Background and Writing
After wrapping up the Spiritual Machines Tour in late 2001, Our Lady Peace were becoming restless and close to breaking up. Lead singer Raine Maida in particular was feeling limited by guitarist Mike Turner's abilities in the studio. Raine would later state in an interview, "I don’t know if Mike was born to be a guitar player. The studio was a tough place for him and we were working too hard to make up for it – we felt like we were cheating ourselves. Four albums is way too fucking long to put up with that. I’m sure he’ll do great things, just not with six-stringed instruments.” They mutually decided to part ways following preliminary sessions for the album.
The band decided that they had gone as far as they could go musically with Spiritual Machines. Looking to reinvigorate themselves and change directions musically, they sought a more stripped down sound as opposed to the multiple layers and textures of their previous albums. It was this idea of simplifying that inspired the title of Gravity. Raine discussed the transition in a 2002 interview. “’Spiritual Machines’ was so out there in talking about the future and trying to perceive man turning into machine, it was very heavy. With this record...it kind of felt like we were being pulled back down to earth, hence the title. It’s such a simple life out there and because of that the album was just based around living day to day rather than looking too far ahead. In that sense ‘Gravity’ is pretty much the opposite of ‘Spiritual Machines’. None of our other albums had been concept records, so it was the right time for us to get away from that whole philosophy. Because of that ‘Gravity’ is probably the most basic album we’ve made since our first.”
Although Raine Maida had begun living in Los Angeles, The band came together in Toronto to start writing new material towards the end of touring for Spiritual Machines. They did it this time without the usual help of producer Arnold Lanni, who at the time was working with fellow Canadian band and management-mates Simple Plan on their debut album, No Pads, No Helmets...Just Balls. Jamie Edwards was credited for the first and last time as a songwriter on this album. Three songs written by the band made the record but most were written by Maida during the 2001 holiday season. Steve Mazur's late official entry into the band meant he took no part in songwriting.
Read more about this topic: Gravity (Our Lady Peace Album)
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