Reports that Our Lady Peace almost broke up are not just something they’re saying to bring attention to their new album. They really almost disbanded, says guitarist Steve Mazur.

While recording “Healthy In Paranoid Times,” — a process that took almost three years — the band was so frustrated trying to find perfection, lead singer Raine Maida told the other members that he could no longer be a part of the band.

“It was pretty much it for about a day,” Mazur says, “until everybody got in a room and started talking.”

Maida just needed to cool off.

“Tensions start to rise and things got to the breaking point a couple times,” he recalls. But the conflict was always centered around the music and not between group members. “I think that’s why we knew that we wouldn?t stop doing it. We all love each other like brothers and we all knew we wouldn’t just bail. We were just frustrated and we didn’t know what to do.”

The members of Our Lady Peace initially went to Maui to record, like they had done on their previous album. Working with producer Bob Rock, they recorded 10 songs before leaving on a summer tour. When they returned, they recorded another 12 songs. Now with over 20 tracks recorded, the logical step would have been to cut the list down to about a dozen and put out an album.

“We didn’t feel like we had what we had envisioned in our heads,” he says.

So they recorded some more, then took time off, recorded some more? and it took about six of these blocks to finally get it complete.

Our Lady Peace formed in 1992, when guitarist Mike Turner placed an ad seeking other musicians in a Toronto newspaper. Maida responded first, followed by drummer Jeremy Taggart. The band has gone through several lineup changes over the years, and is now formed by Maida, Taggert, bassist Duncan Coutts and Mazur, who replaced Turner.

The band’s first album, “Naveed,” earned the band four-times platinum status in Canada, but it was the follow-up, 1997’s “Clumsy,” that shot them to massive fame. Led by the single “Superman’s Dead,” the album sold a million copies in Canada and a million in the U.S.

Since Mazur joined the band while they were putting the finishing touches on 2002’s “Gravity,” this was his first opportunity to give input on the music he would be performing.

Currently on a North American tour, Mazur expects Our Lady Peace to be on the road for several months. Looking ahead to the next album, he doesn’t expect the process to be easy, but he does hope it’s quicker.

“I’d love it if we could release it in a year,” he says. “We’re eager to get another one going because we have some great songs leftover from the last batch that aren’t on this record. There were some great songs that didn’t fit with the ones we picked.

“We’ve all experienced a lot of growing pains and learned a lot about each other and about ourselves making this record. The torchue is over.”






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