Is Superman Dead?
Alternative Rock World
By Jess Redmon
With their debut album "Naveed" they took Canada by storm, becoming one of the country's biggest
bands. That album produced classic songs like "Starseed," "Julia" and "Naveed." Now with their
sophomore album "Clumsy" they have gone a bit farther and have now taken the world by storm with
anthems like "Superman's Dead" and "Clumsy." ARW recently sat down with bassist Duncan Coutts and
guitarist Mike Turner of Our Lady Peace, here's what we found out.
Alternative Rock World: First off, what are your guys tour plans for the rest of 97' and 98'?
Duncan Coutts: We are going to be doing radio festivals basically, all up and down the western
seaboard.
Mike Turner: And the eastern seaboard too, all the way over to Providence.
Duncan: We are?
Mike: Yeah
Duncan? Is that one of the fly-ins?
Mike: We'll be doing radio festivals all over the country until the 16th of December.
Duncan: I hear a rumor, we might be going home. For Christmas for two weeks. That would be very cool,
because that's something we don't do, we never take time off.
Mike: It'll be in the longest time we've taken off in 3-4 years, because we're dumb.
ARW: So do you guys plan on being on tour for a long time?
Mike: The new year is starting and on the 5th we open up the Stones in Quebec City and on the 7th we
start our own 22 day coast to coast arena tour in Canada. Everclear will be coming along to open up for
us in Canada.
Duncan: Basically we're going to hang out for Everclear for 3 months.
Mike: Luckily we're really enjoying each other's company.
Duncan: We didn't know each other before we committed to 3 months together, so that's cool.
Mike: Soon as we're done with that in February we'll be back.
Duncan: Then there's some rumor of going oversees to fulfill some European commitments.
ARW: How is it different playing club shows in the states opposed to playing arenas in Canada?
Mike: It's just a different scale. As long as you're making the contact with the people you're playing to.
That's the only goal. There's different means to that end. In a club I can shake my head and splash you
with sweat, that's definitely establishes some kind of bond. In an arena we're making some short films to
go with the video presentation side of it. They're different elements and different means to the same end.
You want to make contact and feel that sort of communal experience with the music. I like them both
personally, they're just different.
ARW: "Clumsy" is doing so well, it looks like is might end up being your biggest song yet here in the
states.
Mike: So far. Duncan: You never know. I don't want to agree with you because it might jinx it. All you
can do is be happy with the album you've made. If people like it and radio likes it, than cool. If you start
thinking about it and start worrying about it, than you're just asking for an ulcer and an end of a career.
ARW: We took some questions from your fans from the mailing list and news group. One of them
wanted to know what an average tour day is like.
Duncan: I'd like to say really exciting and really glamours, lots of party and fun. We just work hard.
We'll take you from the night before. We do the gig and than hopefully, if there's enough time, we go
back to the hotel and shower. If not, than we just get right on the bus, stink, and wake up in the next
town.
Mike: If we don't do it at one end we do it at another, we always bathe one end of sleeping.
Duncan: Than usually there are press commitments.
Mike: Acoustic performances at radio, sometimes 2 or 3.
Duncan: Maybe a lunch thrown in there, back to the venue for sound check. Than after sound check
there's usually the meet and greet type thing, interviews. Maybe some dinner if you have enough time
between than and the show. If you try and sing on a full stomach, forget about it, at least for me it doesn't
work. Than you do the show and it all stars again. On this tour our days off have been drive days to the
next city.
Mike: It's like 1100 miles, so that's the only reason there's a day off, because you need it.
Duncan: Let the driver sleep for 8 hours, if there's something to do than do it, than back on the bus.
ARW: Are you guys writing at all on tour?
Duncan: Not right now as a band. We aren't getting the time to jam together. Everyone is writing stuff.
We went home for half a week and went into the studio and basically flushed out some of the ideas. Put
them on tape and let everybody have a go at whoever's idea it was. Just keep the tape running all day
long. You can't really turn off the creative urge, we're still trying to catalog it.
Mike: Basically anytime any of us pick up our instrument, there's a pretty good chance we're about to
playing something we didn't play before, whether or not we'll actually keep it. Creativeness isn't a switch
you can turn off and on.
Duncan: Or like last night where I was playing along with Soundgarden, because Ben Shepperd is god.
ARW: Is the new stuff taking on any particular sound?
Mike: It's way too early.
Duncan: Not as of yet. Chords, melodies, some lines, that sort of stuff.
Mike: I guarantee the next album will be at least different as different from "Clumsy" as "Clumsy" was
from "Naveed" at least, maybe more. We've made one each of "Naveed" and "Clumsy" we don't need to
make another of either.
ARW: "Clumsy" is the big song everybody wants to know about. What was the inspiration behind it?
Duncan: Lyrically I don't know what spurred it on from Raine. I think basically what we've talked about
is from being on the road from the last album you see a lot of bands sort of hopping on the angry
bandwagon. "WE MUST BE ANGRY".
Mike: What are you? We're angry.
Duncan: We must sell alternative albums. If you see someone do an act that maybe causes harm to
someone, it's not necessarily out of spite or out of anger. It could possibly be because they are clumsy.
Clumsy was just sort of more compassionate word and feeling that sort of summed it up. We were all just
sort of sick of seeing fabricated angry bands.
Mike: I never want to say 'this is what the song is about" even if we have the absolute definitive version
sitting on a sheet of paper somewhere. It's up to the listener to bring a lot to it. I always love when I listen
to an album, when I was younger and even now. "Man, that sounds like Dave. You know my friend
Dave? This song sounds just like it could be about him man, totally." That's what I've always liked, I'd
hate to hem any of our stuff.
ARW: That's a good policy. What kind of stuff are you guys listening to on the road?
Mike: Radiohead, I keep going back to that record. We say it almost every time, Soul Coughing. It's just
a brilliant record I think. The Beatles...
Duncan: I was listening to old U2 last night, Soundgarden and I've listened to a bit of the new Portishead
record.
Mike: It's very much Portishead. You have to be in the mood to watch a 60s spy film.
Duncan: I still love Rage.
Mike: Beth Orton is actually a pretty hip record. Basically we're music junkies. Lately I don't think
anyone has found one album, apart from going back to Tool's last record and Radiohead's most recently
that we can say, this is a record. This is a whole album, this isn't a couple songs and some filler. This is a
whole record where I don't use the skip button. I can put this on and 45 minutes come out of that trance
and have been to several different places. It's not been a great time for that lately. Great time for greatest
hits hits collections. Most of these bands only have 1 or 2 songs that are really cool and if you could get
an album with all those semi-decent songs on one album, that would be great, that you wouldn't have to
wait through all the crap that people put on their record for no good reason.
Duncan: Elton John Greatest Hits Volume 1, don't listen to any of the other ones. Volume 2, ooh. Man
he was good back in the day though. This goes back to what do you do during the day, actually had 20
minutes yesterday in the hotel room to do nothing. I saw Elton John on Rosie O'Donell, I was like that's
not the guy who wrote "Rocket Man." Not to slag you too much Elton, I'm sorry.
ARW: Are you guy's looking forward to opening for the Rolling Stones? Mike: It'll be an honor, they're
the Rolling Stones. You don't even need to have good, bad, or indifferent descriptions about them. The
young, the old, the good, the bad. Shut up, they're the Rolling Stones.
Duncan: Everyone should have "Exile On Mainstreet."
Mike: At least one.
ARW: How's been your experiences been with bands like Page/Plant and Van Halen?
Mike: Awesome. It seems the larger the musical figure we meet, the more humble they are. Robert Plant
came up to us in catering and introduced himself. For one, you really don't need to, like anywhere in the
planet, to introduce yourself. People know who you are. He introduces himself and says I just wanted to
say I really enjoyed your record and I think it has a great sound of conviction that I haven't heard in
music in a long time. If there's anything I can do to make this tour easy, let me know, sorry to interrupt
your meal. He's like apologizing for interrupting our meal. It's like Van Halen, he's like the sweetest man
in the world. Same thing with Alanis Morissette. If these people don't have attitudes, who the hell the
has a right to? Nobody.
Duncan: Especially a lot of young bands that have serious attitudes, that think they are the shit. Man,
come on, wake up. Don't fabricate an attitude, because you haven't done it yet.
Mike: If you think you have a body of work that merits an attitude, how about you just get that Beatles
blue greatest hits compilation and get album.
ARW: (with a sly smile on his face) Now that Beavis and Butthead are dead, do you see Superman
making a come back?
Mike: We've stemmed the tide! We brought around the death of Beavis and Butthead!
Duncan: They haven't died yet tonight, have they?
ARW: 10:00 o'clock tonight.
Mike: They kill them today, good.
Duncan: Right when we're on stage.
Mike: Nice, we'll have to time 'Superman' for right about that time. That's funny. Media in general has
made it pretty impossible to have an innocent view of heroism. No one can be a hero without there being
an ulterior motive. You're not doing it because you're nice, you're trying to get something. That's sort of
an element of what we're talking about in 'Superman.' It's not good, kids don't have their own identity
because they get one made for them. Their told by advertisers, media and entertainment. What they like,
who they should be friends with, what music they listen to, what clothes they wear. They have a
complete identity that they learned to conform to by they're 15 or 16. They've had absolutely no personal
investment in getting their own identity and that's not good.
ARW: You guys are so big in Canada, do you feel any responsible in spreading this message?
Mike: No. We've received some pretty flattering emails about some of the songs on the record that
people say, as silly as it sounds, changed my life. With "4 am" a lot of kids have written and said it really
made them to talk their father. That's wonderful, but that wasn't out intent. When Raine wrote those
lyrics and the core of that song, it was something we wanted to say. We make music.
Duncan: When we make an album, we're really judicious about what we let people hear. We'll have a
song and than we'll say this is pretty good and someone will say I don't know. Than we sort of reevaluate.
Same thing when Raine writes lyrics.
Mike: The first set of lyrics he comes up with usually aren't the ones that end up.
Duncan: If, touch wood, this band is around for another 10 year. I want to be able to go on stage in 10
years and feel the same conviction than as I do now. And I think lyrically that's a responsibility that
Raine is taking on. If it touches people in a possible way, that's great.
ARW: Do you see Our Lady Peace more of a band, like a cohesive unit, than a bunch of guys that do
their own thing?
Duncan: It's like a brotherhood, in the sense that we all love each other and we all hate each other at
times. We fight, but we all communicate. We share really great time and really tough times. Being in a
band is really difficult.
Mike: It's a world of extremes, you never get the middle.
Duncan: You have to live with these people, you have to create with these people, you have to do
business with these people. You don't even do that with your wife. It's an all encompassing relationship.
Mike: It's a relationship no one would get into if they knew what it involved. It's something we're willing
to do just because of the music, as long as that's the case it will carry on.
ARW: Do you guys have any goals?
Mike: I'm going to have dinner.
Duncan: I don't know. Just to be better, to be better live. I want to be a way better bass player. We all
want to be better songwriters, miles better. If we're so lucky for someone to dig our music long after this
band is gone, than that will be a really flattering thing. You can only ever hope to achieve that by being
true to yourself and just having a good worth ethic. If you want to be a really good reporter, you have to
hone your craft. If you want to be a lawyer, you have to be good slime.
Mike: Sacrifice any ethics you may have once had.
Duncan: You just have to really work hard at it, you can't take it lightly. I think a lot of bands get caught
in the hey we're on a bus, we're on a major label, we must be good. If you start believing your own hype,
than you're in trouble.
ARW: A lot of people wanted to know about "Carnival."
Mike: There's actually a cool story with how it happened. We sort of sequestered ourselves in a cottage
in northern Toronto to write this record. We did it by leaving a tape running, we had a cassette machine
and a microphone in there, we just left it running. The cottage is also pretty seriously haunted. I know
that says all granola and groovy.
Duncan: It's never been haunted before.
Mike: Coutts family cottage, so he's still complaining about it. Jeremy saw stuff.
Duncan: I saw stuff. Jeremy was playing with a wee gee board.
Mike: Which was stupid, stupid!
Duncan: I only did it once before. I was with a bunch of people and they asked "is this a good spirit or a
bad spirit" and simultaneously all the candles in the room blow out. I'm like, I'm never touching a wee
gee board again. So Jeremy buys a wee gee board to bring up to the cottage. He's like "I want a bad spirit,
I want a bad spirit." He literally went into this trance 6 hours later and some really weird things
happened. We were sifting through the tape a couple days later.
Mike: We were going back through the tape and I heard that (hums the strange melody) and everybody's
like, ewww!
Duncan: Where did that come from?
Mike: No one remembered playing it. It was like "did anyone remember this? What were we working on
when this happen?" Basically that section was almost complete. The song sprang out of that pretty
quickly, it has that vibe. We tried to keep that kind of dark, semi-twisted vibe to it.
Duncan: It's just got one of those cool vibes too it, it'll always be a weird song for us.
ARW: It's one of my favorites on the album.
Mike: Mine too actually.
ARW: Do you guys have any personal favorites on the album?
Duncan: "Changes." "Carnival" is up there. I still love "Car Crash." You spend so much time creating
each song, and there's 5 of us together fighting about what happens to each song. You can't love more
than another really, they are what they are, as trite as that may sound. It changes all the time.
Mike: They've all your babies and you can't orphan any of them. Some of them are harder deliveries.
Duncan: I don't listen to the album, unless it's for reference.
Mike: These guys are lucky, I have to keep going back to listen to it.
Duncan: Hey man, you guys screwed that up last night.
Mike: Which guitar parts am I supposed to be playing, because we put to many on the record. There's
still only one of me, how am I going to do this better.
ARW: What's the difference with the texturing on the album and how it translates playing it live.
Mike: When you see a band, there needs to be something to keep you attention. Whether it's the sound
of the instruments, the dynamic of the band on stage, lights, PA, interacting in the room. There's all those
elements that you don't have on a recording. So we'll add a little guitar noodle on the side doing
something groovy or a sonic thing over the whole track. Just whatever we can. You don't get to use your
eyes and your overall physical perception of the music, you only have your ears, so we're trying to put
more stuff in to keep it as interesting.
