When
the four members of Live first began performing together
in middle school during the summer of 1985, they gave little,
if any, thought to the possibility that they would still
be together 22 years later. Lead singer/frontman/guitarist Ed
Kowalczyk, lead guitarist Chad
Taylor, bassist Patrick
Dahlheimer and drummer Chad
Gracey (all of whom were in their early teens at the
time) were simply four friends from working-class York,
Pennsylvania who wanted to express themselves by writing
and performing music. But Live has, in fact, endured—and
along the way, they have built an impressive résumé that
includes eight full-length albums, total CD sales exceeding
20 million, a huge international fan base and extensive
touring all over the world. Live has been one of the most
successful and enduring alternative rock bands of the 1990s
and 2000s, and despite their long list of achievements,
Live are finding themselves busier than ever with a lot
of songwriting, recording and big summer and fall tours.
Reflecting on the band’s past and present, Kowalczyk
attributes Live’s longevity to a variety of things,
including their strong rapport with fans and the chemistry
that Live’s members have enjoyed with one another. “When
bands become successful, the fact that all of the members
have different agendas can come out,” Kowalczyk explains. “But
that didn’t happen to Live because all of us were
so young when we started playing together in 1985. It would
be a lie to say that there weren’t moments when we
didn’t get along, but the fact that we grew up together
and developed our personalities in the band at such a young
age helped us to stay together.”
Another
thing that has enabled Live to maintain a devoted fan base, Kowalczyk theorizes,
is the substantial and durable nature of their lyrics, which have often reflected
Kowalczyk’s personal and spiritual concerns. “My approach as a
songwriter is to write songs that are not finite and will resonate with listeners
for a really long time,” Kowalczyk asserts. “Sixteen years after
our first album, Mental Jewelry, I am still able to get something
out of songs Live recorded in the early 1990s--and I think that one of the
reasons why we have had so many fans for so long is that our fans are also
continuing to find nuances in our songs.”
Live wasn’t always called Live;
in the mid-to-late 1980s, the band went through several
name changes before settling on Public Affection. After
acquiring an enthusiastic local following, Public Affection
made their recording debut in 1989 (the year Kowalczyk
graduated from high school) with a cassette titled The
Death of a Dictionary (which was released on their
own label, Action Front Records). After hearing the band
(which was renamed Live in the early 1990s) performing
at the famous CBGB’s in New York City, Radioactive
Records President Gary Kurfirst wasted no time offering
them a contract--and their first full-length album, Mental
Jewelry (which was produced by Jerry Harrison of Talking
Heads fame) was released in 1991. One heard a
variety of influences on Mental Jewelry, ranging
from U2 to REM to Peter Gabriel to the Beatles. But it
was clear that Kowalczyk and his colleagues had fashioned
a distinctive, recognizable sound of their own.
“I always think of Mental Jewelry as
the first real chapter in Live’s recording history,” Kowalczyk
stresses. “When we changed the name of the band to
Live, I had made a clear choice what kind of lyrics there
were going to be and how I was going to express them. Mental
Jewelry was the first real expression of Live’s
vision. When I listen to that album now, I can’t
believe how serious-minded and philosophical we were at
such a young age.”
Mental Jewelry [which included the major hits “Pain
Lies by the Riverside” and “Operation Spirit
(The Tyranny of Tradition)”] sold more than one
million units in the United States. The disc that
truly put Live over the top commercially was their sophomore
album, Throwing Copper (a 1994 release), which
was the only album in Billboard history to stay
on the charts for 52 weeks, then reach No. 1. Selling
more than 12 million copies worldwide, Throwing Copper went
down in history as one of the most definitive alternative
rock recordings of that decade and boasted the MTV smashes “All
Over You,” “Selling the Drama,” “Lightning
Crashes” and “I Alone.” The double-platinum
1997 release Secret Samadhi (which
contained the hits “Lakini’s Juice” and “Turn
My Head”) became Live’s second successive
No. 1 album and was followed by the Radioactive releases The
Distance to Here (a million-seller) in 1999, V in
2001 (which yielded the hit song “Overcome”)
and Birds of Pray in 2003 (that featured the
cross-over radio smash, “Heaven”). Songs
from Black Mountain, Live’s most recent full-length
album, was released byEpic Records in 2006. Live
has appeared on NBC’s popular, long-running “Saturday
Night Live” as well as David Letterman and Jay
Leno’s shows, The Ellen Degeneres Show, Conan O’Brien
and, most notably, the 2006 “American Idol” season
finale.
Technologically, Live’s members have witnessed many
changes over the years.“In terms of technology,” Kowalczyk
observes, “it’s a totally different world from
when Live started. One of the things that is great about
the Internet is the way it enables you to connect directly
with fans.”
A major marketing tool for the band, Live's website, FriendsOfLive.com,
enables them to sell the titles in their catalog and merchandise
online, offer sneak previews of new recordings along with
other exclusive content through their fanclub, Friends
of Live (FOL), and keep followers up to date on touring
activity. Live’s current tourmarks the first time
since 1990 that a Live tour isn’t directly aligned
to promote a new album; Live’s career-spanning sets
are celebrating their great history, by featuring greatest
moments from all their releases along with some special
surprises.
“I think Live is at a really interesting point right now,” Kowalczyk
reflects. “We’ve been doing this for so long and have worked really
hard to get to this point where we can play for two hours and have such a huge
repertoire of songs to choose from. People love the fact that we are doing
these long sets, and we are really enjoying it. But we are still in our early
thirties, and I feel like we still have a lot of room to grow and experiment.
Creatively, Live is still wide open.”
###July 2007 ###
