The last thing Raine Maida imagined when he got into the rock 'n' roll game eight years ago was that he'd be spending all his time on the phone negotiating the intricacies of T-shirt vending.

The singer for Our Lady Peace has knit his own hair-shirt, so to speak, since his band is in charge of Summersault 2000, landing tomorrow in Commonweath Stadium. It's early morning - even if you're not a rock musician - when Maida phones for an interview. He's already been on the horn trying to get some of these bands to write an "interesting" blurb for the Summersault program before the printing deadline.

It's like pulling teeth.

"I know what it's like," he says. "When I'm on the road and someone asks me to do something like that, I'm like, 'yeah, yeah, I'll get to it.' Now I feel like an (expletive) calling these people going, 'Hey, man, I need it today.' I feel like I'm corporate or something."

He does admit the experience has made him appreciate what concert promoters have to go through, dealing with surly rock stars and their surly managers all day long. Who's laughing now, huh?

There were other headaches beyond wrangling the order of the bands on stage and deciding who gets to pick the brown M&Ms out of the bowl. Literally a day after the major headliners were made public, Billy Corgan announced that the Smashing Pumpkins were packing it in at the end of the year.

"I think you could kind of see that coming anyway," Maida says. "It seems like Billy's disenchanted with music right now, unfortunately. I don't care, really. I just hope he gets up there and enjoys the hour they have on stage and plays his heart out because that's what this thing's about. I hope everyone inspires each other to do that. That's why we picked these types of bands. I will definitely be inspired after watching Perfect Circle because I think (Tool vocalist Maynard James Keenan) is just an unbelievable singer and lyricist. I think that's what we wanted, to have bands that really push each other. Even though we don't sound like a Perfect Circle, it doesn't matter. It's just the fact that there's a real purity there and you can sense the passion from the whole thing."

Sounding pretty upbeat, isn't he? Since he and Chantal Kreviazuk tied the knot last year, married life has obviously done wonders. Maida used to rant and rave about everything from Gap ads ("you can come and shoot me if you ever see me doing one of those") to Star-TV ("If I ever end up on that station, I'll definitely throw my TV out the window"). Currently busy with OLP's new album as well as writing soundtracks to silent films with his wife, he seems almost mellow these days. He actually has kind words about 'N Sync.

"I can't sit down and get angry that 'N Sync sold 2.5 million records in its first week. I think it's great. It means people are passionate about music. There's nothing wrong with that. What am I going to do, sit here and slam them? I'm sure 'N Sync is very good at what they do. It's not my thing, but if everyone was the same, how dull would that be?"

He even refuses to get into it with Matthew Good, who accused Our Lady Peace of being "put together" by producer Arnold Lanni. Good shot his mouth off to The Calgary Sun: "Don't tout (OLP) as the greatest thing since sliced (expletive) bread when the four of them couldn't sit around and make (expletive) butter together." Ouch.

Maida responds, "That's just laughable. It's really unfortunate to feel threatened by us. The Canadian community is pretty small."

In other words, don't expect the Matthew Good Band to be on any future Summersault tours.

"We're really just a private band," Maida answers the question about how much input Lanni actually has. "We kind of do our thing and we really don't let anybody in, even the record company. We hole ourselves up and are so precious with every note. And that's all people really need to know. You either like it or you don't."