Odds let the 'Bedbugs' bite

(Aug. 12, 1993)

It's okay for men, even the "Heterosexual Man," to show emotions and a vulnerable side.

The Vancouver power-pop quartet, the Odds, see to it on its second Zoo Entertainment album, "Bedbugs," one of the year's best buried treasures.

Through 12 tracks of pop-rock gems in the tradition of XTC and Crowded House, the Odds follow the evolution and dissolution of a relationship. On the CD's back cover, a short phrase alongside each cut explains the song's place in what drummer Paul Brennan calls "a loosely based theme."

"It was an accident, actually," Brennan said in a recent interview during the band's East Coast tour. "But once we realized all the songs had been written and recorded and tallied up, it was like, 'There's a theme here.' Basically, it's the journey of a guy trying to come to terms with being a guy and all the things that means, from being sensitive to being a pig and being responsible and being irresponsible."

The theme begins with the male animal (on the track "Jack Hammer"), who becomes addicted to love ("Car Crash Love"), acknowledges a problem, falls apart, dives back into bachelorhood ("Heterosexual Man"), flounders, trips out and eventually apologizes.

Brennan said he and the other Odds - singer/songwriter/guitarists Steven Drake and Craig Northey and bassist Doug Elliott - didn't intentionally write songs that follow a relationship through its light and dark hours.

"It was just the muse of time," he said. "We had been on the road for quite some time, and I guess the choice was either write about driving long drives and experiencing things as a band or write about how being away has affected the relationships at home.

"Two of us, myself and another member, were going through breakups, and the other two, their relationships survived. It was a strange time. The feeling in the band at that point was, "Oh, no, what do we do now?' "

Admitting that men have more than their share of flaws is half the battle.

"I don't know if it's a matter of men being (jerks) or being ill-advised or uneducated on how women think and whether or not they bother to find out or ask what women think," Brennan said. "Men have been taught from early on not to show emotions, not to cry, not to show any signs of what society deems as a weakness. As a result, there's a lot of men walking around not totally conscious and not thinking."

The track stirring up the most talk is "Heterosexual Man," the album's first single. It's a tongue-in-cheek anthem putting macho men in their place. The "offender" sings: "I'm a heterosexual man/ It's just a problem with my glands."

"We were expecting women to go, 'Oh, you guys are totally gross,' " Brennan said of reactions to the song, "but actually what's happened is a lot of men are getting insecure. They're saying, 'I'm not like that. I don't act like that. I don't think like that. I'm a '90s kind of guy.' "

The Odds pack their power into solid three-and-half-minute melodies, a grossly underrated genre.

"There's like a subculture of people who are extremely passionate about guitar pop," Brennan said, "and the real challenge is getting the other people and turning them on to it."

BWF (before we forget): The Odds released its "Good Weird Feeling" (1995) and "Nest" (1997) albums on Elektra. ... Go against the Odds on the Web @ www.oddsweb.com or send e-mail to odds@mindlink.bc.ca.

Offspring has a 'Smash' on its hands

(July 14, 1994)

When it comes to predicting the future, the sky's the limit for Offspring bassist Greg Kriesel.

Before every tour, members of the Orange County, Calif.-based melodic hard-core quartet look into their crystal balls and prognosticate what's ahead for them. Each time, Kriesel is the one aiming the highest.

"Bryan (Holland) always predicts low," Kriesel said recently of the band's lead singer and chief songwriter, "and it's not because he doesn't believe in the band, it's just that he doesn't want to be disappointed.

"I don't look at it that way. If I say we're going to sell a million albums by the end of the tour or the end of the year and we end up selling 500,000, that's not going to bum me out. Just because I didn't reach my goal doesn't mean I shouldn't shoot high.

"I admit I'm a dreamer, but I'm realistic."

Kriesel isn't a card-carrying fortune teller, but his dream has come true. Powered by the witty single, "Come Out and Play," Offspring is about to go gold with its appropriately titled second album, "Smash" (on the independent label Epitaph).

"Smash" has cracked the Top 40 on Billboard's pop albums chart. More than 200,000 copies have been sold, but soon it will be certifiably gold because stores have ordered more than 300,000 to meet the growing demand.

Kriesel was so confident of full-grown success, he quit his day job as a printer before "Smash" was released.

"We had just come back from a tour and I decided I just didn't want to be there anymore, so I quit," Kriesel said. "At the time, I thought, 'Well, we can make enough to get by on,' and I was living in my mom's house so I knew I could survive. I knew this was going to take off."

It took off in Los Angeles via KROQ-FM, which latched on to the slashing "Come Out and Play," its catchy one-liner, "you gotta keep 'em separated," and its subtle anti-gun message. MTV followed suit by putting Offspring's video in its Buzz Bin rotation.

Why has Offspring finally made it after seven years of toiling in Southern California's club scene?

"Most people tell us that after Nirvana (and Kurt Cobain's death), there's been a void," Kriesel said. "So people now are looking to bands like Smashing Pumpkins and Green Day. And when we came out, KROQ really pushed us because they wanted a band like this with more of a harder edge.

"I just don't like the idea of people being force-fed songs. When 'Come Out and Play' first hit on the radio, you had to wonder, is it on all the time because people actually like it or because the radio station decided it was going to play the hell out of it?"

Kriesel throws much of the credit for the group's newfound success to "surf rats."

"They're the guys who go out at 6 in the morning and surf all day," he said. "None of us surf, but our songs started getting thrown into these surfing, skateboard and snowboard videos.

"I think that's why we hit it. The surf rats would sit there and watch these videos for hours and our songs stuck in their heads, then they'd buy the album after that, and it snowballed from there."

BWF (before we forget): Kriesel's prediction came true and then some. "Smash" reached No. 4 on Billboard's pop chart, stayed on the chart for nearly two years and sold more than 5 million copies. The Offspring jumped to Columbia Records for its follow-up album, "Ixnay on the Hombre," which cracked the Top 10 in 1997 and sold more than 1 million.

Old Pike emerges from Mellencamp territory

(May 9, 1999)

After 20 years of sharing John Mellencamp with the world, Bloomington, Ind., has a new band of hometown heroes to boast.

Mellencamp and the rock quintet Old Pike may come from the same place, but the comparisons end there. Singer Tim Jones and his band mates share more in common with The Band, Wilco and the Jayhawks.

"Still, John Mellencamp's not a bad reference point," Jones said recently. "He has written some great songs and they've been a great band for a long time. 'American Fool' was one of the first records I ever had; I was like 7 years old when that came out in '82. I remember identifying and knowing that he was from Indiana and thinking it was cool that he was on 'Casey Kasem's Top 10.' I was impressed and realized my world wasn't so small. It made me realize I could do whatever I wanted to. If somebody from Indiana can be on Casey Kasem, then why can't I?"

Old Pike's debut 550 Music album, "Ten Thousand Nights" (released April 13), builds a solid, grassroots rock foundation around Jones' searing, soulful voice and bittersweet songwriting style, best evidenced in the first single, "The Rest of You." "Watch me walk out this door," Jones sighs, "it's easy when you let me. You know it ain't hard to be mean, how many times can I explain, I just ain't that good of a man/ I don't need to see your face and I don't want to see your eyes, but I could use the rest of you tonight, to escape the abandoned love that's in my life."

"We were real particular, we wanted to make a record," Jones said, "an album that flowed together well and had a theme or a sense to it, like 'Darkness On the Edge of Town' or 'The Joshua Tree' or 'Dark Side of the Moon.' These were songs that had come through my life in the previous two years that were waiting for an audience. They're songs about my life and people around me, hopefully put forth in a way everyone can relate to."

Old Pike's big-label indoctrination happened in a roundabout way, Jones said.

"I sent out a tape to the manager of Superdrag," he said. "I had seen them on the road and they gave me his number because I wanted to get them to come and play a show with us. I sent him a tape and he blew me off at first, but after I sent him the tape and he listened to it, he called and said the music was awesome. We came out and played in New York; he worked for Dedicated Records as well and they ended up offering us a recording contract. Our lawyer advised us to turn it down, which then created more of a buzz that we had turned down this label.

"Then going out with (550 Music label mate) Ben Folds (Five) was a big break. It was a big risk for him to take an unsigned band out just because he liked them."

A good part of Old Pike's appeal is its authenticity, much of which can be traced to the group members' longstanding friendships and comfort zones with each other as musicians. Jones has known bassist Jason Brammer since they were 9 and went to the same high school - Pike (hence the group name) - with Brammer and guitarist Carl Broemel; they formed the group with fellow Indiana University student Eric Hopper (drums) and later added pianist/organist Mike Flynn.

Four of the five share a rickety house in Bloomington.

"We're getting ready to move into another house, which is on like 70 acres and we'll have more privacy," Jones said, "but living together can be a little bit tedious. Some of the guys have girlfriends, but we don't even have TV in our house, so we're constantly together. The cool thing is, we're all good buddies, even at night we go out and do stuff together. We are our own best friends.

"Most of the things that we argue and fight about are stupid things. We don't try to carry over any band discussions into the other parts of our life. We're all pretty levelheaded about it. If somebody doesn't pay the phone bill, it's like, 'Look, man, you have to pay the phone bill. This is really pissing me off,' and you don't take it with you to practice and say, 'Asshole, you don't get to play your song today because you didn't pay the phone bill.' "

Jones hopes the best for "Ten Thousand Nights."

"I have total faith and total belief in that we didn't come this far for nothing," he said. "I believe I was put on this planet for a reason, and playing music and writing songs is that reason. With the way the music biz is, I can't put my faith in record companies and public opinion. We'll definitely be able to make a second record, and it's going to be a beautiful second record."

BWF (before we forget): Travel with Old Pike on the Web @ www.oldpike.com.

Olive branches out with 'Extra Virgin'

(Nov. 13, 1997)

A coldhearted piece of technology did something downright warmblooded: It brought the British techno-pop trio Olive together.

Tim Kellett and Robin Taylor-Firth eyed a collaboration after leaving their respective bands a few years ago. Kellett was a nine-year veteran of Simply Red and Taylor-Firth was part of the Sheffield, England, beat group Nightmares On Wax. They created a few songs and, in the mold of Soul II Soul, considered hiring a series of singers to augment their keyboard-driven sound.

Then they discovered "the voice."

Kellett first heard Ruth-Ann Boyle while triggering tape loops of her vocals while playing keyboards for the Manchester trip-pop group Durutti Column for a show in Portugal. It didn't take long to track her down: She was working at a bar not far from Kellett's home in rural England.

He found her just in time: Boyle had nearly abandoned her musical dreams.

"I was singing on an album for Durutti Column, and just gave them some samples, basically," Boyle said recently. "Then they went on tour after that, but rather than send me out with them as the singer, they brought the samples on the keyboards and then triggered them. That's how Tim heard my voice.

"Right after working with the Durutti Column, I knew that I wasn't going to do anything with them again, because they don't use a great deal of vocals. At that point, I was ready to open a nursery."

Durutti Column's loss was Olive's gain.

After auditioning Boyle, Kellett and Taylor-Firth liked her so much, they invited her to become a permanent member. She was the piece that had been missing from their puzzle.

A three-song demo led to a bidding war among U.K. labels, with RCA coming out on top. After their first single, "You're Not Alone," reached No. 1 last spring, their full-length debut album, "Extra Virgin," did just as well, selling more than 500,000 copies in the U.K. alone.

The soulful, Everything But the Girl-like "You're Not Alone" is finally making strides in the United States, where it's at No. 69 and rising on Billboard's pop chart.

"It's nice to be out front and making some creative decisions and writing," Kellett said of his post-Simply Red experience, "and that's an opportunity I didn't get in the past. Thanks to Portishead and Everything But the Girl, this style of music is finally being accepted, but it remains to be seen how far it's going to go. I hope the American public doesn't shy away from it."

There's more to "Extra Virgin" than just "You're Not Alone." Other tracks, notably "Outlaw" and "Miracle," further display the band's keen sense of pop melodicism. One cut in particular, "Safer Hands," hits close to home for Boyle.

"That was one where we had finished four songs and Tim wanted to know a few things that were personal to me and I told him about the death of my father," Boyle said, "and he basically wrote a song about me growing up and how I was really resentful of the fact that I didn't have a father and, as I got older, I got over it and got on with my life and am happy that he's in a safer place."

Boyle is enjoying her new place in the pop world.

"I haven't changed much," she said. "I think I'm pretty much the same girl but with a bit more experience within the music industry than when I first started. I was very shy and frightened to say things in the beginning, but now I'm holding my own really well and I tell people what I think. I've just gotten stronger; I'm not turning into some scary diva or anything."

Her goal? "We want to stay together and prove to everyone that we're not some one-hit wonder," Boyle said. "There's a lot more in us."

BWF (before we forget): Get a taste of Olive on the Web @ www.bugjuice.com/olive.

The resurrection of David Olney

(Oct. 30, 1997)

Life was especially good in 1982 for David Olney. He and his rock band, The X-Rays, recorded an album for Rounder Records; they appeared on "Austin City Limits" and opened for Elvis Costello.

By 1985, they disbanded and "then I was back to playing solo," Olney said recently. "At that point, I stopped caring whether people liked my music. Of course, I wanted people to like it; it's just that my main responsibility was to the songs."

His storytelling songs - in the tradition of mentor Townes Van Zandt - piqued the interest of Emmylou Harris, who recorded Olney's "Deeper Well" and "Jerusalem Tomorrow." That led to Linda Ronstadt, who included his "Women 'Cross the River" on her "Feels Like Home" album.

It has been a long time coming for Olney, whose "Real Lies" album was released a few months ago on Philo. At age 49 ("older than dirt," Olney said), it feels good to still be part of the game.

"To survive is to win," he said. "There were so many years when nothing was going on. Living in Nashville and it being so geared toward country, it was hard to get booking agents and management, so my main problem over the years has been trying to get people to hear it. The past couple of years, especially since the Emmylou Harris cuts, it's been easier to go out there and present my stuff."

Cliche or not, it's how you think of yourself and not what other people think, Olney said.

"I'm sure, particularly in Nashville, there was people who didn't see me as anything other than an unsuccessful something or another," he said. "But to me, I was a musician."

One of the best tracks on "Real Lies" is "Baseball," which Olney admits "people either love it or hate it." The song, featuring a mock broadcast, views the game from the perspectives of a pitcher, batter and announcer. Those fed up with today's money-driven players should adopt minor league teams, Olney said.

"Just go to a minor league game, it's a much nicer baseball experience," he said. "There's really high quality playing and you don't have to worry about the high salaries. You're looking at guys who just want to get into the big leagues.

"There's always the story of some guy who's 30 years old, playing the minor leagues, presented as a tragic figure. To me, if you're 30 and still playing, you've successfully avoided work your whole adult life. Musically, to me, that's always the way I've felt about it. I'm still out there and still taking my cuts."

BWF (before we forget): For more on Olney, visit him on the Web @ www.pressnetwork.com.

Omar and The Howlers keep up the blues

(Jan. 25, 1996)

Time flies when you're having a bluesy good time, and Omar Dykes should know. He formed the Howlers 20 years ago.

"It doesn't seem that long ago," the soul-bearing blues singer said recently from his Austin, Texas, home. "I still feel like I'm about 15 years old, but then I look in the mirror and scare myself."

Even after all those years, it's easy for Dykes to recount his first gig at a VFW post in his native Mississippi.

"A guy built like an Army tank walked in off stage," Dykes said, laughing. "I saw him walk in and I knew he was drunk. He was staggering around and he kept looking at me with this mean look. I'm thinking, 'Who is this guy?'

"He pulled me off stage and my bass player grabbed my guitar before I hit the floor. I got beaten up almost unconscious and then his girlfriend yells, 'No, Foozy, that's the wrong guy.' I remember his name very well.

"Back then, we were dressed in black coats and white turtleneck shirts. The guy bloodied my nose and I had blood all over my white shirt. But it didn't stop me from playing. The show went on."

That tenacity has served Dykes well. As styles have come and gone, Omar and the Howlers have stayed tried and true to their blues and rock roots, from their glory days with Columbia Records in the '80s (notably "Hard Times in the Land of Plenty") to their new "World Wide Open" album, the group's second for Watermelon Records.

Among other things, "World Wide Open" marks a new Howlers lineup. Tired of the road life, bassist Bruce Jones and drummer Gene Bradley quit and have been replaced by Paul Junior and Steve Kilmer.

"They've been with us for two years so they're broken in real well," Dykes said. "When the other guys left, both of these guys were recommended by different people who know how I play and what I was looking for, so there weren't any auditions."

One of the album's most daring tracks is "Hey Joe," a taut cover of the Leaves' 1965 original.

"That was actually the version I played when I was 14 years old," Dykes said. "The Leaves did it way before (Jimi) Hendrix it. All the garage bands played in Mississippi back in the '60s, and that version has always stuck with me."

BWF (before we forget): Omar and The Howlers' album discography - "Big Leg Beat" (Amazing, 1980); "I Told You So" (Austin, 1984); "Hard Times in the Land of Plenty" (Columbia, 1987); "Wall of Pride" (1988); "Monkey Land" (Antone's, 1990); "Blues Bag" (Bullseye Blues/Rounder, 1991); "Live at Paradiso" (1992); "Courts of Lulu" (1993); "Muddy Springs Road" (Watermelon, 1994); "World Wide Open" (1996).

Orange 9mm fires away with new album

(July 18, 1999)

Members of Orange 9mm know how to take the bad with the good.

Three years ago, the New York rock trio was seemingly on top of the world, having survived a major purge of acts at Atlantic Records and making its major-label debut with the prophetically titled album "Tragic."

When the album failed to take off, the band fell on hard times.

"I think what ended up happening was," singer Chaka Malik said recently, "we missed each other at a turn. There was a tour support situation that came up and that threw kind of a wedge between us and the label, and that was the only thing that was negative at all."

Leaving Atlantic turned into a blessing more than anything, says drummer Matt Cross.

"It was a strange experience," he said. "All of a sudden, it was 'We're not on Atlantic, now what do we do?' We started writing and decided to worry about a label a little later. (Atlantic) is a great label for certain bands; the way we are and the way we built a fan base and the way we would tour, those things didn't mesh with what that label really was about. The connection also wasn't there. Yeah, sure, if you're selling 2 million, you can talk to anybody up there, but when you're at a level we were at the time, it just wasn't a great situation for us."

Shortly after signing with Michael Chambers' independent label Ng Records, Orange 9mm - Malik, Cross and guitarist Taylor McLam - found itself one player short: Bassist Chris Vitale left the band. Rather than sulk, the three buckled down, with Malik and McLam sharing duties on bass and all three shoring up their songwriting skills.

They then holed up in a Los Angeles recording studio with producer-mixer Neil Perry (Smashing Pumpkins, Everclear) and came out the other end with "Pretend I'm Human," a wildly inventive album of pop, hip-hop and metal elements where Faith No More left off. The group's label debut was released July 13.

"We tried to focus on trying to flip what we were doing," Cross said, "and kind of come out with something that was super fresh and not a rehashing of the old stuff or trying to sound like Korn, trying to follow where the music's going on the radio."

Malik said Orange 9mm and Perry worked so hard on the album, they didn't have time to worry about cabin fever.

"There was no time to question anything," he said. "If we stopped at all to question anything, I think we all would've collapsed after working so many hours. We were out there for 10 weeks and we intended to take Sundays off, go out on Saturday afternoons and have a good time. It ended up us working 10, 12 hours a day; into week two, it was 15 hours. After week two, we realized we couldn't take Sundays off. The studio was occupied 17 hours a day for a while with people coming in and working in shifts.

"We didn't know anything but the studio and we didn't know anybody else, so it was the three of us and Neil. Michael Chambers, who runs this record company, came out and I remember thinking, 'God, this guy's an outsider. What's he doing here?' and he's one of our best friends. The fact that we had developed such a bond and had been locked in such an intense vibe, even a good friend coming into the mix, sitting there just listening, was almost threatening."

Orange 9mm has come a long way, Cross said.

"The band has definitely matured," he said. "Stylistically, we started listening to a lot of different music outside our genre and take from people like Miles Davis, stuff people wouldn't necessarily know we listen to. We were listening to drum 'n' bass and bands like Radiohead, people who are doing something new and interesting and how they went about doing that. That's the direction we're headed in."

THE FIRST RECORD I EVER BOUGHT: Malik - " 'Sucker MC's' by Run-D.M.C. 'Sucker M.C.'s,' that song at that point set the streets on fire. I lived in the projects and I remember people having boxes and putting their speakers in the windows and pumping the song. I guess it was our version of college radio back then, because you could literally walk around and every courtyard hear at least one stereo, and 'Sucker M.C.'s' used to get banged like you wouldn't believe." Cross - "Back in the '80s, I had a tape deck and I bought 'Signals' by Rush. I was a big Rush head. I started out playing drums, and I learned everything from listening to Neil Peart."

THE FIRST CONCERT I EVER WENT TO: Malik - "My father is a photographer, and Central Park had their sound stage series; it had something to do with South Africa, like a USA For South Africa something and I had just bought the Rush record, 'Power Windows,' and my dad had me meet him in Central Park. He got me onstage and I saw U2. It didn't faze me; I wanted to go home and listen to 'Power Windows.' " Cross - "It was Rush, too, probably during the 'Signals' tour. My brother took me to the show, and it was in a stadium. It was rock music at its finest, with lasers and everything. Even then, I was thinking, 'Man, this is just three guys up there making all this noise.' I have so much respect for Rush; I'm not into what they've been doing lately, but up until about the 'Power Windows' era, I thought everything they did was cool."

BWF (before we forget): Set your sights on Orange 9mm on the Web @ www.orange9mm.com.

ORANGE 9MM SHOOTS FOR THE TOP (Aug. 1, 1996):

Even though the axes are falling at Atlantic Records, reportedly already claiming Screamin' Cheetah Wheelies, Extra Fancy and King's X (and more to follow), members of Orange 9mm feel like they're on top of the world at 75 Rockefeller Plaza.

"There's just a super good vibe here at the label, from the mailroom up to the heads," drummer Matt Cross said recently from the company's New York headquarters. "They're really, really into the band. We played this show in New York not too long ago and about 150 people from the label were there. I guess that's what they mean about us being a high priority."

The New York-based, full-throttle rock quartet delivers the goods with its Atlantic debut album, "Tragic," released July 30. To some, tracks such as "Fire in the Hole" (the first single) and "The Method" are just a galaxy of noise. To others, it's a guttural, soul-purging experience.

"Anybody who doesn't listen to aggressive music," singer Chaka Malik said, "I don't care if they don't like the record or not, just as long as they admit to themselves that it kicks ass. Not to be conceited or anything."

Cross and Malik say they and guitarist Chris Traynor and bassist Taylor McLam credit producer Dave Sardy, frontman of Barkmarket, for opening up their songs and allowing them to relax and enjoy the moment.

"Dave was super easygoing," Cross said. "He came in and said, 'You know what? I'm not one of these bull---- producers, like we're going to spend two weeks on this drum track for this song.' He said the first time you lay a song down is pretty much going to be the best you're ever going to play. We went for the vibe and the energy."

Malik said half of the record was recorded in one day in a Brooklyn studio.

"We were going in to just do some demos," he said, "and Dave was like, 'Okay, let's start taping. How many songs do you want to try?' and we said 12. I didn't leave that room till 2 in the morning and we never went back and listened to anything. The whole time, Dave was saying 'This is the record.' He was right. Even the songs we went back and tried to re-record at another session didn't come out as good."

It was a dream situation, Malik said, but one that they may never duplicate.

"That's something we lucked into," he said, "whether the moon was in the right place or somebody's great-great-grandmother was looking down on us."

The soulful blues of Joan Osborne

(March 16, 1995)

Billboard columnist Timothy White says her major-label debut album, "Relish," is stunning; the New York Times' Jon Pareles calls it one of the strongest albums from a new artist this year, and Entertainment Weekly gave it an enviable A-, saying she has Bruce Springsteen's gift "for expressing regular folks' pain and pleasures."

Calling from a pay phone at a rest stop in New Jersey, on her way to a gig in Pennsylvania, Joan Osborne says the words are flattering, but they don't go much beyond that.

"It's nice to show my family and stuff," she says, "but it's really not for me to decide 'Oh, yes, I'm this, or yes, I'm that.' I just want to do what I do and try to be in the moment of the music.

"As wonderful as a good review is, the real satisfaction of doing this doesn't come from seeing your name in the paper. It comes from actually being on stage and playing songs with the band."

Osborne, who was born and raised in Anchorage, Ky., and now living in New York, was performing her vivid songs of saints and sinners at a club in Philadelphia when Rob Hyman of The Hooters spotted her and recommended her to producer Rick Chertoff. He was starting his own label (Blue Gorilla), distributed by Mercury. After a long meeting, the two discovered a common ground and set forth to create an absorbing piece of work.

Her bluesy style is already being compared to Bonnie Raitt, and her raspy voice embodies the power of Janis Joplin and Courtney Love. But Osborne says her heart has always been in soul music and that comes from being anchored down in Anchorage.

"It was very safe there," she says. "We could run and play in the woods, and we'd be gone all day and all night and build forts. Musically, we were not like some mountain family that sat around on the front porch and played our instruments.

"I went to the bluegrass festivals a little bit, and country music was in the air, but I wasn't much a fan of it. I listened a lot to the black station and groups like the Spinners and Gladys Knight & The Pips. It wasn't until I came to New York and started singing that I delved into blues, R&B and gospel and made a very specific effort to study it and buy a lot of records and find out a lot about the artists I was inspired by."

BWF (before we forget): Led by the Top 10 single, "One of Us," Osborne's "Relish" sold more than 3 million copies.

Our Lady Peace trips over the success of 'Clumsy'

(March 22, 1998)

Members of Our Lady Peace, Canada's top-selling alternative-rock group, have their noses so firmly to the grindstone, it took weeks for them to learn they're up for seven Juno Awards.

Our Lady Peace, now entrenched in the third leg of a massive U.S. headlining tour, tops the 1998 list of nominees for the Canadian equivalent of the Grammys, including album, single and group of the year for their gold-plated Columbia debut LP "Clumsy." The awards will be handed out March 22 at a ceremony in Vancouver.

"We're not one of those bands that slaps each other on the back," bassist-keyboardist Duncan Coutts said recently. "I don't think we're ones to take stock in the moment, because we really, really want to have a career out of this. We feel like maybe we've just started to scratch at the surface and we just want to make a bunch more albums, make it different and make it better. As cheesy as that sounds, it's where our hearts are.

"We don't want to be judged on a single album or two albums or singles; we want to be judged on a body of work. Yeah, it's really great the album's selling pretty well and people are coming out to our shows and we're able to pack clubs now and pack arenas in Canada. It's flattering, but at the same time you try to stay five steps ahead of it. My concern now, and for the other guys too, is putting on the best show that we can on this club tour we're doing."

"Clumsy," a cohesive collection of tuneful rock, has gone as high as No. 76 on Billboard's album chart since its release on April 15, 1997, while the searing title cut is at No. 5 this week on the modern rock tracks chart. Our Lady Peace's accomplishments are all the more impressive considering its background.

Coutts and singer-songwriter Raine Maida went to the same high school in Toronto for one year and later were in a garage band together before teaming with drummer Jeremy Taggart and guitarist Mike Turner, both recruited via an ad in a weekly Toronto arts magazine, to form Our Lady Peace in 1993.

Rather than toil on the club circuit, they concentrated on fine-tuning their songs and making quality demos.

"The theory was," Coutts said, "before we go out and play, let's have lots of really good songs, so there was a lot of time spent basically above garages and in basements working on songs. Then we hooked up with Arnold Lanni, who produced our first album ("Naveed" in 1995). We got signed and then did the 400 to 500 shows after the first record and then made a second record.

"We spent 15 hours in the studio (for 'Clumsy'). We're more determination than gifted, talented people. We work really hard at what we do, and I think it shows in the music."

The early path they choose - demos over excessive touring - made them less jaded about the music business, Coutts said, and that explains why they have been able to stay grounded.

"We're really insular, from our management down," Coutts said. "Everybody's been together right from the very beginnings of it. It's more like a family, and it's the same thing when we're on the road or in the studio, you know, check your ego at the door. If you're being a jerk and your head starts to swell, people are going to tell you. They're going to deflate it as soon as it happens. But it hasn't really happened.

"I guess we're just lucky that we're four people that get along like that and have good people in our everyday dealings, from management to road crew to our producer."

The greatest compliment so far has come from Led Zeppelin's Robert Plant, who heard "Starseed" (from "Naveed") on a New York radio station. Moved by the band's conviction, he contacted Our Lady Peace's booking agent and signed them to open some Page/Plant shows.

"I have respect for (Plant)," Coutts said, "in the sense that he keeps his ear to the ground with what's happening still in the music scene. He seems very real."

After its latest U.S. tour, Our Lady Peace will swing through Europe in mid-May. From there, no doubt there will be more shows.

"At some point, we'd really like to get into the studio. We're all starting to get that itch," Coutts said. "We're all writing collectively and individually. Everyone's hovered over their four-track machines, if we're not trying to work things out in sound checks."

BWF (before we forget): Our Lady Peace ended up coming home with two Junos, for group of the year and best rock album. ... Bow before Our Lady Peace on the Web @ www.ourladypeace.com.