Keyboard Maker Inspires Our Lady Peace

March 13 -- Over the years, Kurzweil has become one of the top names in electronic keyboards, used by musicians in all genres. Canadian rock act Our Lady Peace uses Kurzweils, too — but on its new album, Spiritual Machines, the band uses the man as well as his machine. Several of the album's songs were inspired by Ray Kurzweil's book The Age of Spiritual Machines — When Computers Exceed Human Intelligence, which guitarist Mike Turner read first and then gave to frontman Raine Maida.

"It's a book that's pretty interesting," Maida says, "and it inspired some music. The book made me very schizophrenic. You read through some of the stuff, and Ray's obviously brilliant, a genius. There's a lot of stuff where he's like Nostradamus, when he said computers are going to do this and this; so when he talks about how 30 years from now you'll be able to download your brain onto a chip and insert it into this thing that's going to look like you, act like you, be you — I believe him.

"But at the same time, a lot [of the songs] are about finding yourself and finding your soul and being in search of religion and stuff — it goes against what Ray is saying. There's a song like 'If You Believe,' which is about saying 'fuck you' to computers, about having near-death experiences and getting outside your body. You can see there's something afterwards, that we do have a soul."

Besides employing some of his ideas, the group uses Kurzweil himself on the album, reading some passages from the book. Maida describes the inventor as "a really good guy, really down to earth." And the friendship had a side benefit; "We've been using his keyboards for years," the singer says, "so he sent us the brand-new one, the 2600. For free."