A-Live and Kicking - The Drum Media - Issue 148 (2009)
The Drum Media [Perth Edition]
Thursday 6 August 2009. Issue 148
A-LIVE AND KICKING
Rock-guru Eddie Kowalczyk of Live tells Katie Benson how a smaller stage can save your soul, and your overplayed material.
In 1994, Eddie Kowalczyk fronted one of the world's biggest bands. Live's second album Throwing Copper catapulted the four Pennsylvanian boys into the number one spot in the US charts, filled stadiums and made them a worldwide success. Now, 15 years and four albums later, Kowalczyk is approaching the spotlight alone. Abandoning heavy production, stadium seating and the rest of his band members, Kowalczyk embarked on his solo tour in April of this year. Covering the States, Europe and Australia he insists this tour is a well needed breath of fresh air for the artist, the fans, and the long-serving Live material.
"After 20 years of seeing me in the same sort of way it's been really refreshing for me and for the fans too, because I am able to reinvent those songs," Kowalczyk says. "Of course, Live is an incredible rock band and we do incredible shows, but the wonderful think about this tour is that you get something from me that you can't get sitting miles away in an arena. There's an intimacy that is very much like the lyrics themselves - they're search for that deep connection with people in their hearts and souls."
Intimate is a work that Kowalczyk uses frequently when discussing his new shows. The naked production style on stage assimilates closely to the environment that he initially writes all the material in. As the primary songwriter, Kowalczyk has penned a lot of Live's big hits with just an acoustic guitar, before ultimately taking it in o the band where the "layers" of production were added. "Really the first layer that gets put on my music is when I take it to the rehearsal studio with the band, then production and then the tour. Before you know it, you start to forget where the song started from," says Kowalczyk. "Coming back to his way of doing it, bringing in back to such an intimate place is very regenerative. On this tour I get up there with no script, it's just me and this box with six strings strapped to it. No amplifier, no electric guitar. It's about as broke-down as you can go."
As with the production style, the play list Kowalczyk's performing also strays from the usual Live set. Of course there are the big hits like Lightning Crashes and I Alone, but Kowalczyk is also using this new forum to rediscover old album tracks, and test out new material of his own. "There are rarities or what I like to call little gens that I think connect to this kind of intimate environment well, like Face and Ghost from Distance to Here and Nobody Knows from Five. They weren't singles, but are just incredible songs that are very much in the singer/songwriter style," says Kowalczyk. "Other than that, there is one new songs and sometimes I play some covers."
Spirituality is a constant theme in his lyrics and a big part of who Kowalczyk is an a performed. It is the element that has drawn many of Live's loyal fans to them, but also what has polarized other listeners. In the world of rock'n'roll where wild antics, anger and despondency are standard emotions expressed by performers, Kowalczyk's spiritual search stands out. In the press that went along with 1997's Secret Samadhi he revealed that he was a recent devotee to Adi Da, a guru that he first came into contact via the Internet. Kowalczyk was ridiculed. In spite of this reaction he continues to be open about his spirituality in the media and in his lyrics. "It's who I am regardless of what I do as a singer, songwriter and performer. So it's all one and the same. I can't imagine dividing myself up into one kind of person in their private life, but then who says "oh, I'm not going to talk about that [on stage]", Kowalczyk says. "It's my life, it's what motivates me and what is most interesting about me. Luckily, I'm finding a lot of people who resonate with it."
Who: Eddie Kowalczyk
When and Where: Wednesday 12 (sold-out) and Thursday 13 August, WA Octagon Theatre. Crawley.