Raine Maida (Our Lady Peace): Turning Pain Into Anthems [Encore]”

Music Saved Me Podcast

In this heartfelt encore episode of Music Saved Me, Raine Maida, lead singer of Our Lady Peace, opens up about how music has been his lifeli

Key takeaways

• Music served as a spiritual refuge during Raine Maida's difficult teenage years following his parents' divorce.
• A pivotal moment at a Peter Gabriel concert revealed to him that music could be more than entertainment—it could carry purpose and global consciousness.

Main topics

• The transformative power of live music
• Music as a coping mechanism for personal trauma

Notable quotes

"It was like this really amazing global view… it really made this difference to me in terms of there is entertainment, which is amazing because I love Van Halen, but there also was this more consciousness towards music that could… go beyond music."

Conclusion

Raine Maida's journey illustrates how music transcends entertainment—it

Transcript preview

Speaker 1 (0:00) Music Saved Me. I'm Lynn Hoffman and today on Music Saved Me we are sitting down with Rain Maida, the voice behind Our Lady Peace and a man who spent three decades turning pain into poetry, anxiety into anthems and personal struggle into songs that have saved countless others. From the raw intensity of Naveed to becoming one of Canada's most passionate advocates for change, Rain hasn't just survived the music industry. He's used music to survive, period. But before we jump in with Rain, if you're loving these conversations about music and how it heals and rescues and transforms lives, first, thank you so much. And second, would you do us a favor and open up the Apple Podcast app and leave us a five-star rating and review? Speaker 1 (0:48) It would be so awesome. It takes like 30 seconds and it helps us reach more people who need to hear these stories. And I'm serious when I say that your review could be the reason that someone, even just one person, discovers the song or the story that saves them. And that's why we're doing this. All right, buckle up. Get ready for the wonderfully honest, beautifully vulnerable, and maybe a little clumsy because that's where the real magic happens. Rain Maida, he's here. And he's next on Music Save Me. Don't go anywhere. This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed human. Speaker 1 (1:24) On Big Lives, we take a single cultural icon. People like Jane Fonda, George Michael, Little Richard. And we pull apart the story behind the image, discovering forgotten interviews that change exactly how we see these giants of our culture. We're here for the messy, the brilliant, the human version of our heroes. I'm Emmanuel Jochi. I'm Kai Wright. And this is Big Lives. Listen to Big Lives on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Speaker 1 (1:53) So like by age 11 or so, at least 70% have a phone. I'm Dr. Joy, and this is Therapy for Black Girls. We spend our surviving middle school run getting into what's happening inside your kid's brain, the group chat, and their friendships, and what you can do about it. Your child is not doing this on purpose. That's the kind of perspective we've been pulling from the psychologists and psychiatrists who study this for a living. Listen to Therapy for Black Girls on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Speaker 1 (2:23) What up? This is Jay Valentine, co-host of the R&B Money Podcast alongside my brother, R&B legend Tank. Together, we've built a space for artists, executives, and fans of R&B music to reminisce and tell the real stories behind the music. I have no money. I was hood famous. They think you're going to get everybody out. We lived in a project. Real Love came out. They're hearing the music and we had nothing. From Smokey Robinson to Mary J. Blige, B2K to Jill Scott, if you're a super dedicated R&B fan, This is where you belong. Listen to R&B Money from the Black Effect Podcast Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Speaker 1 (2:58) Hey, it's Bobby Bones. Join me and former NFL quarterback Matt Castle every Wednesday on our podcast, Lots to Say, with me, Bobby Bones, and Matt Castle. You're in training camp, and the rookie quarterback has one good throwing session in front of the media. Suddenly, everybody online says he should start over you week one. How do you handle this? You just go back out to practice the next day and wait for him to mess up. Listen to Lots to Say with Bobby Bones and Matt Castle on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Speaker 1 (3:28) 30 years ago, an island off Manhattan almost brought down New York City. Who will you trust? Your friends and neighbors? Or will you trust the people five miles overseas? This is a story about neighbors turning on each other and what happens when a forgotten place decides it's had enough. But we're not stopping, are we? Listen to Revisionist History, The Staten Island Problem on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Speaker 1 (4:01) Music saved me. Growing up in Western Ontario, what was your first meaningful connection to music? And was there a specific like aha moment when you realized that music could be more than just entertainment and fun? Yeah, I mean, that's a great question. I, it's funny, like my first concert ever was Van Halen in 1984 on that 1984 tour. And it was wild. Like it was. I got, you know, it was the first time I'd been to a rock and roll concert like that in an arena. You know, there was a lot of pot smoking going on. So I got like secondary high. The show was phenomenal. Like David Lee Roth had his knives and he's jumping around on stage. It was, it was so entertaining that I walked away. I was like, oh my goodness. I never knew. I never knew V and Van Halen was kind of that kind of band. But then about. Speaker 1 (4:54) I think about six weeks later, I saw Peter Gabriel. And it was so different. You know, it was like this, it was as musical, but it was, it wasn't entertainment. It was, I don't want to say it was serious, but he spoke about like Amnesty International and he spoke about Greenpeace and he talked about just things that really mattered to him personally. And it was like this really amazing global view. that it really made this difference to me in terms of there is entertainment, which is amazing because I love Ben Halen, but there also was this more consciousness towards music that could, I thought it was preachy, but it was like you could have this platform as well that went beyond music. And so that was kind of like a ha moment for me, for sure. Speaker 1 (5:45) Yeah. I actually didn't ever see him back then, but more recently he did the show in the round, Peter Gabriel. And that was like incredible. He's, he makes you think like you said. Yeah. Yeah. He's just like, yeah, he's just this figure that really transformed me in whatever the two and a half hours that he played. I walked out of there literally like I walked out of Van Halen, like with a smile on my face. Speaker 1 (6:10) Contact high and a smile. Yeah, contact high. And the show was incredible. But with Peter Gabriel, I felt like, oh, I think I found some purpose. That's cool. That's a great story because a lot of people would explain more something they heard at their home or watched on TV, but you were actually there. It hit you when you were at a show. Before Our Lady Peace took off, what were you going through personally that made music feel like a lifeline rather than maybe just a passion of yours? Speaker 1 (6:39) Yeah, I mean, I don't know if I've ever told this story. My wife and I have a book coming out, and I tell it in the book where I just, my parents had gotten divorced, and I was sent away to school, and I hated the school, and I was really struggling. But I had all these CDs with me, and it was Peter Gabriel, and it was Springsteen, and it was the Stones, and Neil Young, and Rush, Exit Stage Left, and just, you know, a box of CDs. So at night I was able to like just dive into music and it was like early U2 and REM and I just, that became my religion. And it really, it really became something that was like, we all love those bands and those records, but the idea of the lyric for me and a bunch of those artists became, became religion and really started to make me feel like, you know what, this is, cause I always loved creative writing growing up, but I, Speaker 1 (7:35) I wasn't going to like be a poet and I, you know, I didn't know if I was going to be a writer, but listening to those lyrics, I felt like, okay, this is, this is something where I can direct like my feelings and my emotions, express myself. And music felt like, wow, this could be like a viable thing where I could really tell my story, which was interesting. Yeah. And it's all, it could be a slippery slope as well, because if you do what you love for a living, there's that. Speaker 1 (8:05) fine line you walk of like ruining the love of it, you know, because it's work. Yeah. Yeah, I know. I agree. You're right. You're right. For sure. Not taking anything away from it, but it was always the worry. I think everyone I know who was in music, they were always concerned that if they made it their full-time job, that they would hate it and it would ruin it for them. My brother being one of them and so talented. I used to always try to get him, come on, you could do this. Speaker 1 (8:34) but I understand that. Yeah. I mean, that's interesting. I would just say one thing. I, for me, it was like, when I finally tapped into it, I don't think there was anything else I could do. Like, I think that became, it was such a pull to me in terms of this is like, and you know, and not to be cliche, but it was like saving me. So I just felt like that was, that was the, that was the, the path that was going to be my journey, like successful or not. I was going to go down that path. Speaker 1 (9:02) Yeah, it spoke to you. Your stage name, Rain, your real name's Mike, but it became your identity. Is that right? Yeah, my full name is Michael Rain Anthony Maida. Oh. So, yeah, I chose Rain just because it was like this, it was, that period in my life felt like, and I know tons of people's parents get divorced, but it felt like it had this profound effect on me and them being away from everything that it was just like I really transitioned into. not an adult, but more of an artist in the sense of like that whole thing I described in terms of finding this deep connection with music and then really deciding and I'll straight up like against a lot of people's wishes. I got kicked out of that school because of music. You know, I don't think my dad today still thinks I'm going into like the family business. God bless him. Speaker 1 (9:53) But I'm still thinking one day you're going to change. Yeah. Yeah. That's so funny. But it's, it's one of those things where, yeah, it really allowed me to like, okay, put a seriousness of what I'm doing and saying, Hey, like I am, I am transformed. And so that was part of the whole journey. Did it make it easier for you to express yourself? I think so. Being kind of open and stuff. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think like that it was kind of, it sounds like it almost sounds corny, but it felt like this rebirth because before that, Speaker 1 (10:23) Like most teenagers, we're all struggling to figure out what our purpose is and what we're going to do. But that period for me was, it was just profound. And like I said, I just went all in on every front. Yeah. I feel like you and I are right around the same age