[Article] - Still Live and kicking, despite critics Options

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Still Live and kicking, despite critics
Ever-changing sound makes rock band difficult to market, frontman says

Mike Devlin
Times Colonist

Sunday, April 27, 2008
PREVIEW
What: Live with Armchair Cynics
When: Today, 7 p.m. (doors at 6)
Where: Element

Tickets: $45 at www.hightideconcerts.net, the McPherson Box Office and Lyle's Place

Ed Kowalczyk switched homesteads 10 years ago, a move that took him from a small city of 40,000 to one of the biggest cities in North America.

It was more than a simple relocation for the Live singer. Kowalczyk, 36, says the shift from his Pennsylvania hometown of York to Ojai, Calif., a hip hotspot nestled just north of Los Angeles, kickstarted a change in mindset as well.

His new world was different -- geographically, meteorologically and socially -- from where he grew up. For a lyricist, that's songwriting gold.

"We grew up in such a small town, it was really just our band -- there wasn't much of a scene or community of artists. When I got to L.A., it was the first time I'd lived in a city where there were other musicians around."

His first real brush with the West Coast came during the making of Live's 1999 outing, The Distance to Here. The result was a batch of earthy songs like The Dolphin's Cry, Run to the Water, Sun, Where Fishes Go and Feel the Quiet River Rage.

"[That] was definitely a record where you could hear the move west in the lyrics and the expansiveness of the sound. For me, anyway, it brings up the images of the big sky country of the southwest. There was definitely some sort of subtle indication that something had changed."

Live's career underwent a drastic transformation soon after. The Distance to Here debuted at No. 1 on the sales charts, and eventually sold more than one million copies. But The Dolphin's Cry would be the group's only legitimate hit for the next four years, and stands to this day as their last album to crack the Top 10.

Kowalczyk and his childhood friends and bandmates -- guitarist Chad Taylor, bassist Patrick Dahleimer and drummer Chad Gracey -- weathered the storm, but the damage could not be undone, both with critics and hopes of maintaining a wider audience. In its review of the band's 2003 full-length, Birds of Pray, Rolling Stone magazine levelled a familiar critical blow: "Times have changed, but Live haven't."

Kowalczyk accepts his band's fate as a favourite target of critics; with career sales totals of more than 12 million records, much of those stemming from Live's monster hit from 1994, Throwing Copper, he has nothing to be embarrassed about. But he is also keenly aware that, on most occasions, Live is its own worst enemy.

"We like to approach each record differently, which does make it difficult. It's hard anyway [as a rock band], but it's even harder for bands that really try to be different each time. It is a little more difficult to market our band because we change so much from record to record, but as an artist, that payoff outweighs the difficulties."

Live had no problems whatsoever with Lightning Crashes, its big hit from Throwing Copper. The song's success drove Throwing Copper to No. 1, and gave Live a hit that continues to stir emotion in fans.

"It's been 15 years since that song was released, and it is just as potent in the show now as it's ever been," Kowalczyk says. "Sometimes you get a certain song that speaks to a point in their lives and a part of their soul, for whatever reason, that locks in forever. It really becomes a part of our shared experience."

The song's lyrics are often misunderstood -- Kowalczyk says it is not about a mother dying during childbirth, but the circle of life. However, the conviction conveyed by the band is well understood. The song was dedicated to Barbara Lewis, a York high school classmate of the group, who died in a car crash shortly after the song was written.

Writing from a first-person perspective is a Kowalczyk songwriting staple, but also the source of much criticism. There are those who think his lyrics too often dabble in high-brow spiritualism (the majority of Live's hits refer to God, heaven, faith or a higher power), and his shirtless posturing in concert and music videos is viewed as arrogant.

Kowalczyk is firm on this point: When rock music stops being personal, it can no longer be classified as rock music.

Kowalczyk's passion for people continues off-stage as well. During concerts in the late 1990s, he often dedicated Lightning Crashes to victims of the Columbine High School massacre.

And once the band heard that Overcome, a surprise hit from 2001's V, was providing a beacon of hope to listeners following the 9/11 attacks, it donated proceeds from the single to charities associated with the tragedy.

It's all part of leading by example, and remains a large part of what makes being a musician so special, Kowalczyk says.

"I understand enough to know that there's not a whole lot I can do about the world at large. But I can work on myself. That's what I've been trying to do. I've grown as a person and I've helped contribute in my own way -- not only [with] music but the way I am as a person and the way I try to act towards other people -- to making the world a better place. I feel successful in that regard."

mdevlin@tc.canwest.com
© Times Colonist (Victoria) 2008

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