Interview with Ed, Fly Magazine Options

[chook]

there is an interview with Ed in the September 2007 edition of Fly Magazine, which is an entertainment magazine in Central PA that publishes York, Lancaster and Harrisburg editions. here's the link:

Fly Magazine interview with Ed

[SJN1279]

Interesting read, thanks Chook:

Live
Published: September 2007
Story: Jeff Royer
Photo: Fly Magazine photo by Steve Villella

On September 22, Live returns to Hershey for a special stadium show with fellow Pennsylvanians Breaking Benjamin. Fly Magazine caught up with the band’s enigmatic frontman, Ed Kowalczyk, to talk about the band’s future, his perceived messiah complex and why Live is the national treasure of Holland.

Fly Magazine: You guys are kind of in limbo between albums What’s the state of the union for Live right now?
Ed Kowalczyk: It’s an interesting point in the band’s career. I’d love to say that I know exactly where it’s going. We have this incredible fan base. We have this great history with people all over the world, and that’s pretty much stronger than ever.

FM: It’s wild how your fans have stuck with you, particularly in Europe. Especially – what’s up with Holland?
EK: It started with The Distance to Here. All the sudden the Dutch just hooked onto Live in a way that really became almost like a national event. It has always been a very cool and mysterious thing. Everybody wants to know why, but I don’t want to think about it too much because it’s so beautiful.

FM: At the same time, it’s a different story back home. I guess when you sell eight million copies of an album, the only direction is down.
EK: Right!

FM: What’s it been like to watch your popularity, at least commercially, wane over here?
EK: You can say from one perspective that the band isn’t as popular as it was 10 years ago. But from the perspective of three weeks ago in Detroit, when 10,000 people showed up for our show, I can’t really say that without going, “Well, wait a minute!” Maybe 10 years ago the numbers were bigger, but there wasn’t the 15-year relationship with the fans that exists now. So it may be smaller numbers, but there’s something about it that has matured in such a beautiful way that it’s really hard for me to not be completely overjoyed.

FM: When you’re onstage looking out at 10,000 fans, I guess no one can really tell you it’s not real.
EK: Exactly! You can say, “Oh, your one record sold eight million copies, and then you sold two million. Well, two million is a failure.” Well, wait a minute – have you ever seen a million records? I don’t even know what that looks like. That’s so big. I come from a town of 50,000 people. Come on, man – that’s like 20 of my towns!

FM: Over the years, you’ve set yourself up as this kind of modern-rock guru. How did your fascination with spirituality develop?
EK: It was around the same time that I was kind of coming into being the frontman of this band. Right around my senior year in high school, I started what I call my “seeking period” of seeking out the truth. I was really interested in spirituality and spiritual traditions. I started getting into Buddhism. I sort of abandoned my childhood religion of Christianity. I don’t know if “abandoned” is the right word, but I stopped looking there.
At the same time, it was, “You’re the singer and you’re going to write the lyrics to this band. What is it going to be about?” And so, it was kind of a marriage that was made right there. I said, “Well, this is what I’m interested in, so I’ll let it come out and see what happens.” I guess the rest is Live history, because it’s really been that way ever since.

FM: Some people make you out to be such a weirdo for it. How do you react to that?
EK: When you take on things like spirituality and you start to think and feel and act from the experiences that you’re having in your inner life, you become more and more sort of alone in this world. You’re misunderstood simply by the fact that, although [spirituality] is becoming more and more popular, it’s still not all the rage. So it doesn’t surprise me at all that some of the things I may say in a blog or an interview would sound skewed to most people. But I ain’t about to change it. It’s who I am. It’s definitely not a faked thing at all.

FM: Another common perception is that you’re this extremely serious, stone-faced guy. But talking to you now, you seem pretty laid-back.
EK: That goes back to Mental Jewelry. I think a lot of it was [because] I knew I was talking about things that weren’t necessarily super-cool in the way rock and roll is normally perceived. And so, maybe I tended to, in interviews and in my approach, seem really serious. I had kind of a chip on my shoulder about that. But when you look at the discography of Live, you can see that sort of evolve out of me. So it’s a growing process. I just happen to be doing it in front of millions of people. [laughs]

FM: You’ve always seemed to have this huge sense of purpose. Is that something you still feel?
EK: Yeah, I do. I feel very purposeful. I’ll put it really simply: There are people in the world – I’m included in that – who are getting their peak communal and maybe spiritual experiences at concerts. And I really felt from the very first time I saw it – it was U2 in 1987 on the Joshua Tree tour – that this was an important event. Not only was I at a rock concert, I was at a spiritual event that was altering the way that I was going to view the world from here on out. Here were 75,000 people that were united in this feeling of communion and love and passion, all together with this band. I felt like, “That is what I want to do.”

FM: I was reading about your first concert to, like, 30 kids at an ice rink. When you think about that, and then you think about your last concert to 10,000 people in Detroit, can you even get your head around the fact that this has all happened in one lifetime?
EK: No. I can’t get my head around it, and I don’t try too much. I’m not sure it’s even possible. It continues to really move me in a way that is really beautiful every day. I just still so much appreciate being in this band and participating in this music that we do. I don’t really sit around and think about the bigger picture that includes the trajectory of the band. If I do, it’s just to say, “Wow, look at this! Holy shit!” And then that’s it. Because music, there is something about it that is so magical, and to think about it kind of messes it up, so we don’t do much thinking. [laughs]

FM: What is this band still capable of doing?
EK: Well, going back to the “not thinking” thing, I know that it’s going to be good, but I have no idea what it is or where it’s going. I think I made that agreement from the very beginning with the forces that are bigger than me, a pact where I just go with the flow. I go with my spirit, really. I feel that it always sort of reveals itself to me, and that its version of my life is far more exciting than what I would probably even think up for myself – so I just go with it.