Made up of singer and guitarist Ed Kowalczyk, guitarist Chad Taylor, bassist Patrick Dahlheimmer and drummer Chad Gracey, the roots of Live date back to 1984 in York, Pennsylvania, where all four members grew up and met.
Their musical beginnings started in the 8th grade when Gracey, Taylor and Dahlheimer played in an instrumental band called First Aid. Kowalczyk was the last member to join the band after the quartet were encouraged by their junior high school teacher to form a band for a talent show.
Ed Kowalczyk Joins the Band as Singer and Rhythm Guitar Player
Kowalczyk originally wanted to join the band as a guitarist, but they already had someone who played lead. They knew he could sing and talked him into becoming a singer and rhythm guitar player.
Taking the stage name Public Affection, they developed into a competent live cover band whose early shows saw the group play sets consisting of songs by the Psychedelic Furs, Violent Femmes, R.E.M., U2, & Bryan Adams.
“We related to U2 so much. Reading the biography was in many ways, like reading a story about ourselves, except with different names.” – Ed Kowalczyk
Kowalczyk would tell the LA Times, “We all learned a lot from a book about U2,” referring to the book, Unforgettable Fire. Chad Taylor would add, “We related to U2 so much. Reading the biography was in many ways, like reading a story about ourselves, except with different names.”
By 1987, the band started writing their own material and rockstar fantasies weren’t far from their minds, with Taylor telling the LA Times, “Ed and I would sit in the back of our classrooms, and instead of working on, like, calculus, we’d think about the kind of tour bus we’d have.”
One of the first gigs the band had was at the Temple Beth Israel in York. The band followed it up with another gig at the Temple, selling tickets at $4 a piece. Before they knew it, 400 people paid to see the band play and others had to be turned away at the door. That’s when they knew when they were onto something.
“Either you’re going to listen to the band or you’re going make the biggest mistake of your life.” – Chad Taylor’s Father
The band began booking gigs at local venues and even landed themselves a manager in David Sestak, who initially refused calls to work with the band. It wasn’t until Chad Taylor’s father phoned Sestak, and according to Spin Magazine, told him, “Either you’re going to listen to the band or you’re going make the biggest mistake of your life.”
Sestak liked what he heard, but told the band they needed an album so they could go to record labels and try to get a contract. The band proved to be business savvy. They raised $5,000 in cash from junk bonds that they sold to family and friends who bought shares in their debut album at $100 a piece.
The Death of a Dictionary is Released Under the Moniker Public Affection
That seed money helped the band release their 1988 record, The Death of a Dictionary, under the moniker Public Affection. The album was released on their own label and sold at shows and local record shops. It’s estimated they put out about 2,000 copies of their debut record.
The Death of a Dictionary, according to the Washington Post, piqued the interest of a local journalist who predicted the band would, “have the potential to usurp the progressive-rock territory staked out by U2 and R.E.M.”
Sestak started booking the band shows at New York’s infamous CBGB’s venue and the 9:30 Club in Washington, D.C.. It was these gigs that got the band the attention of Giant Records, which helped the band produce their first demo with producer Jay Healy.
Public Affection Changes Their Name to Live
While the demo left the label disappointed, they allowed the group to take the tape and shop it around to other labels. That led to them signing with Radioactive Records and they soon changed their name to Live after drawing it out of a hat.
The label enlisted Jerry Harrison of Talking Heads fame to produce the group’s first album in 1991, Mental Jewelry. The album proved to be a modest success, selling around 500,000 copies and going gold.
The album was helped by college radio and MTV who heavily promoted the single “Operation Spirit”. The song peaked at No. 9 on the modern rock charts. The album was inspired by an Indian philosopher named Jiddu Krishnamurti.
“I picked up Krishnamurti’s You Are the World, in some kind of new age bookstore when I was 18, when I was surrounded by all this baby talk philosophy and I read it and thought damn this is so unique.” – Ed Kowalczyk
For a band in their early 20’s, it was surprising to see the group singing with such philosophical depth. Kowalczyk told Spin Magazine how he discovered the philosopher, revealing, “I picked up Krishnamurti’s You Are the World, in some kind of new age bookstore when I was 18, when I was surrounded by all this baby talk philosophy and I read it and thought damn this is so unique.”
Philosopher Krishnamurti was against idolizing people and argued that real revolution in one’s mind, couldn’t be brought about by external factors but rather one’s self.
Kowalczyk told Loudersound how he approached lyrics on Mental Jewelry, revealing, “It was a straightforward questioning of everything – the traditions you grew up in, automatic things that you just take for granted. There were a lot of light-bulb moments, one after the other.”
“Live eventually wears out its welcome with constant earnest wheedling about the great existential and spiritual questions.” – LA Times
Critics were lukewarm to the album, labeling the group as “young and naive”. The LA Times stated in their 1992 review of the album, “Live eventually wears out its welcome with constant earnest wheedling about the great existential and spiritual questions.”
To support the record, Live would hit the road with Public Image Ltd and Blind Melon. As the band turned their attention to their follow-up record, they looked to their hometown for inspiration.
“We decided to go back and take a look at where we came from.” – Ed Kowalczyk
Kowalczyk told Spin magazine, “We decided to go back and take a look at where we came from. Our town, our friends, our roots. We wanted to slow down, take a break and not be so theoretical in the new songs and talk about what we’ve experienced in our lives.”
Unlike hopelessness or nihilism which were popular lyrical themes during the early 90’s, Live focused on the themes of love, religion and life. Rolling Stone Magazine would perfectly summarize the band’s approach to music, saying, “Kowalczyk is not only willing to believe there’s beauty and meaning in this alienated age, he’s also bold – or foolish – enough to try to figure out what it is, pointing the way for an audience that welcomes the possibility of transcendence.”
A perfect example of this was “Lightning Crashes” which finds beauty, even in tragedy by celebrating the transcendence of life in the music video, which dealt with the death of a woman and birth of a child.
Despite the success of Mental Jewelry, Live’s label allotted only weeks for them to record their follow-up record. The band reconvened at Pachyderm studio, in the same space where Nirvana recorded In Utero in Minnesota.
“Me and him would have these really deep conversations about spirituality and philosophy. He was really into the lyrics I was writing. He really inspired me in a lot of ways.” – Ed Kowalczyk
The group credits producer Jerry Harrison, who returned the second time around, for helping them take their songwriting to the next level and providing lyrical inspiration. Kowalczyk told Loudersound, “Me and him would have these really deep conversations about spirituality and philosophy. He was really into the lyrics I was writing. He really inspired me in a lot of ways.”
Throwing Copper Catapults Live to Super Stardom
Released several weeks after the death of Kurt Cobain, Throwing Copper catapulted Live to a whole new level of super stardom. They had gigs on MTV’s Unplugged, David Letterman, and they appeared on countless magazine covers, not to mention the hours of attention MTV and rock radio gave to their singles.
Even though Mental Jewelry was well received by MTV, the band’s label was a little weary of getting too much exposure on the network. A label spokesperson told Billboard magazine around the time of the album’s release, that the band suffered from a credibility problem after Mental Jewelry.
“Selling the Drama” is Released as Throwing Copper’s First Single
While MTV first embraced the band back in 1991, a lot of radio programmers, according to Billboard magazine, weren’t fans of the band and felt pressured to play Operation Spirit on rock radio. To combat this, they released “Selling the Drama” as the album’s first single. The label didn’t see much crossover appeal and heavily worked college and modern rock radio rather than pushing MTV early on.
The song ended up topping the modern rock charts and the label was wrong about the single. It did have crossover appeal. Despite the early success, Throwing Copper took almost a year to top the Billboard charts, peaking at No. 1 for the week of May 5, 1995.
The band played the 25th anniversary of Woodstock in September of 1994, then tragedy struck in April of 1995 with the Oklahoma City bombings that killed over 150 people.
Following the events, a local radio station DJ mixed the song, “Lightning Crashes” with speeches from president Clinton, newscaster Tom Brokaw, as well as ambulance and fire truck sirens.
“It was definitely very bittersweet and surreal and strange to see this impactful event in our country and then have a song that we wrote be associated with it.” – Chad Gracey
America was mourning and as Chad Gracey would tell Pennlive, “It sort of became the de facto song for the bombing. It was definitely very bittersweet and surreal and strange to see this impactful event in our country and then have a song that we wrote be associated with it.”
The tragic events would push Throwing Copper to the top of the charts and “Lightning Crashes” would stay on the pop charts for 26 weeks, peaking at No. 6.
Ironically, the label executives originally hated “Lightning Crashes” and reportedly told the band the song would never become a single. They thought the song was too long and too different from what modern rock radio stations were playing and almost refused to release it.
As the touring cycle ended for Throwing Copper, the band suffered two major problems, overexposure and some critics still didn’t give the band their due.
“On stage, this intently mediocre young band is a U2 without a guitar sound. On record, it’s R.E.M. without songs.” – Robert Christgau
Loudersound pointed to one review in 1995 that popular rock journalist Robert Christgau wrote about the band, “On stage, this intently mediocre young band is a U2 without a guitar sound. On record, it’s R.E.M. without songs.”
Regarding the overexposure, their manager told the LA Times in 1995, “We make decisions based on the long term. I’m not interested in Live being the biggest thing in 1995. I’m interested in Live being around for 20 years.”
Following a gruelling 18 month tour to support Throwing Copper, the band took some time off and reassembled for their follow-up album.
“I thought we were going to go down there and really mellow out, and write really mellow songs, and we ended up going down there and rocking. – Ed Kowalczyk
Live wanted to emulate their heroes, R.E.M. by not repeating their past sound. The quartet retreated to Jamaica, renting a mansion for several weeks to work on their next album. Kowalczyk told MTV News in 1997, “I thought we were going to go down there and really mellow out, and write really mellow songs, and we ended up going down there and rocking. It was this totally unexpected surge of energy, but these songs in particular have a sexier sort of feel. You just can’t help it when you’re in the sun and you’re baking under it, and you’re just there in the whole island thing.”
“…Throwing Copper was sort of about small town life in York, Pennsylvania, and about how we escaped that and were looking back on it.” – Chad Taylor
Released in early 1997, Secret Samadhi topped the Billboard charts and went double platinum, but it sold only a quarter of the copies of its predecessor. The album saw the band coming to terms with their newfound fame, with Chad Taylor telling Guitar World in 1997, “Secret Samadhi is less a record about who we were in the past than who we’ve become. Throwing Copper was sort of about small town life in York, Pennsylvania, and about how we escaped that and were looking back on it.
Now, it’s hard for us to relate to the people who wrote Throwing Copper. We’re immensely different now, leading different lifestyles. I don’t think this record comes from a place like York. It comes from playing in front of 30,000 people and traveling around the world.”
Live Follows Up Secret Samadhi album with The Distance to Here
The band followed up Secret Samadhi with The Distance to Here in 1999, which produced the radio-friendly hits, “The Dolphin’s Cry” and “Run To The Water”, which peaked at No. 3 and 14 on the modern rock charts.
If Secret Samadhi represented the great upheaval in the member’s career following their monumental success in the mid 90’s, The Distance to Here was an album that showed a band a little more comfortable with where they were at.
Kowalczyk, now married, had a different perspective on life and disappeared into the desert for several weeks with his guitar to write material for The Distance to Here. Gone were the up-tempo tracks, which were now replaced with Kowalczyk’s mid-tempo songs.
Two years later, the band released their fifth album, appropriately titled Five, but the band’s chart success seemed to fade. The record only peaked at No. 22 and didn’t even go gold.
Live’s Relationship with MCA Goes South
Radioactive Records at this time was now gone and the band was now dealing with MCA. Their relationship with the label quickly went south. There were disagreements over the album artwork, whether to release a single and music videos, all of which led to the album getting delayed by almost a year.
Released a week after 9/11, the song, “Overcome” received a lot of airplay following the tragedy and according to Kowalczyk, the band gave the song away for free on their website and soon enough it was picked up by rock radio.
“The goal was to prepare songs for the next studio session. MCA got a hold of the material and pushed us to call it an album.” – Chad Taylor
According to Chad Taylor, the material on Five was never supposed to be released, revealing, “The goal was to prepare songs for the next studio session. MCA got a hold of the material and pushed us to call it an album.”
Taylor revealed in the same post that their label was having a lot of success with No Doubt and they pushed Live to change their image. The band released two more albums; Birds of Prey in 2003 and Songs From Black Mountain in 2006, before the group took a hiatus in 2009.
Ed Kowalczyk Leave Live To Pursue Solo Career
One year later in 2010, it was announced that Kowalczyk had left the band. He embarked on a solo career and soon, an ugly legal battle ensued between him and his ex-bandmates. His former bandmates sued him for breach of contract, relating to their publishing agreement and touring using the name Live. He, in turn, would counter-sue.
Kowalczyk contended that the lawsuits were done maliciously because his bandmates were jealous that he was pursuing a solo career.
“Yeah, on the past three records, we were basically just Ed’s backing musicians, trying to hang on in there.” – Chad Taylor
In 2014, his ex-bandmates would talk to Loudersound with Chad Taylor revealing, “Yeah, on the past three records, we were basically just Ed’s backing musicians, trying to hang on in there.” Kowalczyk’s former band members claim the singer wanted more of the publishing royalties and a lead singer bonus since he wrote most of the melodies and lyrics.
The remaining members of Live enlisted a new singer in Chris Shinn and released one album with this new lineup.
“Basically, we missed each other. The uniqueness of what we do together, combined with the incredible history we have with each other.” – Ed Kowalczky
In 2016, the band would reunite with Kowalczyk telling Loudersound, “Basically, we missed each other. The uniqueness of what we do together, combined with the incredible history we have with each other.”
In 2018, the band put out their latest release, an EP titled Local 717 and the following year in 2019 they teamed up with Bush and Our Lady Peace to go on to celebrate the 25th anniversaries of the records Throwing Copper, Sixteen Stone and Naveed.
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