It's not an understatement to say Our Lady Peace almost lost it while making their latest album.

It took three years -- specifically 1,165 days, as the band takes pains to point out in the CD liner notes and on their website -- to make Healthy in Paranoid Times.

OLP, set to play Scotiabank Place on Tuesday night, recorded the album in 10 different studios, agonizing spurts of production from Maui to Malibu to Toronto. Things got ugly, and though it's a nice ending that everything worked out, drummer Jeremy Taggart explains there were many times its members wondered if they might never get it right.

"We basically got scared and worried that the money tree was going to end," said Taggart.

First off there was singer/songwriter Raine Maida's blowout with producer Bob Rock (Metallica), who was behind OLP's 2002 CD Gravity.

"We lost a little perspective," says Taggart. "If you're going to lay blame on anything, you either blame the situation or the producers."

Rock came back but the band still struggled to whittle Healthy down to their best material, to find quality out of quantity: Eleven solid tunes from some three dozen written.

"We had so many songs," says Taggart, "and we just started to go crazy."

There were points when everyone -- bassist Duncan Coutts and guitarist Steve Mazur included -- walked away, each panicking at the bogged-down process.

But Taggart stresses the band was never in danger of breaking up, adding everyone only "stayed mad for about two seconds."

"There was a point where we didn't want to see anybody," he says. "It's frustrating to know how frustrating it can be."

That of course is all in the past, and the band ended up producing what some are calling the best of their six albums with solid singles, like the catchy, heavy-in-radio-rotation Angels/Losing/Sleep.

Ottawa marks the last date on the western leg of OLP's first national tour in five years. Taggart plans to stick around the area afterwards and head to the Ottawa Valley to fish and relax with his girlfriend -- who is originally from Pembroke -- and their two-month-old baby.

All OLP members have side projects, and Taggart, who was handpicked to replace Jim Newell on drums at the tender age of 17, is no exception.

He is currently working on a radio show for the Corus Network, a mix of guest interviews and sketches dubbed Taggart's Take.

Tickets for the show, which includes Pedestrian, Jets Overhead and Neverending White Lights, are $51.37 and available by calling 599-3267 or visiting www.capitaltickets.ca.