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Music on the Road

'Live' tours with new CD

By Paul Vercammen
CNN Showbiz Today Reports

Ed Kowalcyzk, frontman for the band "Live"

LOS ANGELES, California (CNN) -- Ed Kowalcyzk, frontman for the band "Live," has let his hair down these days. A collar-length growth of brown curly locks has replaced his shaved head.

As Live tours the country in support of its fifth major label record, appropriately titled "V," it seems the band has lightened up.

"We're having so much more fun," explained Kowalcyzk. "We're so much more comfortable in the spotlight now than we were when it first started to happen -- when we were like 'ooh, what's happening.' I think we've totally transformed the live show. I'm a hell of a dancer. I really am in my sort of York, Pennsylvania, type of Bluegrass, shake-your-ass way."

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Live busted out of Pennsylvania with the record "Mental Jewelry" in 1992 and followed up with "Throwing Copper," "Secret Samadhi" and "Distance to Here."

Kowalcyzk developed a reputation as a cerebral rocker, an image that doesn't thrill him.

"That's a hard one to keep going for like 10 years," the singer/songwriter professes. "The whole serious, uber ... profound rock band thinking man. Yech."

"There's a couple songs on this record -- 'Like a Soldier,' 'People Like You,' 'Transmit Your Love' -- which still have a heavy lyric. But they're done in a spirit of fun and a party atmosphere-type vibe."

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"Like a Soldier" is apparently getting a positive reaction from U.S. servicemen and women.

"I just heard from a friend of mine who said there were some (Army) Rangers who called him up and said 'we used "Like a Soldier" to train with, man.' This is cool."

Kowalcyzk basically supports America's war on terrorism, in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks.

"I think it's righteous -- eradicating that evil that has done so much harm to us is right," Kowalcyzk said. "But I think it's too early for me to make a general judgment on the whole foreign policy approach."

"Live" takes its act out on the road this week with a stop in Atlanta and three shows in Florida.