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Cape Town – ICYMI Ed Kowalczyk announced at the end of last year that he has reunited with his band, Live.
Yes! It’s the truth. The band is back together after a very ugly public breakup in 2009.
After announcing the reunion, they even played a surprise gig on New Year’s Eve in their hometown of York.
Chatting to Rolling Stone in their first interview together in a very long time, lead singer Ed and guitarist Chad Taylor reveal how their reunion happened and so much more.
Check out these 5 things we learned about Live from the interview:
1) Ed and Chad met in kindergarten.
While it’s a well-known fact that the Live band members were all childhood friends, who started playing together as a band in junior high, Ed and Chad go back even further. Ed told Rolling Stone that he and Chad learned to play guitar together from scratch: "I remember sitting there with chord charts and opening up guitar magazines and saying, ‘Hey, Chad, check this chord out.' And then he'd show me something he came across."
2) Their reunion started with a beer in their hometown, York.
Chatting about their reunion, Ed and Chad both agree that it took a long time, but they also believe that without all the tough times and mud-slinging they wouldn’t be in the amazing space that they are in right now. "We had a great meetup and it really went from there. Time had gone by, the air kinda cleared and we just realised we wanted to do it," Ed told Rolling Stone.
3) New Live tunes will definitely be released this year. (yay!)
While the band is taking it easy in terms of writing and recording songs at their own pace, Ed revealed that they will definitely be releasing some new music in the latter half of this year. And that they will definitely be playing some new music at their shows in 2017.
4) It was really fucked up for Chad to record and perform without Ed.
Chad revealed that he felt like he was in the Twilight Zone without Ed in the band. He told Rolling Stone that a turning point for him came while on stage playing Lightning Crashes when he suddenly just looked over to the centre of the stage and thought to himself: "Who the fuck is that guy standing there? ... And I think it was like a dawning. I was standing onstage and thought, 'I need to start to build this bridge back to Ed.' Because the truth is if you hang onto that stuff it erodes you."
5) Ed and the rest of the band became better musicians during their break.
Chad revealed that Ed has become a better musician because of their split, and vice versa. "Ed performing on his own made him a better musician, and it drew him back into the songs. I can tell you that first hand from being on the stage. And, interestingly enough, performing the songs without Ed made us better musicians, too," Chad told Rolling Stone.
Read the full Rolling Stone interview here.
(Photo: Getty Images)
