Live was just in Atlanta for a free concert in April at Brookhaven’s Cherry Blossom Festival.
But the anthemic band with Ed Kowalczyk as the lead singer is back in town again this Saturday with fellow 1990s alt-rock stalwarts Stone Temple Pilots at Ameris Bank Amphitheatre in Alpharetta. (Tickets are still available at livenation.com starting at $41.30.)
“Believe it or not, we have never toured with them before,” Kowalczyk said in a recent interview with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “But we did this big festival back in the 1990s. And last year, we were part of this golf tournament. I don’t golf. That’s a point of pride. But we were hired to play and man, it was a love fest!”
That, he said, is why they are touring together. Live even recorded a new song with Stone Temple Pilots guitarist Dean DeLeo “Lady Bhang (She Got Me Rollin’).” “I love DeLeo’s slide guitar,” Kowalczyk said.
Both bands released seminal records 30 years ago, six weeks apart. Live’s “Throwing Copper” included singalong bangers like “I Alone,” “Selling the Drama” and “All Over You” along with their most impactful song “Lighting Crashes.”
“It was really just crazy timing,” Kowalczyk said. “We formed in the mid-1980s and got a record deal in 1990. We had a college rock record ‘Mental Jewelry’ that went gold. How could it get better? Nirvana broke in 1991. That was the beginning of modern rock. Then ‘Throwing Copper’ came out. We went from being super inspired by modern rock to being part of it. We had all these peers we never imagined we’d have.”
He said the big change for Live between 1991 and 1994 was bringing in a heavier guitar sound with huge dynamic shifts: “This allowed the band to express these songs in a way that was superpowered into the mix.”
And it worked. The durability of “Throwing Copper” has amazed Kowalczyk. “It’s still so much fun to play these songs,” he said. “People are so enamored. There’s a soundtrack of our lives aspect to it. With a song like ‘Lightning Crashes,’ it’s still such a cool song to play. The lyrics seem to grow with people in a way.”
Even for 53-year-old Kowalczyk, “‘Lightning Crashes’ means more to me in my 50s than it did when I was in my 20s. The element in the lyrics of the meditation of life, the spirituality of it. It’s just cool 30 years on to still have deep affection for the record.”
Atlanta was the first city where Live played a basketball arena, he said, in 1994 thanks in part to heavy airplay on Atlanta alt-rock station 99X. “We were down here with 8,000 people. I couldn’t believe it,” he recalled of the gig at Georgia Tech’s Alexander Memorial Coliseum, now McCamish Pavilion. “The Black Crowes even came to the show.”
As a result, Live to this day comes to Atlanta often. “We did Shaky Knees last year,” he said. “It was so hot I felt like I lost seven pounds. But it was so much fun. We got to play with Father John Misty.”
Bands are no longer en vogue. The Billboard Hot 100 recently didn’t have a single band on it. Nowadays, it’s all about the individual. That wasn’t so much the case in the 1980s and 1990s, Kowalczyk said.
“The all-for-one, one-for-all band mentality was a survival thing in the beginning,” he said. “You’re often best friends.”
But those relationships don’t always sustain themselves over time. In the case of Live, the band splintered in recent years. Kowalczyk stayed above the fray and as the only original member, resurrected the band with new members.
“There’s been no lack of back of forth and personal drama over the last 10, 15 years in Live’s world from the reunion into COVID to where we are now,” he acknowledged.
Even if his bandmates are different, Kowalczyk’s intensity on stage remains unwavering.
“The most amazing compliment the other day on Instagram was about how wonderfully I’ve preserved my voice,” he said. “I learned to sing properly from my aunt. She was my vocal coach. She taught me to sing from my diaphragm. Healthy singing comes from breathing in the right place. You can last longer and put less stress over your vocal cords.”
It’s something he certainly needs given Live’s heavy touring schedule.
“I was talking to some agents recently as we were putting this tour together,” he said. “It’s hard to get tour buses. It’s full capacity. We had to work the end of the summer just to get avails at venues.”
IF YOU GO
Stone Temple Pilots and Live with Soul Asylum
7 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 31. $41.30 and up. Ameris Bank Amphitheatre, 2200 Encore Parkway, Alpharetta. livenation.com.
