Cosmic Harmony
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In 1992, guitarist Mike Turner placed a "musicians wanted" ad in a local Toronto (Canada) magazine with hopes to start a new band. After Michael Maida replied the two formed a band named As Is and had numerous other musicians come and go for short periods of time in their early days.
It wasn't long before As Is attracted the attention of a small time record producer and songwriter named Arnold Lanni, and they began to write and record music together.
It was around this time that Michael Maida started going as "Raine" to avoid confusion with having two Mikes in the band. The band also changed it's name to Our Lady Peace to coincide with the new musical direction they were taking.
After recording some new demos with several temporary and session musicians Our Lady Peace caught the attention Richard Zuckerman, the head of A&R for Sony Music Canada. He saw not only potential in the band but in the producer and management as well. Thanks to major pushing from Zuckerman, Our Lady Peace was signed to Sony Music Canada. They started to write additional material and placed, yet another, "musicians wanted" ad for a drummer, which was answer by 17 year old Jeremy Taggart.
After recording additional material the band released their debut, "Naveed", and began to tour Canada supporting a variety of artists. In early 1995 the album was picked up by an indie branch of Sony Records and Our Lady Peace spent the summer opening for Van Halen and Page & Plant before returning to Canada in early '96 to support Alanis Morissette. The title track "Naveed" was a hit in Canada and "Starseed" was a hit in both Canada and the U.S., furthered by it's addition to the "Armageddon" soundtrack.
In early 1997 Our Lady Peace was signed with the American based Columbia records which expanded their window beyond just Sony Music Canada. It was around this time that their (at the time) long time bassist, Chris Eacrett, left the band citing musical differences. Robert Duncan Coutts, a friend of Raine Maida, quickly replaced him and the group began working on what would be their most successful album, "Clumsy".
Originally going to be named "Trapeze" the band renamed it after another song on the album when they opted to leave the song "Trapeze" off the album, though the original album cover remained. The titled track proved to be a hit as well as the songs, "Carnival", "4AM", "Automatic Flowers", and perhaps the group's signature song "Superman's Dead". This album focused heavily on the lyrics and powerful vocal performance from Raine with most of the songs featuring his distinctive, shaky, paranoid, falsetto. The album would go on to achieve diamond status in their native Canada and launched the band to the forefront of Canada's rock scene. It is because of this popularity that Our Lady Peace was able to found the Summersault festival in 1998 and again in 2000. Some acts that participated were The Smashing Pumpkins, Foo Fighters, Sum 41, Fuel, Finger Eleven, and A Perfect Circle with Our Lady Peace headlining both times.
In 1999 Our Lady Peace released their third album "Happiness... Is Not a Fish That You Can Catch" which yielded hit singles such as "One Man Army", "Is Anybody Home?", and "Thief" with the latter being about a young girl named Mina Kim with cancer that the band had met. The "thief" refereed to in the song is the cancerous tumor and at the end of the song there is short clip of a young girl singing a Sunday School song. The young girl singing is real audio of Mina Kim. Legendary jazz musician Elvin Jones played on the song "Stealing Babies". To support the album the band also played a fairly long set (eleven songs) at Woodstock 1999 before the riots broke out and ruined the event.
In 2000 Our Lady Peace returned to the studio to record their fourth album. "Spiritual Machines" was released at the end of the year. "Spiritual Machines" is often cited by fans and critics alike as the band's peak creatively. This would prove to be the last album produced by long time producer Arnold Lanni, the last album to feature full work of guitarist and founding member Mike Turner, and the last album to feature extensive use of Raine Maida's signature falsetto. While less successful than it's predecessors "Spiritual Machines" did have successful singles such as the closing track "Life" and the album ended up going double platinum.
After completing the Spiritual Machines tour in 2001 Our Lady Peace nearly disbanded claiming numbness from their success and annoyance at Canadian radio overplaying their songs. They decided to stay together but dropped original producer Arnold Lanni in favor of Bob Rock to work on their next album. Later that month Mike Turner would leave citing "creative differences".
After nearly a year in the studio "Gravity" was released with Jeremy Taggart stating in an interview that it was "by far [their] best album". Few people agreed. Many longtime fans and critics were dumbfounded by the band's new approach as their unique alternative sound was traded in for one that was deemed "more mainstream". The first single released was "Somewhere Out There" which would go on to be Our Lady Peace's biggest international hit with it's follow up "Innocent" also being very successful....though neither charted in Canada. Because of this success in the states however OLP was approached by the World Wrestling Federation to record an original song for fellow Canadian, Chris Benoit. The song "Whatever" was released on an original WWF album with Chris Benoit using the song as his entrance theme all the way up until his death in mid 2007.
After a few years without a release or touring Our Lady Peace released "Healthy in Paranoid Times" in August 2005. According to Rolling Stone "Healthy in Paranoid Times" was recorded over 1165 days and at ten different studios with the band eventually having to pick 12 songs out of 45 that they had recorded. As with "Gravity" this album continued their more radio friendly sound with OLP even venturing in political waters at numerous points on the album. Since it's release even Raine Maida has damned the album claiming "(the) record was total excess, total bullshit in the sense of, we finally had succumbed to a label: making us record that many songs, trying to find the right singles for American radio and MTV.".
After the release of a compilation album in 2006 Our Lady Peace when on hiatus so that Raine could pursue a solo career. After releasing "The Hunters Lullaby" the following year Raine returned to OLP and the studio in February 2007 to record their seventh studio album "Burn Burn". This album was unique in the sense that it was the first album to not feature an outside producer as the entire album was produced by Raine Maida. While generally considered an improvement over "Healthy..." some comparisons were made to U2 and The Goo Goo Dolls. That being said the album was fairly successful with the singles "The End Is Where We Begin" and "All You Did Was Save My Life" being the band's first charting singles on any chart since the release of "Innocent" over 6 years earlier.
Our Lady Peace recently started a new touring and have vowed to play both "Clumsy" and "Spiritual Machines" in their entireties on this tour before returning to the studio to record their next album that may be released in 2010. This album has been said to be in the same vein as "Burn Burn".
(And now maybe Sooty will be appeased
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IMO, you've become the RTBuck of new band write ups and I want you to keep representing our generation here! I'm going to be a pain in your ass! 
