Live - Black Mountainside

XPress Magazine

Live - Black Mountainside

Ed Kowalczyk

Live return to Perth to perform at Challenge Stadium on Tuesday, October 24, supported by Shannon Noll.

CHRISTIE ELIEZER speaks with the bandâ's highly spiritual singer/guitarist, Ed Kowalczyk.

The title of Live's current (and seventh studio) album, Songs From The Black Mountain, is about a place near the farm outside Los Angeles where Ed Kowalczyk lives.

It's a quiet, restful place where the oak trees are so thick that it's dark all the time. Its mystical aura, he says, reminded him of his own songwriting, where you're travelling to somewhere you don't know but a force is guiding you. In the song, Mystery, he sums it up: 'Mine eyes have seen the glory of a love that does transcend/Mine eyes have seen the worst inside of man'.

Water has been a constant reference for Kowalczyk, which he sees as the flow of creativity or the wellspring of spiritual knowledge. When he started writing the songs for Songs From The Black Mountain, he was being inspired by his wife Erin and their two young daughters.

Then it dawned on him just how much of the world's art is being inspired by the female spirit, from the muses of Greek mythology to Saraswati in India. The River is about his muse, of wading into a fast flowing body of water and being guided by a female volition.

To set yourself up for the words on this album, did you go back and read biographies of strong women?

"I didn't have to, it revealed itself in my life. For the first time, I personified my muse. I spontaneously felt I was having a love process with this process of writing. A communion happens when you're writing; it's like a union of two souls. Mystery and The River come across as love songs but to me they have a deeper spirituality."

During this process, did you go back and think of what strengths your mother had, and her sisters, or the girlfriends you were drawn to when you were younger?

"Absolutely! I credit my mother with creating a household that was open-minded about spirituality. She was very influential in that she promoted that in my thinking."

Bob Geldof, a man who is also hopelessly outnumbered in his household by women, said that many men would think it'd be heaven to be in a house full of them. 'Au contraire!' was his comment.

"I am told that when my daughters reach the age of 13 or 14 I will be in Bob Geldof's corner!"

Live recorded with Shelby Lynne and have strong connections with artists like PJ Harvey whom you toured with. Was there a thought of putting a woman's voice on any of the songs on this album?

"I'd like to have. If done well, it could introduce a ying and yang to the song, allow it to explode with a whole new energy."

Which of the Beatles' spiritual songs worked best for you?

"What deeply interested me was the way the Beatles tried psychedelia, LSD and religion to find consciousness back in the '60s. But George Harrison more than any of them got it. His songs are so believable. On My Sweet Lord, he was really in that devotional light. It was more than experimental for him, it was a shift in awareness."

It took guts to tackle a song with a title like What Is Life, as he did.

"I agree. Live has in some sense carried on a minor tradition in rock and roll, where you say, 'Screw it, this is what interests me as a lyricist'. I look back at George Harrison's work, and I feel a connection to that thinking, in the same way I feel a kinship with Van Morrison and U2 and Radiohead."

The line 'revolution to your mind' stands out on your album.

"That song, Love Shines, is important to me because it tells me about awareness, how it's always shining and always available to us to take refuge in if we can find it in ourselves. Everyone has it, and it's something we share. I called it Love Shines because essentially it was telling my two daughters about faith, that it's there shining no matter what else is happening in your life."

"Being in a rock band that's putting these ideas out there into the consciousness of our fans and the world, it just feels right. It's one love, one life. I've always tried to do that in most of my music."

Live didn't play anywhere on September 11, it would have been an interesting exercise to see the reaction to Overcome, which is considered the theme song to that event.

"The song was not written about September 11, but it's been appropriated by it, which I absolutely don't have a problem with. It was used in the memorial services (last month). It's the pinnacle of an artist to provide an emotional depth and context for an event like that. It goes beyond gratification. I feel validated as an artist."

Get Ready seems to suggest you were standing on the threshold of something new. Were you looking at the possibilities of the digital world, which Live was championing well before most?

"It was an exciting time for me as a songwriter, and we as a band, having signed to a new record label (Epic). Putting together the hits album made us excited about our strengths. These digital times are interesting, in that old models are being replaced in how we get our music to our fans. There are new roads to learn about. Music is more popular than ever, through iTunes and iPods. It's unpredictable. But as someone in the business of music, it's also challenging!"