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The Whistlestoppers

The Whistlestoppers

A jet-setting rocker finds meaning in meditation. Bob Gordon tunes in.


It's a transitory life, but Ed Kowalczyk, vocalist of Pennsylvania's Live, finds ways to make it transcendental. The band's popularity and drive sees them out on the road for months (and sometimes the entire year) at a time and will result in an Australian tour later this year.


At this time, however, he is in the middle of a worldwide promo tour for Live's new album, Songs From Black Mountain.


There's no performing, writing or recording, just whistle-stop visits across the US, Europe and Australia. It's a new city and, more often than not, a new country each day. As a well-known spiritualist, Kowalczyk certainly spends a lot of his time in the fast lane.


"My understanding of these things is that the spiritual dimension doesn't go on the road," he counters.

"It's not in aeroplanes. It co-exists in the manifest realm, but it's not limited by it. So you can access it anywhere and the deeper you get and the better you get at that, the more profoundly you can access that at any time."


For Kowalczyk, life in a rock band provides a consistent contrast to other, higher states of mind. And he does mean a better kind of high.


"For me, meditation is something that's ongoing - a practice that I just continue in my life, anywhere I go," he says,

"Being able to drop into that really fuels creativity. It really opens you up to all kinds of new potentials and energies and capacities that really might not be there or are in a more limited fashion without it."


Live certainly have explored their creative potential. The band have long been a stadium-sized entity, with hit songs to back it up, stretching back to their breakthrough second LP, Throwing Copper, in 1994. Some 20 million records and a 2004 greatest hits set (Awake: The Best of Live) later the new album represents a clean slate in more ways than one.


"It really surprised me how much it felt like that," Kowalczyk says. "I had no idea that the act of doing the retrospective and book-ending that part of the career would have that kind of regenerative effect. It was quite a pleasant surprise. Not to mention we also switched labels after that to Sony BMG so there was a lot of things that conspired to make it feel like a new moment. It continues to feel that way."


Teaming with Jim Wirt (Incubus, Hoobastank), the band explored new textures in production, finding guitar sounds that were big but rang with warmth.


"All these things just came together," Kowalczyk says. "It feels strangely new. There's a new energy, a new excitement"


The album's title is taken from a place near Kowalczyk's Californian home called Black Mountain. Covered in oak trees, the location is cloaked in darkness, inspiring an aura he finds compelling. Interestingly, it has inspired an album that he refers to as upbeat.

"It is," he agrees, "and I love that about it because for me the title Black Mountain point towards a dark earth with deep, beautiful potential. Like a black night that gives contrast of the bright stars.


"So, for me, black is a very beautiful colour. Or lack of colour, really. It represents earth and potential. It's definitely that kind of black, not a gothic or doomsday kind."


Kowalczyk has also found himself fascinated by the concept of the muse — a female form inviting inspiration. With a wife and two daughters he has it literally but, as ever, he's looking at in on many levels.


"Instead of finding it any specific way, it was also a way of looking at it in a symbolic way and saying to myself, 'There's something to this historic thing of a creative spirit always being embodied by a muse.' Like the Three Muses in Greece or Saraswati in India.


"There's this kind of pattern there and it just dawned on me that my relationship with the creative spirit in my life is one I've always seen as very nurturing, sensual, something I desire to have in my life above many things. It's very important to me.


"So personifying it for myself as a female really allowed me to do this really erotic kind of dance with her. And create a record that really points to his union of her and me. The sensuality of the whole record comes from that."


So, has the muse been mistreated by rock music, what with all these songs about scoring with chicks or being left broken-hearted by various Jezebels? "I think you may be on to something," Kowalczyk laughs.


"I think Live has always been a little left of centre and always tried to come from a visionary place that is unique that hopefully offers a different take on things.


"To try to make the songs and the music operate on as many levels as possible I think a Live trademark, really. It's one of the reasons why people continue to feel we make relevant music."

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