By the time Lightning Crashes made its way into dorm rooms and prayer circles, Live had already been a band longer than most marriages. Ed Kowalczyk and the original lineup had formed before The Breakfast Club even hit theaters. “We started the band in junior high, summer before high school,” Kowalczyk recalls. “We were basically a hybrid new wave cover band… selling cassettes to our relatives.”
That cassette, Death of a Dictionary, turns 30, though good luck finding a copy that doesn’t cost half your rent on eBay. “Every time I see someone post, ‘Found it in a pawn shop in Harrisburg,’ I feel a little pang,” Ed says. “We’ll probably reissue it someday. But for now, Throwing Copper gets the gold.”
The band’s breakout record is getting the full victory-lap treatment: unreleased tracks, a Woodstock ’94 performance, and enough existential anthems to soundtrack a freshman philosophy class. Kowalczyk’s not shy about calling it a celebration. “We’re happy for all the ups and downs, because whatever got us here, we’ll take it.”
Throwing Copper was an album that didn’t just land—it detonated. “We had zero songs going into it. Just a blank slate and a lot of big guitar tones,” he says of their writing process. They recorded at Pachyderm Studio in Minnesota—“Nirvana had just done In Utero there, so we felt like we were touching holy ground”—and when they got the final mixes, Ed remembers thinking: “We really made an album.”
Selling the Drama hit first, then I Alone. And then… the song the label said would never fly. “They told me Lightning Crashes would never be a single. ‘Too long. Chorus comes in too late,’” Ed laughs. “And then it comes out and everything just explodes. Saturday Night Live. Rolling Stone. Number one record.”
And with that came the interpretive tug-of-war. Everyone had their own theory about the song’s meaning, especially after the video hit. Ed, unsurprisingly, isn’t bothered. “I write like a collage. It’s a montage of meaning. I don’t want to tell people what to think. I want them to feel it.”
That openness gave Live the edge in a ’90s landscape full of irony-drenched slackers. While some bands were posturing against corporate rock while signing the biggest deals they could find, Live was just trying to figure out how to play stadiums. “We were trying not to be Bon Jovi. But also trying to figure out how to be a band in front of 20,000 people.”
The Throwing Copper reissue includes three songs that didn’t make the cut back in ’94: “Hold Me Up” (immortalized in Zack and Miri Make a Porno), “We Deal in Dreams,” and “Susquehanna.” All songs Kowalczyk says could’ve held their own on the original tracklist. “I remember telling our label guy, ‘Should we be leaving this off?’ He said, ‘It’ll find a place someday.’” It did—25 years and one anniversary edition later.
Also included is their full set from Woodstock ’94, a pivotal moment Ed hadn’t fully grasped at the time. “Three hundred thousand people, short set, all the right momentum. It was a watershed,” he says. Woodstock ’99? Not so much. “We played Friday, left before the riots. But I remember thinking it felt… off. Like, this is not the same vibe.”
If Throwing Copper was the band’s birth announcement, Secret Samadhi was its dark, mysterious follow-up. “White Discussion is the bridge,” Ed says. “You can hear where we were headed—more guitar tones, more atmosphere. Chad [Taylor] was like a mad scientist in the studio. One day we showed up and there were 50 amps in there.”
And while the band had their own messiness—Ed left, the rest of the band made The Turn without him, then Ed came back—they’ve seemingly found peace. The 2018 EP Local 717 was the first sign. “We got back together, started writing right away,” he says. “That surprised everyone. It surprised us.”
As for The Turn? “Never listened to it,” he says flatly. “We rearranged the discography. That’s not part of it anymore.”
These days, the original band is back on the road with Bush and Our Lady Peace for a tour that feels like a flashback and a revival. “We’ve done seven shows already. Packed houses. We’re off to the races,” Ed says. And yes, more new music is coming, though it might be bite-sized. “Chad and I have been talking about 45s. Just doing two songs at a time. No reason to wait.”
For a band that once soundtracked the ‘90s, they’re sounding pretty in the present.
Listen to the full interview above and then check out the videos below.
