What’s That Dude Play? » Our Lady Peace’s Steve Mazur burns brighter

Our Lady Peace’s Steve Mazur burns brighter

October 27, 2009
by Blake

Features, Rig Repository>Our Lady Peace, Steve Mazur

Guitarist Steve Mazur has been with Canada’s Our Lady Peace since near the completion of 2002’s Gravity album when he was tapped to replace founding member Mike Turner. The band has been a mainstay on popular radio since its 1994 debut Naveed, which spawned the hit single ‘Starseed’. Not long after Mazur joined the band, OLP found itself at odds with its record label, its producer and itself. Their next record – 2006’s Healthy In Paranoid Times – was nearly the band’s undoing. WTDP? had a chance to talk with Mazur recently about the his stint with the group, his favorite gear and the band’s love for their new album Burn Burn.

WTDP?: How has fan response been to Burn Burn?
SM: We’ve gotten some great fan feedback. We’ve definitely heard from some people – we have a lot of fans who were into the band’s first three of four records and then didn’t like the last couple of records that we did. We’ve gotten some good response from some of those people. And granted, we just make music that turns us on so we’re not consciously trying to appease those fans or whatever. I think any band or any artist, you just go through different phases. That is what it’s all about. We definitely went a certain way with Gravity and Healthy In Paranoid Times, and that was that experience working with Bob Rock and it was great. It was just an experience. This record we chose to produce it ourselves. Raine, our singer, produced it. I think the reason a lot of people that liked our earlier records like this record is because the way we wrote and recorded it was, the whole process, was more similar to the way the band did the first record where we were just in Raine’s studio, just the four of us, working up the songs so they sounded great with us playing in the room. There was no one else around. That was the way the band, when they first started, did it. They were working up the songs before they even got into the studio. I think that’s why it has a similar energy to the band’s first record Naveed.

WTDP?: There has been a lot of press about how difficult Healthy In Paranoid Times was to record and complete. Was that a function of a lot of starting and stopping, or was it more the band just getting bogged down?
SM: The latter. Yeah. It was one of those things where it was the first time the record company got really involved. Normally, the record company didn’t get involved in what we were doing. They were really involved. There was a lot of turmoil within the band and also with our producer. There was just a lot of turmoil all around. I think where that came from was we just had a lot of… there were a lot of things we were searching for with Healthy In Paranoid Times. We just kept going down a lot of roads and a lot of those roads lead us to places we didn’t want to be. We did a lot of things where… we did a whole three weeks of recording and at the end of those three weeks hated almost every idea except for one. We just kept trying stuff. To summarize it best, we were just searching a lot. And the problem was it went on for way too long. We just got really bogged down. We recorded 40 some odd songs. When you do that and you still don’t feel like you have what you’re looking for, that’s a lot of pressure. That’s a lot of mud on you at that point.

WTDP?: So by contrast, Burn Burn must have been a walk in the park.
SM: It was awesome. It was a lot of hard work, but anything worthwhile is going to be. I know for me personally Burn Burn is what Our Lady Peace with me sounds like. I know that I definitely got caught up in the mud of Healthy In Paranoid Times and I kind of went into my shell. With Burn Burn, I definitely felt more confident and more comfortable in the studio… way more than before. I’m really proud of it. Healthy In Paranoid Times I have to say there were a lot of things that ended up somewhat compromised on the record. You know, there are a few moments, but Burn Burn is like… every note we’re totally psyched with, totally… there is not a compromised note on the record. I just felt so much more comfortable and I think that comes out.

WTDP?: One of our favorite songs from the Steve Mazur-era Our Lady Peace is ‘A Story About A Girl’, the last track on Gravity. Do you remember much about that song when it was coming together?
SM: For the record, I met the guys when that record was 75% completed. However, I did play on that song. I think that may be the first Our Lady Peace song I ever recorded guitar on. I know that groove though… that song was created spontaneously in Maui. I think it was one of the first meetings with producer Bob Rock. Duncan, our bass player, started playing that groove and Bob was like ‘That’s cool. Let’s keep working on that.’ So that was a song that was written on the spot in the studio. We were all sitting around and that song, it needed some more guitar stuff. I was there just hanging out because I had just met the guys. Bob threw his SG with a single P-90 in my hands. It was the first time I’d ever played one of those old P-90 guitars and it was like ‘Oh my God, this sounds amazing’. I actually, not to long after that, went out a got a (Les Paul) Junior with one of those old P-90s.

WTDP?: Let’s talk about your gear. Is the Starcaster still your number one guitar?
SM: It was on this record and it was for touring up until now. I’m playing new guitars now live. I went to Gibson Canada right when this tour started and they had one of their Trini Lopez reissues. They asked me to try it out so I took it to our rehearsal space and played it and fell in love with it. It still has that great warmth that hollow bodies have, but it has a little more balls than my Starcasters did. And for our band and me being the only guitar player, it fills the sound out so much better. So I am actually playing those now and I’ve never been happier with my tone.

WTDP?: Beyond the Trinis, the Starcasters and the Junior, what else do you have laying around? 
SM: Live the Trinis are the only ones I play now. At home I have an old ’67 Telecaster that is amazing. I have a big Gretsch 6120 and a Les Paul I use all the time as well. Also, I have… you know what, Bob Rock taught me this… since (vintage) Strats are so ridiculously expensive he said if you’re not going to go spend $20,000 go and buy a Tokai Strat from the 80s and put some great pickups in it. I followed his advice and damn man, it’s a great… I think I put some old Fralin 50s style pickups in it. It is awesome. I use it all the time at home.

WTDP?: Can you walk us through your current pedal board. I’ve heard you use a bunch of Electro-Harmonix stuff.
SM: There is a lot of stuff on there. I have a lot of Electro-Harmonix on there. I kind of went Electro-Harmonix crazy. I have the Micro POG and they make the Holy Grail Reverb, but they started making the small one (Nano). I was like… I don’t know, because that original Holy Grail had that different power supply and I was convinced that’s what gave it the tone. I tried that Nano one, I A/B’d them and the Nano sounds just as good as the original. I was really psyched. Basically all of the ones they are making in the smaller boxes now seem to be better quality and more durable. Soundwise I have the Stereo Electric Mistress in the smaller enclosure. It sounds awesome. It’s still all analog. To me the biggest thing with pedals is nothing can beat real analog pedals. I still have the old, original Memory Man… just the warmth of that.
Besides that, one thing that I’m using that I really like is from a company called Diamond – the Memory Lane pedal. I just love it. It sounds like a Memory Man, but you can tap in times. Those are great. I also have a Zvex Box of Rock on my board. I like that. Also, two things I really love, I have the Keeley-modded Boss Tremolo and Boss SD-1, the Super Overdrive. I love both of those pedals – I had them before, but you know the Trem pedal had a noticeable volume dip. He just sort of has that thing, what he does when he takes those. I love his mods on both of those pedals.

WTDP?: What would you consider the workhorse of your board… the one that’s on… a lot?
SM: That Diamond Memory Lane. That’s my main, go-to delay. That and the Keeley-modded SD-1 I use all of the time. That is kind of like my main boost I’m always going to. That new Electro-Harmonix smaller Grail I use all of time. I also just recently put their Graphic Fuzz to my board too. Which, man, if you can only get one pedal to do… that Graphic Fuzz can do so much shit. You can get 8000 sounds. I mean, when you get in there and mess with the frequencies graphically. And it also has a portion of it that’s a built in dynamic response thing that responds to how hard you’re picking. That pedal can do a lot of shit.

WTDP?: What else have you added to your board lately?
SM: My board at home that I use around town in LA, I put on the classic chassis Small Stone and Small Clone. Those two pedals are both just sick. The Small Clone, that chorus, I’ve been discovering that pedal lately.

WTDP?: What about amps?
SM: Live I’m using Divided By 13. I’m so stoked with those. I use the RSA/23. He (Fred Taccone) makes some sick amps. I used that amp on almost every song on Burn Burn. I actually bought another one from Fred because that amp is so particular. I think one day we had a gig where I had to use something else and it was such a bummer for me because I am so dialed into that amp now. For most of our set, my whole distorted tone is just the one side of that amp… no pedals or nothing.
What’s funny is that on that head there are two channels. I was always using the cleaner channel with a pedal for the distortion. One day we were doing a TV thing and that side went down, but the more distorted side was working. So ‘Oh shit, we’re going to have to do this’ and use that side. All of the sudden the rest of the band was like ‘Man, we like this part of that song when its got more balls using that distortion.’ So it’s funny, by accident now, I’ve started using that channel, which I wasn’t using at all before, as my main distorted sound.

WTDP?: Any shot you guys get back in the studio next year?
SM: As a matter of fact we were just talking about demoing some stuff. We have most of November off. Now that we’ve come across the process – the way we made Burn Burn – it went great. We want to make the next record pretty much in the same way. It took us a while to find that process, but now that we have we’re hoping to do another record really quickly… and not four years until the next record.