Jeremy Taggart, now barely in his mid-twenties always had the power. His producer, Arnold Lanni, noticed it when Jeremy walked into the studio from baseball practice to audition for Toronto group Our Lady Peace. Arnold recalls that Jeremy took his time tinkering around with the drums until every little detail was right. Once he finally laid sticks to drumhead it was all over. OLP, the band we once labeled 'alternative' was on its way. Their first album Naveed, had such a distinctive, jagged edge sound, it stood out from anything else in Canada. Arnold Lanni had alot to do with all this. He is to OLP as George Martin is to the Beatles. The second album, Clumsy went platinum. With fame comes wrath. For whatever reasons, mostly sour grapes, the combination of Raine Maida's alternating gentle/strangled vocal delivery, Mike Turner's long guitar tones, and Duncan Coutts workman like bass elicited insults from Billy Corgan of the Smashing Pumpkins.

On both records, Jeremy's drumming encompasses a full range of dynamics and contemporary rythyms -many of which he made his own by virtue of his use of grace notes. Unafraid to leave space, or to simply splash his open hihats, he'll smooth things over with a press roll. When he plays a backbeat, it is with a strength rivalling John Bonham's, and yet with a freedom resembling...well, we'll get to that.

The latest album, Happiness... is not a fish that you can catch, ought to stir a dust storm of controversy -if the rough mixes I heard in the studio were any indication. (Sony hadn't released the CD at press time). Vocal and instrumental textures have changed, while rythym section experimentation includes the recruitment of legendary jazz drummer Elvin Jones.

Elvin and Jeremy? It might seem odd, at first glance, but then Jeremy's jazz drummer who filled the house with the music of Buddy Rich, Philly Joe Jones, Tony Williams -and of course, Elvin.

Jeremy admits spending long hours working on a conventional technique under his father's tutelage, but that doesn't fully explain his habit of lifting the sticks in a high, graceful arc above the drums.

"I think that had more to do with my baseball training" he says. "When you study with teachers, about five inches off the snare is where technique starts and stops. My fluidity comes from pitching; it's a similar effect to the whipping motion. The thing with your wrists still makes the attack and sound, but when you whip your arms it give that velocity a little more fluidity - and it's easier on your body. My fulcrum is pretty much the same as anybody else's -between the two knuckles of my first finger, but after my second finger, the stick stops: I hold the stick right at the end. My third and fourth fingers are not on the stick."

In the studio, where Jeremy might play as long as ten hours a day and stamina is important, he will opt for a lighter attack, with less of a baseball wind-up preceding each stroke. Here, stamina is the key.

On live gigs, there Jeremy has adapted his kit. He has gone from 14" to 15" zildjian hihats and he has dumped the china cymbal. His crashes remain large, the smallest being 19". He says: "We've played in clubs where I've had to change cymbals to reduce volume on stage, but 90% of the time its larger cymbals. I have a few smaller crashes, but every time I put up a 16", it feels like a paper plate! I've never had to play a style where that other smaller sound would fit better, but I'm sure if I played in a pop band, I'd want to do that.

His ayotte bass drum now measures 24" (up from 22"). Toms are 12", 16" and 18". He hits them with Zildjian super 5A's. For Jeremy, it has been a matter of ensuring that each component sounds as if its from the same "family". He calls it: "picking up everything with the same genetic disposition. Usually Ayotte are pretty good at making drums sound like they're from the same batch of wood. But, yeah I have a definite belief that everythign should sound like it's on the same page. Everything's got to sustain but at the same time, if you want to play quieter, everything's got to fit as well. At the end of the day, it's down to the player's touch.

On Naveed, Jeremy used an old Rogers Dynasonic, on which he hit his trademark rimshots. On the current album, the snare has less of that "biscuit tin" clang. He explains: "We've gone for a little deader sound and a little less ring in terms of dampening. The reason we turned it around is because we started hearing our snare drum on commercials! I don't know if it's me or the movement I was involved with, but that sound has had its time and now it's time to go on to something else. In a way, it now opens up the personality of the way I play drums, as opposed to focussing on my snare drum sound. I still love a ringy snare, don't get me wrong -thats the way they're supposed to sound."

On the current album, producer Arnold Lanni would experiment with miking. Sometimes he would capture the whole drumset with a mic rig if he found that it fit his balance. "I had to play alot lighter; I couldn't go crazy -because the kick drum would 'disappear'. We had another thing going, where we had just two stereo room mikes and that was it. It was ridiculous how great it sounded."

For a few years now, Greg Keplinger has furnished snare drums for Jeremy. The drums, with heavy stainless steel shells, first found favour in the 1980's with jazz drummers Ralph Peterson and Elvin Jones.

Greg, who now drum techs for OLP, also gave Jeremy a 1960's 22" K. ride Jeremy may use live. "I can't crack it," he says, "It's massive and really thick -impossible to break."

Greg was Jeremy's connection to Elvin Jones. "Having Elvin around" he says, "changed my view: there is no time, its just pictures that you paint. The song that he played on (Stealing Babies) turned out my favourite. We became fast friends and I look forward to hanging out with him in New York. Even though he's about 50 years older than I am, we have a lot of similar tastes in music and in what we both find funny."

"For our album he used his own kit -the Yamaha absolute custom gold sparkle. I conduncted him, in a way. Any fragments of direction I gave were just to hold back, or don't go as outside. He had never played in a rock context before. I loved everything he did, but the average person is going to go crazy, or fall over! Once he got the idea, it was one take and it was done. I was standing beside him like a three year old! It was unbelieveable."

In July, Our Lady Peace played the Woodstock festival and started a two-year tour. It won't be as fast paced as the last, explains Jeremy: "you can burn out fast and that's not good for camaraderie. We're just realizing how important family and life is. Mind you, as musicians you're married to the job. Why shouldn't every profession be like that? People should realize how important work ethic is."

The astute reader will spot Jeremy doing tom overdubs on the new Chantal Kreviazuk album. He says: "I just played on the demo. I wasn't scheduled to do the record or anything, but they kept some stuff. I did some drum fill overdubs. (Over Matt Chamberlain's tracks)"

Refelecting on a comment that he pushes the limits of his chosen style, Jeremy reflects: "I think that over the last three records I've tried to bend the rules and make it a little bit more wild -but theres so many musician's who have done that in the past. I'm just trying to make it fresh for our band and to do my part in keeping that pulse going."