Chad Taylor on V, Where can I find it? Options

[sellingthdrama]

I'm looking for the text or posts by Chad T on the V - or any of the post-TDTH albums. I've always wanted to know the backstory as to why my favorite favorite band went off-track. Can someone link to them? Or summarize what he's said?

[thefunkyredcaboose]

All of this discussion has so little to do with the music that is going to happen, it is absurd.

[dangum]

Here's an article that appeared in Rock Sound magazine in 2001. It's an interview with Chad Taylor and Ed. It's mainly Ed, but Chad does get some answers in...

Rock Sound Magazine
November 2001
Issue 30

Live - Party of Five

Still going strong after a 10 year recording career, Live show no signs of faltering. As they prepare for the release of 'V', they're aptly-titled fifth album, rock sound finds out what keeps them thriving.

Stateside, Live enjoy a particularly rampant following, their four previous albums clocking up sales in the millions. In the UK, it's been a different story for the Pennsylvanian quartet. Fronted by the mild-mannered Ed Kowaclzyk, Live were flung into the limelight with their '94 sophomore album 'Throwing Copper', which sold over six million copies in the States. Since then, their '97 effort 'Secret Samadhi' was a darker, more introspective affair, whilst '99's 'The Distance To Here' saw them returning to form.

After touring 'The Distance...' on a marathon 14-month jaunt, Ed, guitarist Chad Taylor, bassist Patrick Dahlheimer and drummer Chad Gracey are back with their fifth album. Following firmly in the vein of previous records, in terms of transmitting Live's spiritual and philosophical message - love, peace and understanding - 'V' is easily the band's more accessible album to date. Rock Sound checked in with Ed Kowalczyk and Chad Taylor at a swanky hotel in London's West End, to find out more.

Live are about to go on tour in the states with Jane's Addiction. Do you see the similarities between yourselves and Jane's?
EK: I think they're definitely one of the seminal bands of our beginnings in about '88. At junior high school I played nothing but 'Nothing's Shocking' for months and months. It's a trip to be going on tour with them. To me they are the originators of what we know today as the alternative modern rock.

What do you think of the current state of rock music?
EK: I think a lot of it is heartless. A lot of it doesn't go very deep, so I can't really relate to it. I mean there's stuff out there that I like, but as a general feeling, it sure as shit isn't '92.

How does it feel to be doing this after so many years together as a band? Does your friendship suffer?
CT: Being in the band it's very hard to judge our relationship with each other, because we're all growing, changing and maturing at the same time together. In order to perceive the change I think that you have to be on the outside looking in, so it's probably easier for those who have worked with us through the years and casual acquaintances to see it. I never think about our friendship, so therefore it must still be strong. Live has always been four guys with four very separate and distinct personalities and four very strong egos. We all know what we desire.

'Throwing Copper' sold millions worldwide. Do you think that you reached a peak with that album, and that it's been a struggle to repeat that success?
CT: Well, I'm afraid that's based on commercial success, and I don't want to base the band's success on anything commercial. The reality is that we can't control the commercial. I want to base the band's success on what we can control: the songwriting, the ability to be able to perform the songs, the tour - all the tangible things that we can work on. I know we are still getting better, our fifth record is our best album. So, I don't know that the sixth won't be better, or the seventh.

Live's music has always contained messages of love, spirituality and peace. Do you ever feel that the message is not getting across?
EK: I guess I just persist because it's what I want to be remembered for. I don't necessarily get all that inspired from super-stylised music. I like to make it fun, have a groove, and be something that people can be uplifted by, but at the same time lyrically I've stayed on the path of pushing the boundaries of my own consciousness on everything I do and every song that I make.

You've got a guest appearance by Tricky on the opening song 'Simple Creed', how did that come about?
EK: He called me in January and I sung on his record first ('Evolution Revolution Love'). I was a big fan of Tricky. In fact I saw him at London's Shepherds Bush Empire in '93 and loved all his records. He's a big Live fan, and I didn't even know it. He called me up and asked me to come in, and we did this song in about an hour. He was in LA for two months by himself, so my little brother and I were kind of like his LA escorts. We took him everywhere, all our bards, taking him to Melrose shopping, hunting women. He and my brother went out chasing girls, it was great. Right before he left LA I said, 'Why don't you come over and sing on our record?' So he came over and returned the favour.

Did you write the song with Tricky's part in mind?
EK: No, it was finished. We rearranged that section of 'Simple Creed' and he did his thing. That was the attitude we approached the entire record with. I mean I'm rapping on this record. We just didn't give a shit, we just did whatever was the most fun thing to do at the time, and not think, 'that's not Live' - what the fuck is Live? Let's reinvent who we are.

All of your previous albums have had good and interesting titles. Why did you settle on 'V' for album number five? It's not exactly an inspirational tile.
EK: It was pissing me off that we originally had this great title, 'Ecstatic Fanatic', and we decided to use this picture from a really cool photo shoot we did that was like me spinning on the ground, almost like a gang coming out at you, really aggressive. We like that.

Like, Reservoir Dogs?
EK: Yeah it is, very Reservoir Dogs-ish. We were like 'that's cool...' but it hardly fits with 'Ecstatic Fanatic'!' So we tore that title off, and it was literally like, 'if you don't name the record now, the record is gonna come out in 2004'. Fuck it, Live, Five, hey it rhymes!

What was the meaning behind the original title, 'Ecstatic Fanatic'?
CT: In the years of doing Live, the one thing that had remained true and loyal to the band has been our fans. Everywhere we go, all around the world, we have ecstatic fanatics, Live-heads, whatever they call themselves. I mean it is literally a cult. There was a story about a guy who was killed in a car crash on the way home from a Live show. It was amazing, all these kids from around the world sending flowers and cards to this one kid who basically lost his life after coming to a Live show. This record is about our fans and our relationship with them, and Ed will tell you that in the songwriting.

On 'The Distance...' tour, your manager passed away. Did that influence your songwriting on the new album?
EK: No! Not directly, but I think that it definitely affected me. You realise that the body is something that eventually drops off, it's not a permanent fixture. You don't get a guarantee card with it when you're born. No one guarantees that it will last 80 years and you'll live a full, great life and don't worry about anything. It is going to go one day. It can teach you a great lesson about life itself. I guess it did affect the depths of some of the songs on the record.

Live have never seemed to recreate the success they enjoy in the States over here in the UK. How much does that bother you?
EK: It is what it is. To paraphrase Rama Maharshi, a great Indian sage: you know, there's no sense in worrying about things, the world is what it is. It's going to go the way that it does, and things are going to happen the way that they are going to happen. I just rest in the eternal self and let things happen.

OK! Ed, you've had problems before with people misunderstanding you as a person. Would you call yourself a spiritual person?
EK: I'd call myself a person that, on my better days, realises that everything is spirit. I think that music for me, in some ways, is proof that the world is a psychophysical event, and that, you know, music doesn't really exist anywhere. You look at the CD and where's the music? It's happened somewhere, it's a very magical thing for me, because not only do we get to do this for ourselves, but I can go all over the world and communicate with others as well. That's a trip. It's something that inspires me a lot to keep doing it and getting better.

How many more albums do you think Live have left in them?
CT: The way we look at it, John Lee Hooker made his best records in the last couple of years of his life. I don't want to miss that opportunity with Live. Live is a platform for expression. It's that process of building a record, building a song that keeps bringing me back. Maybe if we write the perfect record, play the perfect show or have the perfect moment. Maybe then we'll all look at each other and say 'it can't get any better that that'.

EK: It's unknown. We'll always be a band, but the older we get we'll probably do more projects other than Live. Obviously we've already started collaborations. I'm getting into that. I like collaborating with other people, the track with Tricky was so much fun. The other guys in the band have studios and record their own stuff, and other bands'. I would expect more of that from us. We've been in the band for 16 years, we're not tired of each other, we still get along. I'd like to put out a new Live record every year. I don't want to stop the quickness of this record, the whole momentum we have going. I'd like to keep going. As an artist your most valuable asset is momentum, the energy's moving, you're not sitting there with a guitar going, 'what the fuck am I doing?".

[Pokey]

CT: Well, I'm afraid that's based on commercial success, and I don't want to base the band's success on anything commercial. The reality is that we can't control the commercial. I want to base the band's success on what we can control: the songwriting, the ability to be able to perform the songs, the tour

This. This right here, this is what we've been saying forever over and over. This is what it's about.


With all this being said though, it's really got to make you think what sort of people were in control of the label at that point. If $$ was the goal, then surely opportunities with things like Fast and the Furious and The Mummy Returns were just what they wanted served on a silver platter. Weird.