Didnt know if anyone has ever read this but I found it intresting. The very last paragraph I found especially intresting!



SUCCESS puts pressure on any young band, but an expectation of even greater success is the danger Live faces with the release of Secret Samadhi.
It is not only the band's first album in three years,but the follow-up to their 1994 breakthrough Throwing Copper, which has sold nearly six million copies in the U.S.
That success was a matter of the right sound meeting the right time.
When Throwing Copper was released, alternative rock had just ascended to music-industry dominance, and the strains of backlash had not yet been felt.
Live offered an accessible hybrid that was tuneful, textured, and easy to sing along to, but also a wee bit challenging, with oddly tweaked arrangements and subtle, subversive dynamics.
MTV and rock radio took to singles like "I Alone," "Lightning Crashes," and "Selling the Drama" with a fervency usually reserved for U2 and R.E.M. Not coincidentally, those two bands were the biggest influences on the members of Live, all born in 1970 and 1971 and raised on the modern rock of the eighties.

It also didn't hurt that Live had a charming story to tell.
Singer Edward Kowalczyk, guitarist Chad Taylor, bassist Patrick Dahlheimer, and drummer Chad Gracey have been friends since childhood, growing up in the small central Pennsylvania town of York.
They played together in high school marching and stage bands before forming Live in 1985.
With most of the group still in their teens, Live signed to Radioactive and released an EP, Four Songs.
The EP was followed by their full-length debut Mental Jewelry, an album that, in hindsight, can be seen as a stepping stone to the more fully realized Throwing Copper.
In time, Live has found its own distinctive voice, due in part to Kowalczyk's growing interest in Indian philosopher Krishnamurti, which has given the band's music a spiritual undercurrent.

From his home in Lancaster, Pennsylvania,
Live guitarist Chad Taylor tells Mr. Showbiz that Secret Samadhi represents another step forward for the band, as musicians and as friends.

When did Secret Samadhi get under way?
We wrote maybe half the songs on the road touring for Throwing Copper.
We came home after the tour exhausted,but we knew we didn't want to take off too long,because we sort of fell into a rut between Mental Jewelry and Throwing Copper that we didn't want to get close to again.
So we gathered stuff up and went down to Jamaica for about three weeks.
We did the whole Chiristmas thing at home,then went to the sunshine.


The good life,huh?
Oh yeah.We rented this rather plush mansion,the closest thing we could find to what the Rolling Stones would rent-or own,in their case.
We set up shop,sat around,and wrote the rest of the record.
It was a great experience that we hadn't had before,to sort of pick up from home,go away as a band,and write.


Did you have a sense of where the album was headed musically?
Actually,I don't think we had anything that was preconceived at that point.
The songs that had been written while we were on tour were going in a certain direction,which we expected to continue in Jamaica,and it did.
I feel like this record is closer to Mental Jewelry than to Throwing Copper,it's a much more relaxed vibe, but the harsh songs are more hard-core.


It sounds like a consolidation,almost.
Overall,it's just a maturing process.
We aren't the kind of band that sits down and says"This is what we want to sound like."
Maybe that will happen somewhere along the line, but the songwriting still comes pretty naturally to us.
We more or less go with what's happening on that particular day.
If we follow where we go naturally,that leads to the best music. I think bands fail when they try too hard.


"Lakini's Juice" is a daring first single.
It's definitely a departure from anything Live has ever done.
It's not an immediate song ;that's part of the reason we picked it for the first single.
There are more obvious hits on the record. This is something we thought od more as an album track.
When I plyaed the song for a handful of people, the first thing they compared it to was "kashmir"by Led Zeppelin.


That's interesting,because I don't think of Live as being a band influenced by the big classic-rock groupes.
We didn't grow up listening to Led Zeppelin. I was born in 1970 ;the rest of the band was born in 1971.Led Zeppelin had kind of come and gone.
We missed all the great rock bands-the Beatles had broken up,though the Stones ware still together.
Our whole basis for rock and roll was videotapes,or talking to my dad.
My dad saw Hendrix four or five times,so he can speak from experience. Me,I've seen videotapes and listened to records.


Who are the more modern influences?
The band we most align ourselves with is probably U2.
I met Ed in kindergarten ;I don't know too many people still running around with their kindergarten buddies,except the guys in U2.
We had a brief chance to meet the Edge and talk about that. He found it interesting, that shared history we have.
Also,we're a rock-and-roll band from York.That's the most unique thing to our band.
We didn't come from New York or L.A.,from where there was a music scene.


Does that change with the kind of success you've had?
I don't think this record comes from places like York ;it comes from playing in front of ten thousand people.
Secret Samadhi is less a record about who we were in the past and more a record about who we've become.
Throwing Copper was small-town life from the view that we escaped it and we were looking back on it.
Now it's hard for us to relate to the people who wrote Throwing Copper. We're immensely different.We lead a different lifestyle.
At the same time,there's an earnestness and truthfulness to this band that won't ever go away.
We were having a beer one night with one of the assistants in the studio,and he said,
"The thing I hate about your band is that every single song has got to be the greatest song ever.It can't be lighthearted and whisk by you."



You moved from your hometown of York to Lancaster. Why the move?
It's more of an artistic community. York has a very blue-collar factory-worker kind of vibe.
There's really not much time in people's lives in York to go out and enjoy the theater. I needed more input than York was giving me.
It really has nothing to do with the people of York ;I still go back there enough.
It's more anout location, being closer to the train station, closer to New York.


Do you hang with the Amish much?
I've sort of become friendly with a couple of Amish guys.
It's an interesting cultural change, I think;their life is so simple.
Often times I admire that when I'm running around,trying to do the buisiness of the band. They have a simplicity that I just won't ever have.
But it's weird,there are almost two separate towns here :historic Lancaster,where I live,and this whole other world,touristville, where all these people are dressed up as Amish people,
and a lot of them aren't Amish.They're actors.


Has fame changed you?
I don't think I've changed, but I know people's perceptions of me have changed.
Good friends or family members are less likely to tell you to shut up and go away,when they probably should.
It's hard to stay close with people when you travel so much ;you lose the physical closeness, so it's a little odd when you come back home.
For me,when I first came home,it was Christmastime. I spent the entire Christmas dinner signing autographs for relatives, when all I wanted to do was visit my grandmother.
That's the only time I can remember being disappointed by what the band had done to my life.
I figured it wasn't me that changed--I wanted to see my grandma like I always have--it's everyone else's perception that changed.


What are the perks of success for you?
I love single-malt scotches. I like cigars.
And I've always had an affinity for a good bottle of wine. I like the finer things in life ;I think they're fun.
Because we travel so much, it's less that I want those things at home, but I wan them on the road.
You have to find something worthy of seeking out on the road.
I'll wake up in the morning, and if I know there's a good guitar shop in the town I'm in, I'll go out to it, maybe see some friends who work in the store. I'll have dinner or lunch with a friend.
The evening is usually spent in the hotel or at a club.
You've got to find something to latch onto that you like.


Does it makes a difference that you're doing all this with lifelong friends?
Sure. I picked my three best friends in the world to gallivant with.
In a weird way,I think our relationship has gotten better.
There's not much to argue about with us ;our goal is to make the best music we can, put on the best shows we can.
The band is the one thing in our lives that we'll always have in common, no matter what.
I don't think I would have enjoyed our success if it hadn't happened with three of my best friends.
Whether it's money or fame or whatever it is, it can only be fun if you're enjoying it with a friend.

This post has been edited by TheBeacon: Jun 4 2010, 9:07 pm