Live Reunite With Singer Ed Kowalczyk for World Tour, New LP
Nineties rockers Live have reunited with lead singer Ed Kowalczyk as the band’s original members prepare to perform together for the first time in seven years.
2017 will see Live embarking on a world tour to celebrate the 25th anniversary of their debut LP Mental Jewelry, as well as the release of the group’s first new music with Kowalczyk since 2006’s Songs From Black Mountain.
“After a pretty long break, it was exciting to find that we all felt, in a sense, like we were starting over again … albeit with this amazing foundation and fanbase all over the world that we have established,” Kowalczyk said in a statement. “You could say we took the long road home, but it feels good to be back.”
The original members of Live last performed together in July 2009 before Kowalczyk left the band to pursue his solo LP Alive.
After a three-year hiatus, the remaining members of Live recruited Unified Theory’s Chris Shinn to serve as vocalist for 2014’s The Turn, which resulted in a lawsuit with Kowalczyk over the use of the Live moniker.
“They’re not being real clear about who’s in it anymore. They obfuscate that it’s not the real band,” Kowalczyk told Rolling Stone of his former bandmates in 2013. “They don’t say that it’s not the original [lineup]. They just kind of go out and surprise people, and it’s really sort of lame.”
However, the band seems to have made peace after their legal problems.
“We are writing and recording at the moment,” Kowalczyk added in a statement Monday. “We have mutually decided not to rush the next project. We didn’t want the pressure of completing an entire album hanging over us before we got out and played some shows. I think the idea at the moment is to just go with flow, get onstage together and see where all of this new energy takes us creatively. We might release something new in the form of a shorter release in 2017, in anticipation of larger project in 2018 … stay tuned.”