Ed Kowalczyk of Live does solo show in Miami
With apologies to U2, all won’t be quiet on New Year’s Day, as Ed Kowalczyk, former lead singer of the alt-rock band Live, hits Miami’s Ricochet Lounge for a solo acoustic show. Don’t expect soft crooning, sappy ballads and James Taylor covers, however – Kowalczyk belts out the band’s powerful hits including “I Alone,” “Selling the Drama,” “All Over You” and “Lightning Crashes,” plus some solo stuff. He talked to Miami.com about the show, his connection with the owner of Ricochet, and the status of Live.
Q: So you’re heading down to Miami on New Year’s Day – will you be here for New Year’s Eve?
A: No, I’m gonna be in Atlanta for New Year’s, playing a show, and then I’m flying the next morning down to Miami. But I’m looking forward to carrying the party from New Year’s Eve to New Year’s Day.
Q: What can we expect from your show?
A: Of course, most people know me as the singer and songwriter for Live, but what I started to do a few years ago when I broke out and opened up this new chapter of myself as a solo artist, one of the first things I did was say, Hey, I write all this music on an acoustic guitar, and people like to hear it like that. So I went out and did the music with just me and an acoustic – and Ricochet will just be me doing my solo acoustic show that I’ve done pretty much all over the world over the last two or three years. And I’m excited to bring it to Miami.
Q: Will it be solo stuff, stuff from Live, or a mix?
A: I play a mixture – of course, I play all the hits of my work in Live, and a few songs from my solo stuff and a few surprises thrown in there. Everybody leaves feeling like they get the songs that they know and wanna sing along with, like “Lightning Crashes” and “I Alone” and “The Dolphin’s Cry,” but they also get to hear where I’m at as a songwriter now. So everybody leaves feeling like they get what they came to get.
Q: I remember years ago, you did a show in Miami Beach at a place called Rumi. And the owner of both Rumi and Ricochet is Alan Roth – that can’t be a coincidence, right?
A: No, it’s not a coincidence – Alan Roth’s a really good buddy of mine. We’ve been friends, oh my gosh, at least since the mid-’90s, and we met through one of my original managers. We just got to be good friends over the years, and when he gave me a call and said he’s got Ricochet, I checked it out and he said I’d love to have you down to play your solo acoustic. And I thought the place looked perfect, because the whole idea of me playing like this is to get really intimate with my fans and let them experience these songs that they’re used to hearing pretty loud.
Q: Do you change the way you perform, solo versus with the band?
A: Not really. You know, people sometimes expect that because I’m gonna do a song like “I Alone” acoustically that it’s gonna get softer, and I think what people usually get surprised by is that I bang on the guitar and sing like I’ve got a full band behind me, because that’s just who I am. And it is just really as intense as it can get on an acoustic guitar – people usually leave thinking, Man, that was really rocking. If anything, the songs show another level of intensity because of how stripped-down they are.
Q: Is Live dead, or is the split still being called a “hiatus”?
A: I think as an artist, from my perspective, you move through life in chapters and a series of different growth periods of your life. And right now, I opened up this chapter as a solo artist to explore and deepen my relationship with my fans and my music, and I’m having a great time doing it. I wouldn’t close any doors in the future to working with the guys again, but at this point we’ve all moved on to new chapters in our lives.
Q: How often do you get down to Miami, and what do you think of the city?
A: You know, it’s been too long – I love Miami and I used to come really regularly, because I used to mix live albums down at the old Marlin Hotel back in the day there. But it’s been awhile, and I’m looking forward to hanging out with everybody at Ricochet and all my fans.
This story was originally published December 29, 2011 at 8:12 PM.