When you leave an iconic and highly successful band, and step out on your own to do the solo thing, it can be a little nerve-wracking. Especially when you come to do it in a live setting. And this is exactly what Ed Kowalczyk has been through since his greatly publicised departure from alternative rock maestros Live back in 2009. However, five years, three albums and a tonne of live shows into a solo career, he now feels like he takes it a lot more in his stride.
“Yeah, it definitely was [nerve-wracking] in the beginning,” he admits, speaking from his home in Connecticut in the American Northeast. “The songs all pretty much come from the same place – me sitting down with an acoustic guitar – so the songs themselves, I don’t really change the arrangement. When it’s time to rock, I just bang the hell out of it,” he laughs.
“When I started out doing it, it was definitely a case of, ‘OK, it’s an hour and a half of this, how do I pace this?’ There’s no band or anything. But that was a long time ago. I feel like I’ve found the art to it, and I’ve honed it, and I feel now that people get a full trip, if you would, on my whole career. And I’ve had a blast doing it.”
Kowalczyk was only in Australia early this year, with a full band show. But now he returns Down Under in early November on his I Alone tour. As the name suggests, it is just Kowalczyk and his guitar, apart from the odd tune here and there.
“Yeah, it’s just me alone. Sometimes it’s me alone plus one – my bass player sometimes, my guitar player sometimes – but this is just me.”
2014 is the 20th anniversary of Live’s all-time classic Throwing Copper album. Kowalczyk has been doing a lot of shows in tribute to that record, playing it in its entirety, and he will be playing a number of tracks from it on this tour. However, the show will be more of an acoustic retrospective of his entire career.
“This is the I Alone tour, and I do play a good selection of songs from Throwing Copper – especially the one that people would be very angry about if I didn’t play! But I touch on basically every album, and of course some of my solo stuff as well. This will be a set covering all the albums, as opposed to a Throwing Copper celebration.”
He is the first to admit that the time has flown – it simply does not seem like two full decades since that album came out.
“No!” he exclaims. “I have gone back in time a lot this year, and remember sitting with an acoustic guitar, writing ‘I Alone’ and ‘Lightning Crashes’, thinking, ‘These are pretty good, maybe I’ll get to do another record.”
Kowalczyk appears to be very much in his element now as a solo artist. “What I really love about my career right now, and really since I stepped out as a solo artist, is the variety and fluidity of the lineups, of myself playing acoustic shows, to duos, to trios, to full band – I really enjoy the variety and the difference. It’s challenging, fun and the fans have just supported me every step of the way, no matter what it is, so I can’t ask more than that.”
Catch him at theSeymour Centre onSaturday November 8 and Sunday November 9, tickets online.
