Above: Live co-founder Chad Taylor is restarting his career with Chad Taylor & Friends. Photo by Helen Elizondo.
By Jim Miller
The story of the rock band Live is an underdog story.
Exactly how did a no-name, teenage band out of York, Pa., break into the highly competitive New York indie scene in the early ‘90s, then seemingly surge overnight to become one of the decade’s biggest rock acts?
What exactly was the secret to their success? According to co-founding member and guitarist Chad Taylor, it had as much to do with friendship as it did with music.
The four members of Live — lead singer Ed Kowalczyk, bassist Patrick Dahlheimer, drummer Chad Gracey, and Taylor — had been playing together since middle school.
“We were like the four kids in the movie Stand By Me,” says Taylor, “except instead of throwing stones on the train tracks, we were jamming in basements and driving a beat-up van to faraway gigs.”
Those faraway gigs would come to include regular jaunts to New York’s CBGB, where they were discovered by Joey Ramone of The Ramones. The band was signed to Radioactive Records, which was run by longtime Ramones manager Gary Kurfirst. Soon they were recording in the studio with producer Jerry Harrison, of Talking Heads, working on their first major label release, Mental Jewelry.
Jewelry came out in 1991, and Live rode the wave of success of its two singles, “Operation Spirit (The Tyranny of Tradition)” and “Pain Lies on the Riverside.” The band then partnered with Harrison again for Throwing Copper, their most successful album, topping the charts in 1994 and selling 8 million copies worldwide.
The accolades followed. In 1995, Live won Billboard’s Rock Artist of the Year, and in 1996, tens of thousands of Rolling Stone readers voted the band Artist of the Year.
Their middle-school dreams had come true. Big time.
But it wouldn’t last forever. What was to be a “two-year hiatus” for Live in 2009 resulted an eight-year period of public accusations and rifts, mainly between lead singer Ed Kowalczyk and the rest of the band.
While the four patched things up in 2017 and headed back on the road for a few years, the pandemic shut down their 2020 tour. When shows resumed in 2021, so did the drama, and Kowalczyk opted to go on with Live without any of his original co-founding members.
It was a double dose of bad news for Dahlheimer, Gracey and Taylor, who had become entangled in legal actions involving longstanding financial agreements and a former business partner, Bill Hynes — the primary suspect of a now-three-year joint investigation conducted by Pennsylvania state authorities and the FBI. Hynes is accused of stealing $4.4 million from United Fiber & Data, the currently operating telecommunications company the three Live members co-founded with him in 2012.
While the investigation did not uncover any criminal wrongdoing by any band members, the proceedings came with collateral damage. According to Taylor, Kowalczyk now only communicates to him and Dahlheimer through managers. And Gracey only communicates through lawyers.
“But I still talk to Patrick almost daily,” Taylor says. “And I still love all those guys.”
While cooperating with authorities in the Hynes investigation, which legally he cannot discuss — and juggling related lawsuits involving the investments — Taylor once again has turned to music, this time for solace.
With his new project, Chad Taylor & Friends, Taylor finds himself back where he started as an underdog: playing small clubs with a small group of pals. The shows offer a look at Taylor’s more recent musical leanings while also presenting streamlined, more Americana takes on older Live songs.
“I’m excited about the process and moving it quickly to vinyl,” Taylors says. “The booking agency is working passionately to assemble tour dates.”
One of those dates is Saturday, March 16, at The Queen, where Chad Taylor & Friends will be playing an intimate show in The Crown.
If you want to learn more about the Live drama, see the 2023 article in Rolling Stone. If you’re interested in how Taylor is moving forward and what’s inspired him to do so, read on…
O&A: You worked with Jerry Harrison as a producer several times, with Live and also with side-project Gracious Few. What was that like and did he ever offer any professional advice that stuck with you?
Taylor: Jerry Harrison quickly became my friend and mentor. In many ways, he has been a musical father and guiding light for my career.
When I met Jerry, the Talking Heads had just broken up, and he was working as an aspiring music producer. Despite Live being super young kids, we were smart enough to listen to Jerry. But to his credit, as a songwriter and performer, he also empowered Live and listened to us. That’s when records can become magical.
When I work with artists today or my own material, I’m pulling from this massive basket of skills, psychology, and musical insight passed forward in my musical DNA. This knowledge becomes entirely instinctual and is linked to Jerry and my bandmates.
Jerry also introduced me to architecture, literature, and fine arts, far more advanced pursuits than anything I could have found.
As a graduate of Harvard, Jerry pushed himself as a musical innovator, but he also found success as an entrepreneur. For example, he co-founded GarageBand.com and continues to have a passion for a medical company that created a snakebite anti-venom, which could potentially save thousands of lives.
Jerry showed me that I could operate as a musician and songwriter and use those highly attuned skills to build teams and companies. Once Live was a global success, I helped build a media production company and eventually led a groundbreaking fiber-optic enterprise.
More than anything else, Jerry taught me that it was possible to maintain a loving and robust family despite the complexity of leading a life in the spotlight. My wife and three adult daughters are tops in my highlight reel.
Jerry and Adrian Belew have been on tour presenting many of the songs from Remain In Light. Patrick and I attended their gig in Washington, D.C., and were blown away by the performance. I may have cried a few tears relating to the immense pride I felt seeing Jerry get the recognition of his fans. It’s a must-see show for any Talking Heads and King Crimson fan.
O&A: The band moved to Lancaster, Pa., in the early ‘90s, and you’ve lived there ever since. What is it about that town that resonates with you and makes you feel at home?
Taylor: Ed gets the credit for turning me on to Lancaster. One of his first apartments was inside a barn where we wrote “Selling The Drama.”
My wife bought our family home in Lancaster while I was touring for Throwing Copper. The band eventually acquired a massive bank building downtown. “The Trust” became the central hub for the band around the Secret Samadhi era, although Ed and I wrote and assembled many of the songs for Throwing Copper on the second floor above Price Street Café — only a few hundred feet from The Trust building. Must have been something in the water!
Our drummer moved to Portland, Ore., and Patrick went to Miami. Then, Ed left for California, but I was already ingrained in the community. My wife opened a yoga studio that became a bedrock for the holistic community, and we raised our children with all of this artistic, spiritual, and entrepreneurial energy surrounding the family.
Soon after the release of Secret Samadhi, I dove headfirst into building Aurora Films and, eventually, my guitar shop, Tone Tailors, which are both located on the Rock Lititz campus today. I also built MoonTree, my recording studio. All were founded downtown. And while I’m no longer involved with Aurora, I enjoy supporting my co-creators in their business.
In Lancaster, I discovered a community where I felt I could help establish a scene that included musicians, photographers, writers, and filmmakers.
O&A: Chad Taylor & Friends played Philadelphia’s Vinyl to a packed house that included some big names in Philadelphia radio. In fact, WMGK’s Matt Cord called the show “unreal,” and said the crowd was “loving every minute of it.” How does it feel to get that kind of response to this new project?
Taylor: I spent 38 years as the guitarist with both Live and, for a time, The Gracious Few. But I only started singing lead vocal in May of 2023. By the time I hit the stage at The Queen, I’ll have a whopping 10 months under my belt as a singer-songwriter.
So, when reviews herald my voice, I’m a bit skeptical. The upside is a refreshing innocence, given my years of experience. I’m both a veteran and a beginner.
When I envisioned a solo effort, I wanted to strip away all the old paint and return to the raw wood of the songs I helped manifest. This meant reconnecting with the creative antenna that drew these songs from the ether. I picked up my Martin D-28 and went to work. I spent hours and hours finding the right keys and arrangements to suit the limitations of my voice and the vision in my head.
I had experience with this approach as it was the same method I used when arranging “I Walk The Line” for the Sun Records documentary on PBS.
Eventually, Chris Daughtry made this version famous when he performed it on American Idol. I asked myself what could happen if I applied this methodology to this new endeavor.
“Lakini’s Juice” became the vision of a cowboy on horseback at the end of a long day, overlooking vast lands as the sun sets. Thankfully, Ed’s lyrics are so magical and transformative that they work perfectly with the new surroundings of the remodeled hit.
I did the same with each song, just an acoustic guitar and my voice and a strong compulsion to allow space for the guts of the material to be all that remained.
It’s beneficial that our backing vocalist, Megan Woodland, is the best singer in the band. She shelters me just a bit in the bigger choruses and adds confidence that wouldn’t be there otherwise. We have an excellent vocal blend, and a female voice brings new perspectives to the songs.
Come early and watch her shine as she fronts The Wild Hymns.
O&A: Where are you finding inspiration now and what do you hope Live fans will get out of this show on March 16?
Taylor: There is an entirely new world of media and connectivity since Live made its mark in the ‘90s. I was lucky to continue working with young artists in the recording studio. Between those talents and the musical leanings of my daughters, I feel connected to new music and old.
More importantly, the flaws, cracks, and imperfections that make music authentic resonate with the show. There is a spirit of truthfulness and intentionality behind each breath and musical passage. I love music. We love music. And really, isn’t that what transcendent experiences, like live performances, are exceptional at delivering?
We’re highly dynamic, and the music can sometimes be so delicate and quiet that you can hear a pin drop. What it is not is a loud, bombastic rock show. I fully endorse the current lineup of Live to bring you those moments.
Nevertheless, we’ve been known to generate some pretty awesome sing-alongs. And the best way to discover new music is to buy a ticket and support the arts!
— Chad Taylor & Friends perform at The Queen on Saturday, March 16. Show starts at 8 p.m. with The Wild Hymns opening. Tickets at TheQueenWilmington.com.
