"About a half-dozen labels were interested in us, and they all wanted us to do the typical showcase gig so they could come check us out," says Raine Maida, the 24-year-old singer and lyricist. "But we were so new, we weren't even playing live shows yet.
"So we just said 'no' to the showcase," says Maida, whose band travels to The Palace on Saturday, along with alt-rock phenoms Candlebox and Detroit's own Sponge.
"We told 'em, 'If you're really serious about us, come down to our rehearsal space, and we'll play you the five songs.' We weren't sure if any of 'em would go for that."
Indeed, only one label -- Sony Canada -- accepted the invitation. Three executives, including the label president, drove to the embryonic group's Toronto digs.
"We played 'em the tunes, they dug 'em, and we spent the next few hours telling 'em what we needed," Maida says.
What they needed was full creative control -- not just over the music, but also over the album art and the marketing of the band. Plus, they insisted that they be allowed to develop slowly, at their own pace.
Amazingly, their chutzpah paid off. Our Lady Peace got what it wanted.
The band's 1995 debut, Naveed, has sold 150,000 copies in the U.S. and 200,000 copies in Canada. They were invited to open for such Jurassic rockers as Page/Plant and Van Halen, and they're presently playing to 20,000-seat arenas.
Says Maida: "We wanted to avoid what we've seen happen to a lot of bands -- which is, the label pours a million bucks into promotion, and if the single isn't happening after three weeks, it's 'Sorry, guys.'
"But Sony Canada completely left us alone -- they didn't hear the album until we turned it in."
And when the band chose a label for U.S. distribution, they found a similar family-style approach at the independent Relativity label.
Before recording Naveed, Our Lady Peace passionately embraced punk's primitive ethic, which holds that all you need are three chords and an attitude. But during the Naveed sessions, guitarist Mike Turner found that he lacked the technical proficiency to play the melodies and chord changes he heard in his head.
"That was a problem," acknowledges Maida, who plays acoustic guitar in addition to his writing and singing chores. "We really had to pull up our socks during the sessions -- we all got better in a hurry.
"The cool thing about punk is that it's this explosion of creative energy. But if you can't play what you hear in your own head, it's sort of limiting, because the music has no place to go."
Their self-imposed crash course in musicianship made a definite improvement. On Naveed, the British-born Turner's cascading chords and thick, ringing tones reveal his stylistic debt to U2's the Edge. Drummer Jeremy Taggart's churning grooves and shifting time changes help the music transcend the rhythmic limitations typically imposed by punk's brute-force 4/4 skin bashing.
Our Lady Peace also stirs jazz, Middle Eastern and Indian forms into its brew. The modal Mideastern drones on such Naveed tracks as "Starseed" and "Denied" suggest some of Led Zeppelin's forays into Arabic styles. Maida confesses that, early on, the Mideastern vibe of those songs was even stronger than what we hear in the final mix.
"We decided we had to pull back on it a bit. We realized we weren't knowledgeable enough, or steeped enough in that kind of music, to give it the treatment and respect that it deserves."
The jazz element in Our Lady Peace's music comes compliments of 20-year-old drummer Taggart, who played in various post-bop ensembles before answering a classified ad placed by Maida and Turner.
"We intentionally chose a drummer and bass player who had very different musical backgrounds from me and Mike," Maida says. "That way, we can learn from each other, and we can broaden the playing field when it comes to writing songs.
"If we were four guys who all grew up on R.E.M., I think our music would just sound too derivative."
Kevin Ransom is a Detroit-area music writer.