Music saved me.

I'm len Hoffman, and today music saved me.

We are sitting down with Rain Mada, the voice behind our Lady Piece, 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 Navide 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?

It would be so awesome.

It takes like thirty 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 Mada, He's here and he's next on music, Save Me, Don't Go Anywhere.

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 realize 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 nineteen eighty four on that nineteen eighty four tour, and it was wild, like it was I got hot, you know, it was the first time I'd been to a rock and roll concert like that in an arena.

You know, there's a lot of pot smoking on, so I got like secondary high.

The show was nominal, like David Roth had he's knived 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 me and Van Halen was kind of that kind of band.

But then about 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 and I don't want to say it was serious.

But he spoke about like Amnesty International, and he spoke about green peace, 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 kind of like consciousness towards music that could could 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.

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 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 Hale and like with a smile on my face.

Contact high, yeah, contact guy, and the show was incredible, But with Peter Gabriel, it 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 piece took off?

What were you going through personally?

That made music feel like a lifeline rather than maybe just a passion of yours.

Yeah, I mean, I don't know if I've ever told this story.

My wife and I have a book coming on.

I tell it in the book where I just my parents had got divorced and I was sent away to school and I hated the school and I was really struggling.

But I had 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 U two and r EM 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 because I always loved creative writing growing up, but I I wasn't going to like be a poet, and I want you know, I know, I don'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, 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.

Could be a slippery slope as well, because if you do what you love for a living, there's that 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 them, come on, you can do this.

But I understand that.

Yeah, I mean that's interesting.

I would just say one thing 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 non.

I was going to go down that path.

Yeah, it spoke to your stage name Rain.

Your real name is Mike, but it became your identity.

Yeah, my full name is Michael Rain Anthony Mada.

So I 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 parents get divorced, but it felt like it had this profound effect on me.

And then being away from everything that it was just like I really transitioned into not an adult but more of an artist and in a 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 them, but I'm.

Still thinking one day you're gonna change.

Yeah.

Yeah, but it's it's one of those things where, yeah, it really allowed me to like okay, but it's seriousness of what I'm doing and saying, hey, like I am, I am transformed, and so that was part of the whole journey.

Didn't 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 sound corny, but it felt like this rebirth because before that, like most teenagers were all struggling to figure out what our purposes 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 too, because all the song, all the albums you mentioned, and you were in your I think in ninety four when you released Navid, you were in your early twenties and I was as well.

Was there something that you were trying to work out or you know, escape from when you wrote some of those early songs.

Yeah, that you know, some of those songs really came back from like my late years in high school and my first years and I was in college in Toronto while we were forming the band, so it was really like it was it was about that whole time period, you know, it was about that kind of like transformation that I was going through.

Definitely, you know, songs like Starci transcendental meditation, trying to find myself through these through these different modes of like no, I don't want to say escape in like a terrible way, but really there was some sort of escape there.

And I studied martial arts growing up as well, so a lot of the kind of the Eastern methods, some of the breathing techniques and all that stuff.

It just felt Navie was probably, to be honest, like one of those most the most spiritual albums we had, because it really felt like that exploration.

You know, when you're just starting to explore things, they're so front of mind and then they become part of your deadly practice and you don't really think of them the same.

But yeah, it was this great kind of like intersection of music and spirituality for me and really turning into it all getting out on my own, like you know, I was out on the road and I was my own person for the first time.

How did you get it?

How did how did you turn your inspiration and moment of realization for what you wanted to do with your life into actual practical work.

I think it's doing the work.

I think, you know, one thing for me was I never wanted to do cover songs, so it was always about and now I love doing them, but back in the day, I was like, no, that's not what I'm about.

It's about finding that originality within my self.

And that was that was a fascinating journey, just just that in itself, just trying to you know, find your own identity.

It was really critical for me, and I think that's what brought a lot of the experimentation on other fronts.

Yeah, I mean that's hard to do.

I mean experimenting when you don't even know if you're gonna be successful in the beginning, and then when you are successful, how do you continue to do and you know, write the songs and you know, sell the albums and move forward.

That takes a lot.

Yeah, I think that's when it gets tricky.

I think that when I look back on it like that early, those early days, because we'd kind of written some of the v before we get a record deal, that's the best moment because you don't know anything about the business.

I didn't really know.

I was so naive as like even a songwriter and recording like we you know, we would We paid an engineer, a friend of mine at a studio, but it was like a real studio, and we couldn't afford to go in during the day because those rates were too high.

So we'd convinced the engineer, hey, like when that session leaves at like eleven, and we load in at one am and worked till eight am.

And so that was the way we started recording na ved.

Luckily we got a record deal.

So now to finish the album doing like that, because it was brutal, you know, Yeah, But I do look back on it fondly because we didn't know anything, and that's the best it was.

Really, You're just writing music.

I was trying to speak my mind through lyrics and melodies and not really caring if everyone ever heard.

It was really just about, hey, do we all feel that did it kind of when we you know, either recorded it or when we were jamming it out?

Did it kind of make the hair in the back of your next stand up?

And that was the only the only barometer for like success at that point.

Then you have some success, and now things change.

Right right right?

Well, songs like Clumsy and Superman stead I mean that resonated with millions of people.

Were you kind of surprised that all of this personal stuff?

I mean, after you make create this art and you put it out there for people to listen to and it resonates with them so much, is that a surprising thing to you at that time?

You know, when people out there really are receptive?

Yeah, I mean I think you know you have this there's this amazing moment in art where you write something like I remember I wrote four a M which became a big song for us, even though it was never really a single like the it just happened.

And but you know, you're like, oh, there's something here that I really feel strongly about.

I got to imagine like other people will as well.

But you never want to say that out loud, right, I like you know, especially if you have any sense of humility, and I think with Clumsy there was something there as well, just in terms of man there's just feels like really easy and good.

We really think people will feel the same, And it was true.

And I've spent some songs along the way where you have those instincts, and I've been wrong as well, but for the most part, you know, it usually translates.

Did it Did it change how you looked at being vulnerable in music?

Yeah?

Four Am was really that song because I wrote a specifically about my dad, and I remember I was worried about a showing it to the band, and then I did that.

I demoed it up, but I went in early in the studio one morning with the engineer and demoed it myself, presented to the band that afternoon.

They all loved it.

But then I got this other like thing like do I really want to like, how am I gonna explain this to my dad because I'm actually like calling him out on some things and blaming him for some stuff.

And I was like, that's not cool.

But for whatever reason, I decided to have a go on the album on Clumsy, and it I think it realized in me this this idea of that vulnerability is what really that's when you really connect with people, Like when you can show that so kind of set the bar for everything else.

Being vulnerable and being a guide to that's another right, right, Yeah, and especially at that time, like a lot of the artists that were out felt like everyone was angry, which was right, which was important as well, But that album was not angry.

It was what you said, It was much more vulnerable, introspective.

Yeah, amazing album.

The music industry is like incredibly demanding and that's being nice.

Were there moments during our Lady Piece's peak where music became a problem instead of a solution?

Did that ever happen?

And how did you navigate that?

I mean, being with the.

Band is like being in a marriage almost.

Yeah, and being in the business adds another element that has really can be destructive.

I think it was for us.

Clumsy did really well.

We had a bunch of signals and like the touring was off the charts and we were trilie all around the world, and then the expectation is to do it again, and we've Clumsy is very different than the v and then we're we're just it's never been that band that are not like a rinse and repeat band, Like it's always about this experimentation and trying to get away from what we just did.

So we feel fulfilled creatively, and especially me as a songwriter, like repeating myself, I'm like, it was cringing to me to do that, where I think a lot of smart artists have done that and been super successful.

That wasn't our thing, and so we Yeah, we definitely had moments with a record company where they're expecting us to repeat clumsy and it wasn't.

And the next two records were We're far away from that.

And so we got back and went to Mali and recorded record called Gravity with Bob Rock, back to like the clumsy success basically if you want to call it that.

But then again the next record after Gravity, after like huge singles like Somewhere out There, was totally different.

Again, so we've not been the best at navigating the business.

I would say in that front.

Did it ever cause any issues with the band members or did you all kind of keep it together and stay on this page?

Yeah, I mean you have to ask those guys.

I think for the most part, my perception is like we went in it together as a band, and we're basically on the same page, you know.

I think that's great.

Yeah, I think you know, when things don't do as well as the record before that, you everyone's second guess is stuff.

And we had those conversations.

But I don't think anyone has any regrets because I think the career arc for us is something we're all really proud of.

We'll be right back with more of the Music Saved Me Podcast.

Welcome back to the Music Saved Me Podcast.

When you're in a dark place or you know, not so happy, does the creative process help you work through it or do you have to get past it, solve it and then write about it.

Curious?

Yeah, that's a great question.

I've never written a song when I'm happy.

I just don't feel I don't know, like it's it's it's it's something about, like you just said, exploring something like turmoil or just something you're curious about in your mind that makes me want to pick up a guitar or sit at the piano.

And that's the way it's just always been.

Gosh, it's so much better.

I mean, when you get upset about something or you're in a bad place it would be.

It's so much safer to pick up a guitar sit in front of a piano.

Be destructive.

Yes, Now, speaking of working with your band earlier, you are married to a woman that I haven't actually had the pleasure of interviewing back in my radio days.

Chantal creviasic beautiful on multiple levels.

Now, how has a creative partner?

Having a creative partner is truly you know, she understands the therapeutic power and the healing power of music and how it's impacted your life.

And I how did number one?

How does that work?

And number two?

Was that a cohesive question?

And the other thing is in twenty nineteen I read that you two put out it.

I'm so fascinated by this, by the way, you put out a documentary called I'm Going to Break Your Heart in twenty nineteen.

I've often thought about I've been married a while to a creative partner as well.

We're both in the business, and I always thought, you know, what if we did something like that just to share how we make this work, because it's not.

It's not a cakewalk life, isn't, you know?

So those are It was kind of two questions.

One, Yeah, you know, how is working with your wife who you know, having someone who understands all of this business.

But also what was that like putting out that documentary.

Yeah, I mean she's super creative and she's she has her own career as an artist, but she's also like a top songwriter who's written for like Drake and Kendrick and Gwen and Brittany and all these people over the years.

So that part of it is always interesting because it's it's just inspiration.

Right when I hear working something that's way outside of even what I'd ever do, you can't help but be curious about that, just in terms of like seeing stuff from instead, Like it's one thing hearing something radio and be like, wow, that's amazing seeing stuff being conceived, Like here she's singing at the piano one day.

Maybe I'm walking around on a call and I hear something ends up being on a Drake album, Like, oh my god, Like, that's that's something you can't pay for, and to you know, it's just a privilege to be in the room for that stuff.

But we started to think about, Okay, we do a lot of charity stuff together, and we were on stages and we kind of like do each other's songs, and we finally said, hey, we should just at least write a few songs together.

So when we did those things, we have something that we can say this is ours.

We wrote a song called I'm Gonna Break Your Heart, and it was like it just poured out of us one night at like two in the morning.

Our kids were asleep, our dogs were like chill, and the song just came out.

I was like, oh my god, this is like one of the favorite things I've ever been involved in.

You have to like actually make a record now, and we tried for a couple of years and it just never happened.

We just figured, hey, even if we get together like this once a week for the next few months, we'll get a record done and nothing just because it's crazy our careers and kids and travel and stuff.

And so a friend of ours who's a filmmaker here in LA was just like, look, I've been watching you guys struggle.

I know you guys.

She's a dear friend.

She just said, the only way this is going to happen is if you get out of La, go somewhere remote, leave the kids and just like commit to like two or three weeks writing without any distractions, and she was right.

So we went to this little island it's actually owned by France, but it's south of coast of Canada, and she said, bring a little film crew.

You should document this.

It could be really special.

So we did.

Yeah, so we did that and then we brought we came back and we recorded the record at Rick Rubman's studio here in a melody called Shangri La.

But when we started looking at the recording of all the footage, it was like, you get to see how these songs are born, but the reality is like not every It wasn't like hey, han, let's write a song and it just comes out.

It was like typically we were away from our kids.

We were on this little island in January.

It was freezing.

Everybody from that island left when we arrived to go to Nice for the winter.

They don't want to be there.

So like there was only two restaurants open and like one bakery, and we're in this little hotel room.

We're like, oh my god, this is the next month.

What are were gonna you know, how we're gonna get through this?

So there was some emotional shit like some fights and like reconnecting as well.

We'd never been away like that by ourselves since we had kids, so it was heavy and we're looking back at the foot.

It was like, we can't just show this song finished without showing what the backstory was.

And sometimes the backstories like we got in a fight and we had to work it out and we had cameras there and I didn't real even pay attention to them, but just felt like that was the most authentic thing.

So the documentary really became more about a couple trying to kind of connect creatively, but like, what is the other bullshit going on?

And I was cool.

I don't think like that was five years earlier.

I might not have been in the same place where I was like, I can show that part of me.

I think Chantelle is much easier with that, But I don't know.

It was in a place where like this is really like Bowie always said, you know, you have to be courageous to make real art.

I felt like for this to be art, we had to show that other side of it, which wasn't pretty, like was pretty sometimes brutal, Like even looking back on it now, I'm like, oh my god, I'd sound like such a dickhead.

It's hard, but you say you creating things out of that?

Yeah, that talking earlier.

Yeah, yeah, So I think we did something really special and the documentary has been amazing.

Like I said, we have a book coming out in May that's based on the same stuff.

Because we had so many people say, hey, can you guys do a podcast or something to keep this conversation going, because it really normalized what couples go through, like seeing you guys go through the same kind of stuff where some of those fights were like so petty and dumb and how do you get through it.

We also have a therapist up in Sonoma County here in northern California that is an amazing more of a coach, like a marriage coach, and so he's in the docu well, and he gives like really great advice and these nuggets of gold on how to like work through stuff as partners that have been together for a minute.

It's so awesome that you did that.

You're my hero both of hotel.

Please tell her, I said, thank you, because that's it.

Really we by talking about stuff, people go, oh, I didn't know that someone else tells, even just simple stuff like sibling things.

You know, how many people have run into who say, you know, they don't talk to a sister or a brother and it's not anything major, it's just that they're not the same type of people.

But yet all their friends are best friends with their siblings.

And you feel weird in an outcast, and then you all of a sudden you realize that's not the case.

There's a lot of people in that situation.

Yeah, well we learn really And we've been working with this guy.

And his name's doctor John Gray, not the and not the doctor like marser men are from Mars or woman for Venus.

Guy he's a oh yeah, he's like our doctor.

John Gray is like a Stanford neurologist guy that runs marriage coaching up in so Noma.

Like I said, but he it's just communication skills, right, it's just learning.

It's learning how to like mirror your partner, how to like actually hear them, how to mirror that back.

And yeah, he's got some amazing things that we learned and put into practice, and yeah, it's pretty pretty incredible.

Well, thank you for that.

Has there ever been a song that you wrote you felt was too personal to release and how do you decide what gets released and what doesn't.

Well, there's a couple of things that we have that chan Tell and I have on this next next album we're making where it's really, yeah, super personal.

But again, I think like there's an arc to like an artist's journey, and I think like becoming more comfortable in your own skin.

Like I I'm happy to release those now.

I'm happy to I think the world needs that.

And as an artist, that's the only way to be original is to tell your story, you know, So if you're kind of hiding behind like cliche phrases and stuff, I mean, that's just so boring or someone else's story, Yeah, exactly, observational.

Yeah, is there a song of yours or someone else's that you returned to when you need to be reminded to be okay with yourself?

Yeah, I mean there's a song that we wrote on that documentary.

It's called that Can Change.

And like you see the fight, you see like the tension, and Chantell just starts playing this like you said, she starts playing this piano riff just because she's sad, and like that's how she's dealing with it.

I hear it.

I'm like, oh my God, that riff's amazing.

She was like, I'm not writing this for a song.

I'm writing it just like this therapy.

I was like, no, No, that's an amazing riff.

Then I started writing lyrics the melodies, and we write this whole song.

We recorded in the hotel room.

That's what's on the album.

That song is like so pure or and just that message if I can change is such a big deal because it's just a reminder.

So that's that's the song.

I when we when Chantelle and I play live, when we play that song, it's just like it is like I know, it's like holding a mirror to yourself.

And it released too, probably for a lot of people hearing it, you know, looking at an example.

Yeah, and I think I think the idea that you know, when people think about changing, it's like, oh I got to change everything.

This song is more about just little incremental changes and how how affected that can be a much of a difference I can make.

It's huge.

Do you have advice for anyone looking to use music to heal the best way?

Oh my god, I mean I think we all do that on a daily basis.

And again, it can be just fun music or it can be stuff that takes you down that rabbit hole of darkness, but somehow leads you.

Like I think Jeff Buckley does that so well in Grace.

And it's sad that we don't have am around, but that record just had like heavy you know.

It's just like there's a lot of feels like on all these songs, but there's something that's so spiritual about it that it feels good in a weird way.

And I think that's I realized it's over COVID.

It's like when everyone was locked up in their homes, we all binged like Netflix and Hulu and Prime and all that stuff, and it was all these new shows, you know.

But the music I went back to, and I've had this conversation a lot of people I went back to, like Neil Young records.

I couldn't listen to new music, and it was it was because music was the way in that time of like socio political disarray, music was a comfort.

And so that's that's where I realized, how, like, man, do we kind of disvalue music like it is that it is that healing force in our lives, you know.

It is it's so super powerful.

I've actually interviewed some doctors, some prominent doctors who are using it to help people, you know, stroke victims and not just people terminally who need to be uplifted, but literally like helping them to regain walking again.

Yeah.

Stuff.

Yeah, you see it with like Alzheimer's patients as well, like music from their childhood or in their past, like that's the only thing they connected with, that the only thing that kind of awakens them.

So it's just like there's something neological.

Obviously, obviously there's stuff within like the you know, frequencies and everything, but like you said, there's a science to it, and there's just an emotional equation that is so special.

Rain.

I know you are short on time, but I want I have two more quick before I let you go.

First, is there I know you and your wife are involved in important causes.

Is there anything that you'd like to talk about and let people know about that you're working on, that you're passionate about outside of music.

Yeah, I mean we're big supporters of an organization called War Child.

I just came back from Afghanistan a couple of weeks ago, and just to see their work on the ground that they do, you know, helping more affected children that really have no responsibility for the wars that are going on in their countries or cities or towns.

It's pretty special.

And with Warchild, like ninety seven percent of every dollar donated goes to the programs, as opposed to some other charities that just don't operate that way.

So we're huge advocates for them, and they're very music oriented.

So anyone that's looking for stuff to support war child something worth looking in for sure.

My last question, and thank you for that.

It's amazing you give so much just through your music and your creativity and all the stuff that you share, and then above and beyond that, you also use your platform for so many other good things.

So thank you for that.

And after thirty years, I know it sounds crazy, doesn't considering making music?

Does music still save you in the same way every day?

Every day?

I mean, I I'm always and I think it's it's a very holistic like quote unquote saving because it keeps my mind turning, it keeps me feeling youthful because I'm always writing, and I think just the fact that you're always kind of like dipping into your own brain seeing what's coming out seeing what you want to say, and then on the other side of it, I love.

I don't get to drive much because I'm always using on planes or buses.

So when I get to actually drive a car and set up a playlist, that is like so spiritual for me because I just get to get lost in albums that I love, you know, And so man, I can't wait.

I'm I actually I fly tonight to Toronto from LA and I get to drive for four hours to Detroit from Toronto for an all piece show.

That drive will be magical because I you know, I'll listen to like Grace, and I'll listen to like maybe you know, the Joshua Tree, you know, and maybe I'll listen to a couple of new records.

But it's just that like that, that's it right there.

It'll that four hours will get me through the next four weeks.

And you don't drive a lot, and you're getting lost in music.

So what road are you going to be on that we shouldn't be driving on?

Are you rain made a Thank you so much for spending time with us on music save Me and sharing your story, and thank you for everything that you do, you and your wife, your wonderful team, and I hope our paths cross again.

Thank you for sharing your story.

Oh thanks on my pleasure