Our Lady Peace’s Raine Maida Busks For Charity On Downtown Streets

He’s sold millions of albums with his band Our Lady Peace and won enough Juno and MuchMusic Video Awards to fill a mantle, but on Thursday Raine Maida‘s stage was the streets of Toronto.

Maida spent 12 hours busking at various locations around the downtown core to raise funds for the charity War Child, which supports children in areas of conflict around the world.

The singer-songwriter, who’s performing songs from his upcoming solo release The Hunter’s Lullaby, hoped people would stop by, listen to his casual set, and drop some money in his guitar case for the cause. The man who calls Chantal Kreviazuk his wife admits it was a spur-of-the-moment idea that started as something else. “We were talking about doing a video, and I was just really kind of disenchanted with the typical video concepts, and so I figured if I was going to do something, I would attach a cause to it and make it worthwhile.”

He hopes to raise $30,000 to help  build a school in the C ongo. It’s a big commitment in a small venue for a guy who’s used to playing to significantly larger audiences. “I’m going to have sore fingers by the end of the day and sore vocal cords but … it’s for a school in the Congo, so when you think of the people it’s going to help, you know, suffering [on] a chilly day in Toronto is not much of a sacrifice.”

You’ll be able to the results of his effort in an upcoming video. It was shot over the course of the day for the album’s single “Yellow Brick Road.”

The Hunter’s Lullaby goes on sale November 13.

For more information visit http://www.rainemaida.net/ or http://www.warchild.ca/.

And to see unedited video of Maida’s street performance, click here.