juggling day jobs and playing in Toronto bar bands, Coutts was instantly made a full partner in Our Lady Peace; given how seriously the band members take their music, it couldn't work any other way. Singer Raine Maida may come up with the lyrics, but the band writes songs as a unit. The results on Clumsy almost sound like an entirely new band. "I think maybe there's a new freshness to it," says Coutts. "If you listen to the two records back to back, I see them definitely as different, but I don't see it as an unnatural progression. It's not only with the addition of me as just a different person in the band, but these guys had about seven shows under their belt before their first album was made. And between Clumsy and Naveed, there were 450-500 shows played. So people are going to change as players when they get to know each other more. And I think that's why this album breathes a little better and is a little more dynamic." Coutts says Our Lady Peace didn't consciously try to avoid making a Naveed Part II - a reverse of the usual sophomore album philosophy which tends to backfire more often than not. "We just wanted to go in and give all these songs ideas their own life and play with them and rearrange them and all that until we're completely happy with it. If they sound just like Naveed or if they don't, it wasn't a huge concern. We just wanted to make each song the best it could be." That also takes the pressure away in terms of equalling the success of the first album; if Clumsy fails to sell, it's no one's fault but the band's. "If it does well, it does well," says Coutts.
"If it doesn't, at least at the end of the day we've made an album that we like and I'd be proud to have in my CD collection." It looks like the new guy has the Our Lady Peace party line down pat.
