A video interview with Ed Kowalczyk, Recent, relaxed & extensive Options

[Gertjan]

Video interview with Ed Kowalczyk form American rock band Live. FaceCulture spoke to Ed Kowalczyk from Live about his Polish background, start of the band, his first song for the band, teenage passions, Krishnamutri, songwriting, the elections, the Summer of '69, 9/11, Overcome, the new dvd Live at the Paradso, Lightning Crashes, Obama, the Paradiso concert, the Dutch audience, Forever, their success in the nineties, dropping record sales and more.

http://www.faceculture.nl/artist.php?id=645

This post has been edited by Gertjan: Nov 12 2008, 3:05 pm

[+Ed+]

- The last part: Ed doesn't want to be as succesful as in the 90ies?

Fuck, no surprises. My thought when I first listened to BoP.

And the same I posted on this very board after SFBM was out. Pop songs not intended to be popular. Quite a way of pissing in the mainstream ©, huh?

[Costakoui]

Fuck, no surprises. My thought when I first listened to BoP.

And the same I posted on this very board after SFBM was out. Pop songs not intended to be popular. Quite a way of pissing in the mainstream ©, huh?

I also thought that when V was out. And I think that this is the main reason why Hold me up, a song that would possibly make Live popular again, has not been and will possibly never be released. And perhaps this is the reason why they have not released the best songs off BoP, ie Like I Do and Lighthouse.

In the future, they may just make good/decent songs to satisfy the fans and stay alive financially. What I hope is to make their best songs, at least available to fans though FOL or something else.

This post has been edited by Costakoui: Nov 14 2008, 7:38 am

[SecretInsomnia]

a song that would possibly make Live popular again, has not been and will possibly never be released. And perhaps this is the reason why they have not released the best songs off BoP, ie Like I Do and Lighthouse.

I try to follow your vision and I think it's interesting, but wait: you're saying that they just to not become too popular again, released lesser songs as single... Then...what is the function of a single then??Pretending your are not as good as you are? And tons of dollars are wasted for nothing? sorry I can't believe they acted like that..

[Costakoui]

I try to follow your vision and I think it's interesting, but wait: you're saying that they just to not become too popular again, released lesser songs as single... Then...what is the function of a single then??Pretending your are not as good as you are? And tons of dollars are wasted for nothing? sorry I can't believe they acted like that..

I understand what you are saying and perhaps you right but then how come Live chose not to release the best songs off V, BoP and SFBM? Why Live keeps great songs such as Hold me up, Don’t wait etc unreleased and then we get The River, Wings and so on? I am just wondering what Live really wanted to achieve with songs like The River, Sweet Release, Wings, and even Simple Creed. Popularity? Money? Fans? Live’s sales have dropped dramatically since V but Live didn’t do much to make up for such a loss.

At least this year Live wrote Forever, which is decent, and Purifier, which is beautiful.

[SecretInsomnia]

I understand what you are saying and perhaps you right but then how come Live chose not to release the best songs off V, BoP and SFBM? Why Live keeps great songs such as Hold me up, Don’t wait etc unreleased and then we get The River, Wings and so on? I am just wondering what Live really wanted to achieve with songs like The River, Sweet Release, Wings, and even Simple Creed. Popularity? Money? Fans? Live’s sales have dropped dramatically since V but Live didn’t do much to make up for such a loss.

At least this year Live wrote Forever, which is decent, and Purifier, which is beautiful.

well why we all don't agree with their single choices, that's a whole different question I think that first must be said, that not really LIVVE, but the management, or better the label, also chose to release the songs that became singles. And I think they really thought that Runaway would be a good mid-temp-ballad, for the mainstream that would do well. But reality was that it was one of the few songs on BoP that was in between everything: not outstanding, but also not rocking. So it didn't do anything on both rock and pop radio. Like I do would have done well at least at rock radio very good. Too bad.
The River has single-feeling all over it. I can understand why they released it, but it just wasn't good enough I think. Btw, Simple Creed wasn't a bad single-choise in my opinion, but just didn't well for some reason. And about older songs like Lift me Up: they once said they don't want to look back: they want to look forward.
That being said, I also think Ed has a lill different view on what are great songs than we do. One of his favorites off V , back in 2001, was Call me a fool and Nobody Knows. Of Bop it was Sweet release and Runaway. And off SFBM it was The River and Mystery. I think that most fans like their rocking side more. But ofcourse everyone has another taste.
But it's good to see them choosing to make Forever (which is one of the best single choices by Live since 2000) and Purifier which are both quite good songs.

[livegracefully]

Ugh the buffering is unbearable! It's either this or download 350 megs of stuff I have to try to find special software to play on my Mac? PIA!!

But what I've seen so far is great.