Retro Interview with Ed on eve of Throwing Copper's release, ..1994 release Options

[AgentK7]

I transcribed this interview in the fall of 1994 and recently came across it when looking for some old setlists I thought i had archived away (couldn't find them). The source is an old local Lancaster, PA scene magazine from that era. Any typos are probably mine. I tried searching and couldn't find this on the website.

This interview is very much of its era....

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Live Sells the Drama
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From 13 Magazine Vol. 1, issue 3, May 10, 1994.

Frontman Ed Kowalczyk discusses LIVE's new album, their growth and what it's like to be one of York's prodigal alternative sons.

By Karl Heitmueller, Jr.

The following interview with Ed Kowalczyk of LIVE took place on Tuesday, April 19 [1994] at House of Pizza in Lancaster where the Sting CD was skipping like crazy. Conducting the interview was Karl Heitmueller, who manages BBC Records in downtown Lancaster. They talked about the band's newly released album Throwing Copper on Radioactive/MCA Records.

13: Obviously, the first thing to discuss is "Throwing Copper"...it's been a long time. You finished it how long ago now?

ED: We recorded it in August of last year, so it's been done a while. It's funny, though, 'cause the songs don't seem very old to me. I mean, "Selling the Drama" [the first single off the record] in particular is like July of last year. Most of them aren't even a year old yet. I've been listening to it pretty much all the time since we recorded it. We've been more involved this time with the record company as far as the planning, the artwork, the videos and whatnot than we were before, so I've been on a day-to-day sort of phone relationship with a lot more people at MCA than I was last time. I've always had a relationship with Radioactive but I've begun one with the heavies at MCA now, too.

13: Things happened for you guys very quickly.

ED: We didn't start to seriously try to be a part of the business until late '89, so we were running around showcasing and stuff for about a year and a half before we got signed. But once we recorded Mental Jewelry, things happened really fast. The MTV thing really pushed it into high gear. It didn't afford us the chance to get out and tour and build any sort of grass roots following anywhere but around here, and I think we suffered from that.

13: Do you think a lot of people kind of sloughed you off as an MTV flavor of the month thing?

ED: Oh, yeah, yeah. Part of the whole mentality behind this one is that we took a long time to write it, we had a lot to prove with it, to ourselves and to the audience. WE made a video we didn't like, we decided not to use it.

13: Too slick?

ED: Yeah, it was, it was like we'd already sold a million record. It was actually MCA that said, "This is too much," which is pretty funny. But we agreed. So we didn't use it. So that, in conjunction with our attitude "let's get this thing out to radio, get out on tour, and let people rediscover our band, without seeing the video first, it's actually helping out that we don't have a video to give them! It's funny, 'cause it wasn't our idea last time either! It was just, we showed them the video, we thought we'd get some kind of "120 Minutes" play out on it, and they said, we wanna put this in this thing called Buzz Bin which means "all the time" and we weren't really in the position to say "Hey don't do it!" So I think we're doing a little bit of damage control here, because we're affording ourselves the opportunity to hold back on them. And I'm really surprised because radio is really freaking out about (the single). It's really doing well.

13: Okay, let's talk about the new record. One of the things that strikes me about "Throwing Copper" is that as a band, you seem much more self-assured. It has a bigger sound to it than the last album, it's louder at points, but at the same time it seems like a much more personal record, too. On Mental Jewelry, a lot of the songs are about the world around you, with this album, you're writing about things that went on inside of you.

ED: That was a conscious decision. It was also a necessity for myself, so it was natural in that sense. I think a lot of this record came out of my developing a record collection of my own for the first time. You know, just branching out and going to see shows, listening to other bands. I just never felt that, because we were from such a dislocated place in the world that we were never any part of a scene or whatever.

13: Okay, this is a stupid interview question, but how have you changed as a band since "Mental Jewelry" came out?

ED: We're much more knowledgeable about what we want to do. We have much more of a hold on what we'd like to see happen in the next six months than we did before. We were thrown into it with the last record, we had no idea... I mean, thank God we had managers and a record company that didn't want to take advantage of us, cause they could've in a lot of ways. We just really loved our music, and could play, and that's all we knew.

13: They're interested in you for the long run, not just in being the Sassiest Band in America for two or three albums and then try to get somebody else or whatever.

ED: I think they realize that we are that type of band, that this is as real as it gets. There's not a single element of this band that is put together for anything other than to just make music. It started as absolutely nothing but just the music. And I think that that has given us this unique ability to grow as musicians. And I think the growth that we've shown on this record is just astounding. I mean, I'm speaking as detached from it as possible. I think it's a real special thing, and I think MCA has an inkling that we're a band that wants to be around...or CAN be around for a while.

13: Basically, if I could think of another band that you would be describing using these terms, that someone has invested in, and the band has a vision of who they are and what they want to do in the long run, and I can compare you to these guys in other ways, and that's R.E.M. You have the same kind of distinct personal vision and you're not trying to be any type of outsiders but you're not playing by anyone else's rules.

ED: I would be a complete liar if I didn't say that they were an incredible influence musically and also as just people and role models, hokey as that sounds. But they have done something in the past ten years that really no other band has done. They've achieved this amazing amount of success, but they've maintained the integrity that they started with. And I can't even say the same for U2. R.E.M. maintain all their small town qualities. They've never exploited their success or done anything out of character.

13: Well I know you've met Michael Stipe a number of times, and he is a big fan of LIVE. As a matter of fact, he's thanked on the new record. You thanked him right before your turtle.

ED: Right before my turtle.

13: Have you ever talked about doing something together sometime?

ED: No, not in that way. The relationship's sort of like distant inspiration, and then once in a while we'll run into each other, or he'll show up at a show and just tell me how great he thinks we are, or tell me about some new producer he's heard about, and then he'll leave.

13: Do you think he sees himself and his band in you guys?

ED: I dunno, I would imagine that he sees something reminiscent, yeah, because it totally is. It's just so funny when I'm around him, I just wanna tell him, "Hey, you know, I'm doing this because of you." I think there's sort of a quiet understanding there that that's the case, that I have a tremendous amount of respect for him. But it's just a really great thing because it's never gotten goopy, you know? It's never gotten like "Dude, I Love You!!!" Even though that's what I wanna do half the time when I see him.

13: You did the 120 Minutes tour in Spring of '92 with PiL, Big Audio Dynamite, and Blind Melon. It's kind of ironic that right now Blind Melon is the most popular of those four acts. But there again, it's the situation of a band that wouldn't be anywhere if it weren't for their video.

ED: Oh, absolutely. I hate to say this, but when we watched their set the first night, I thought that they were the most amazing guys, they were so nice, but I thought they were undoubtedly like the worst band I'd ever seen in my life. But that was part of the charm of those guys, they were so cool and so nice that I didn't have to like their music, cause I liked them so much. But I thought they were horrible. So to see them on the cover of Rolling Stone was just sort of like, "That's how much I know!"

13: In SPIN Magazine, in the '92 year-end wrap-up, Evan Dando really slagged on you guys, what did he say yours was the worst album of the year?

ED: It was like, they asked Evan Dando what he thought the worst record of '92 was, and he said ours...

13: And then you just recently opened up for the Lemonheads.

ED: Uh-huh

13: So what happened when ran into him?

ED: Well, I just introduced myself and asked him what we had done that made him hate us so much. And at first he sort of didn't understand what I was talking about, and then he realized what he had said and apologized. He said he had just seen our poster on the wall at SPIN and when they asked him that question he just said that, and I told him that I thought he was spending too much time at SPIN. You know, it sounded as if he was getting bored. He's on the cover every other month!

13: There are only two songs I want to ask you about. One is "Shit Towne."

ED: That comes from...you just have to drive through York, PA.

13: You expecting any hometown...feedback on that one?

ED: I would expect it; that's part of the reason we wrote it. I mean, you have to realize your own collective tragedy in a place like York. If you deny it, it's part of the whole mentality about it. But then again, I want people to know that it's not a personal attack on the people of York... 'cause that would be attacking me. I have had to overcome some very provincial shit that I got from growing up in a small town. And I still maintain a lot of it, y'know? It's hard to break out of. It's a funny song, but then again it's not. It's sort of tragic.

13: I know what you mean. Lancaster and York are like inbred cousins.

ED: Well, to some extent, but I'll tell you what, I love Lancaster, man.

13: It's funny how you guys are all from York, but you're thought of as a Lancaster band. Do you think that's primarily because of the Chameleon?

ED: It's definitely because of Chameleon.

13: Wasn't there any place in York that you played?

ED: Not regularly, no. We haven't played a show in York since York College had us for the last record. Rich [Ruoff, owner of Chameleon] always had us on, had us open for the Pixies, and I had no idea, really, who they were. And now I look back on it and go "Holy Shit, we opened for the Pixies!" They're like a legendary band now, y'know when we tell people that in five years it'll be ancient history. It'll be like opening for Jane's Addiction or Nirvana now. It's so hard to think of Nirvana in the past tense. It's so weird. Anyway, Rich always supported us, and it literally went from us opening and playing shows where no one came to like one night like 400 people showed up and sang every word. We really felt like we had built a true following of really gracious, intense fans! And then they kept coming out. I mean, before we even had a record out, we were selling out Chameleon. I keep my fingers crossed that we keep packing it. I don't take anything like that for granted!

13: The last track on the album is a country-tinged song featuring a steel guitar which more than any other song, shows musically how much LIVE has grown. It's a great song and it's a great ending to the album, because it shows that you didn't just get louder, you expanded your range.

ED: I think our next record will be more in that vein. There's a guy coming on tour with us by the name of Vic Chestnutt, and I just adore his voice and his style, and having gotten into him lately and...when Kurt Cobain killed himself and MTV kept running that Nirvana Unplugged show...those two things together. The Vic Chestnutt stuff, I just have such an affection for, it's just like this totally destroyed sounding melancholia. He's made the most amazing sounding, beautifully simple music, and his voice just crones...and when I watched Nirvana Unplugged, I really saw the destroyed side of Kurt Cobain even more because he wasn't surrounded by these loud guitars. It's different from the pop alternative stuff that's going on now. It's this really self-discovering, deeply spiritual, fucked-up music. It's almost spoken, it's very literate at times. So I think our next record might be more like that droning acoustic sound.

13: Is there a reason you didn't title that last song?

ED: We just never had a title for it. It turned out so good that the record company wanted us to title it because they thought maybe it could be a single, but that gave us more reason not to title it,
because we didn't want it to be a single.

13: What do you think the biggest change in the music industry has been since Mental Jewelry came out? I mean, there have been bands that have come and gone since then.

ED: Right, I think the biggest change is the total volatile quality of sales for alternative music. The amount of records that these bands sell...I mean, the Breeders, I think that record is almost platinum! It's amazing!

13: Well, the market has certainly changed. The other day at BBC some woman came in looking for Whitney Houston and Belly. It's weird that those two acts can coexist on someone's shelf.

ED: Talking about how you even structure a release now for alternative music, when we started, it was still in the world where you needed a top 40 crossover hit to really sell a million records. Now commercial alternative radio in the big cities has become as popular as top 40 in some cases. KROQ in LA is huge! It's got a listening base of millions of people! It just wasn't like that when we put out our first record. You can literally sell millions of albums without top 40 radio, without AOR radio, with only commercial alternative, MTV and touring. I mean, Pearl Jam never had any top 40 play, Nirvana never really had any to speak of, but it doesn't matter because alternative music is the mainstream!

13: So the tour starts next week and you will be at the Chameleon on June 4th and 5th, and doing an instore BBC on Sunday, June 5th from 3 to 5. So I'll just say Thanks and Good Luck.

ED: Thanks, man. That beer made me really tired.

[dangum]

Wonderful interview. Thanks for sharing AgentK7

[Gruno]

Thanks for sharing this!

[mattyeagles]

Great interview. Thanks

[dangum]

Does anybody know anything about the unreleased video that Ed spoke about? Is he referring to Operation Spirit? It's not clear.

[Gagball]

Does anybody know anything about the unreleased video that Ed spoke about? Is he referring to Operation Spirit? It's not clear.

My first thought was about the original video for White, Discussion. I'm not sure that lines up with what he was describing, though.


This post has been edited by Gagball: Jul 18 2019, 12:14 pm

[Gruno]

I know there are a couple of versions of "Selling The Drama"

[Hoodstock]

The Breeders, what a throwback!

[Bremang]

I know there are a couple of versions of "Selling The Drama"

Oh yeah? maybe one day they'll release it on the TC anniversary reissue

[dangum]

My first thought was about the original video for White, Discussion.

No, it wouldn't be for White, Discussion. White, Discussion was released way after the interview was conducted.

I know there are a couple of versions of "Selling The Drama"

I hadn't considered that Ed was talking about Selling the Drama. However I've seen both versions of the video and I wouldn't say that either looked like a 'million record'.