New Article: Live Headlining Hershey, New Studio Album Options

[SJN1279]

Dangum posted this on SOY:

Summer send off
Live headlines season's final Hersheypark Stadium show
Thursday, September 20, 2007
BY KIRA L. SCHLECHTER
Of The Patriot-News

After a period between 1994 and 1997, when it nabbed two No. 1 albums and became one of the biggest arena bands going, Live is back down to playing small to medium-sized venues -- and comfortably so, says singer Ed Kowalczyk, a York native.

"I love that," Kowalczyk said in a phone interview from Dewey Beach, Del., where the band was performing. "A 2,000 to 3,000-seat venue is the perfect place to see a show. Going above and beyond that, you just start to lose people.

Live will briefly delve back into the stadium scene when they hook up with Breaking Benjamin, Three Days Grace, Collective Soul, and Seether Saturday at Hersheypark Stadium -- a bill that delivers plenty of bang for your modern-rock buck.

Kowalczyk spoke further about the band's latest album, last year's "Songs From Black Mountain," and other topics:

Spirituality vs. carnality
Live is perhaps best known for Kowalczyk's spiritually-oriented, meditative lyrics on God and the nature of the universe. But in "Songs From Black Mountain," he touches strongly on themes of love and eroticism. Disparate subjects? Not for Kowalczyk.

"I don't know that I separate them out or compartmentalize them," he said. "That's all part of being a human being, from the lowest to the highest. And an artist like me and a person like me really wants to explore all of it and try to be enlightened about all of it and include all of it," he said.

That OTHER talk with your kids
"Love Shines (A Song For My Daughters About God)" arose when Kowalczyk started thinking about how he was going to broach the subject of spirituality with his two girls, ages 5 and 3. He called that the most challenging thing he has ever faced.

"How do you simplify it but yet not oversimplify it? How do you make it profound but yet not dogmatic,?" he remarked.

Doing the song also made him re-evaluate his own conclusions on the subject.

"It reflected itself back to my life too," he said. "OK, so here you've been into this for 15 years and thinking about these kinds of things -- where are you?"

Becoming a better singer
Kowalczyk's passionate, almost strident singing was a big part of the band's first few albums. He's mellowed a great deal recently through re-examination of past work.

"It's really just been a sophistication in the vocal styling and how I want to say things now as opposed to how I wanted to say them before," he said. "They still mean the same things to me. I have more places I can go now than I had at 23 or 24 and I want to go there."

Up next
A bootleg rarities compilation with two new songs will soon be available at shows and for pre-order, Kowalczyk said. The next studio album will happen in mid-2008.

The band haven't yet captured the potency of a live Live show on record, but Kowalczyk said that might be resolved.

"It is on one of our burners -- I'm not sure if it's a front or back at this point. But it's on the stove to happen," he said.

KIRA L. SCHLECHTER: 257-4763 or kschlechter@patriot-news.com
http://www.pennlive.com/entertainment/pa....xml&coll=1

[Wambangalang]

Becoming a better singer
Kowalczyk's passionate, almost strident singing was a big part of the band's first few albums. He's mellowed a great deal recently through re-examination of past work.

"It's really just been a sophistication in the vocal styling and how I want to say things now as opposed to how I wanted to say them before," he said. "They still mean the same things to me. I have more places I can go now than I had at 23 or 24 and I want to go there."

did he say a "sophistication" in the vocal styling??

so i guess we're getting another sfbm