OUR LADY PEACE

Formed: 1992, Toronto

Members: Duncan Coutts, bass (born Ontario, 4 February 1970); Raine Maida, vocals (born Ontario, 18 February 1970); Steve Mazur, guitar; Jeremy Taggart, drums (born Ontario, 7 April 1975). Former members: Chris Eacrett, bass (born Canada, 1971); Mike Turner, guitar (born Bradford, Ontario, 5 June 1967).

Genre: Rock

Best-selling album since 1990: Clumsy (1997)

Hit songs since 1990: "Superman's Dead," "Somewhere Out There"

Our Lady Peace made brief waves in alternative hard rock circles in the late 1990s with the hit "Superman's Dead."

While at the University of Toronto, criminology student and part-time singer Raine Maida hooked up with fellow student Mike Turner, an English major who played guitar. The pair recruited Chris Eacrett, a marketing student and bass player from nearby Ryerson University, as well as Jeremy Taggart, a seventeen-year-old jazz drummer, to round out its lineup. The quartet became known as Our Lady Peace, taking its name from a 1943 poem by American poet Mark Van Doren.

The band's demos attracted the attention of Sony Music Canada, which quickly snapped up the group. In 1995 Our Lady Peace released its debut album Naveed. The band enjoyed a minor alternative-radio hit with the hard-charging rocker "Starseed." On Naveed the band openly celebrates classic-rock influences such as Led Zeppelin, considered anathema to the raw, hard rock sounds favored by the grunge acts of the day. Our Lady Peace enhanced its profile by appearing as openers on fellow Canadian Alanis Morissette's Jagged Little Pill tour.

Our Lady Peace enjoyed its biggest success with the release of Clumsy in 1997. With grunge fading in popularity, Our Lady Peace's style of hard rock found a wider audience. The surging "Superman's Dead" became the band's biggest hit, winning over fans with Maida's memorable, high-register wailing on chorus: "Alone I'm thinking / Why is superman dead / Is it in my head." On the strength of "Superman's Dead," Clumsy sold more than 2 million copies.

The band's subsequent two releases Happiness Is Not a Fish That You Can Catch (1999) and Spiritual Machines (2001) were hits in the band's native Canada, but failed to generate much interest in the United States. In part, hard rock had once again outmoded Our Lady Peace's sound, with acts such as Creed and Staind ushering in a period of bleak and moody, ballad-oriented hard rock.

Our Lady Peace resurfaced on American radio in 2002 with the minor hit "Somewhere Out There" from the album Gravity. A lush midtempo ballad, "Somewhere Out There" aimed at reaching pop audiences. Critics assailed the album for its bland hard rock, which belied the initial promise of the band.

Though, for the most part, hailed by reviewers for its smart and infectious style of hard rock, sustained commercial success eluded Our Lady Peace in the 1990s.

SELECTIVE DISCOGRAPHY:

Naveed (Sony, 1995); Clumsy (Sony, 1997); Happiness Is Not a Fish That You Can Catch (Sony, 1999); Spiritual Machines (Sony, 2001); Gravity (Columbia, 2002).

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