One of the best live acts you will ever see is Living Colour – a band who just know how to get their music across to an audience and a band of immense talent too. Living Colour have been over to see us down-under a couple of times in recent years and so a return so soon is welcome news indeed. When you add to that the fact that after an eight year gap, last year their released a stunning new album ‘Shade’ it makes their return even more of a ‘must see’ tour.
We caught up with vocalist Corey Glover who as well as excelling on their own album ‘Shade’ has recently teamed up with guitarist George Lynch (of Lynch Mob and Dokken fame) to release the debut from band ‘Ultraphonix’ an excursion that is just as compelling…
Mark: Hi Corey it’s Mark calling from The Rockpit down here in Australia. How are you today Sir?
Corey: I’m good thanks, how are you?
Mark: Very good thank you, and thanks so much for taking the time to talk to us today Corey, what can we say? It’s great to have you back again and for anyone who hasn’t seen the band live before I have to say you’re one of the very best live bands out there.
Corey: Thank you.
Mark: This time you’re here with a great new album in tow: ‘Shade’ was one of my favourite releases of last year and your first in 8 years. It was an album a long time coming as I think you started working on it right after ‘The Chair in the Doorway’ why did it take so long?
Corey: Well I guess it came down to us being perfectionists and just not knowing when to say stop!
Mark: (laughs)
Corey: That’s basically what happened. “OK we got it! No we don’t got it! Yes we got it! No we don’t got it!” (laughs) Kind of like that. So we were back and for the like that until we decided we did got t and we were done.
Mark: And the album really is that good it’s worth the wait, with ten new tracks on there and three covers. You covered one of the all-time musical greats in Robert Johnson and when I heard that for the first time I had the sneaking suspicion that he would have approved!
Corey: That Robert Johnson song was the reason we started making the new album. We were playing at the Apollo Theatre in New York City in Harlem dong a tribute to Robert Johnson on his 100th birthday, he would have been one hundred years old that day. And we did ‘Preachin’ Blues’ and a bunch of other Robert Johnson songs and it felt really good, and made us feel that we really needed to explore the Blues. So when we started we had this thing where we’d mix everything together and make everything as hard as possible with all kinds of different stuff, but why couldn’t we just concentrate on the Blues to a certain degree. And that was the impetus for this record.
Mark: I’m so glad to hear you say that because that’s what the record sounds like to me. But with all the great songs on there it’s a tough one I guess to decide what to play from it live?
Corey: Well you were there the last time we played down there and we started our set with ‘Preachin’ Blues’ it’s a song that just gives everything a foundation, you know. For us this is where it all stats, this is the foundation where all of us began – in the Blues and we move on from there. So what we try to do in a real way is to talk about ourselves and the world we live in, that’s all our music really is. How we circumnavigate the globe. And how we circumnavigate out lives. From the micros to the macros and the constants.
Mark: It’s interesting that you say that about the Blues being that bedrock and foundation as one of the other things I wanted to talk about is another project that you’ve been involved I recently with Ultraphonix ‘Original Human Music’ which also seems to be built from that same Blues and Rhythm and Blues bedrock?
Corey: Absolutely, absolutely, the Ultraphonix thing was really George trying to explore the different facets of his personality and the rest of us were sort of in that mode and we all came together as a band.
Mark: What music moves you today and has it changed over the years?
Corey: No it hasn’t changed really I like good songs, I like songs that have an emotional content to them, that are personal. I want something that’s personal. And whatever it is they’re saying, whether it’s a love song or a song about fighting, or fucking or whatever it may be, that I have to feel your personal experience in it.
Mark: I hear what you’re saying and for me that’s a song like the cover you did on the latest album of Marvin Gaye’s ‘Inner City Blues.’ I think the best compliment I could give you is that I think it’s got to be the best cover of one of Marvin’s songs I’ve ever heard.
Corey: Why thank you. And you know the thing about those three songs, there’s a significance to those three songs. One of the things we’re talking about here is the proliferation of guns and gun violence, particularly in the United States, and those three people: Robert Johnson, Marvin Gaye and Biggy (Notorious B.I.G. whose song ‘Who Shot Ya’ is also covered on ’Shade’) all fell to shootings, they were silenced because of gun violence.
Mark: Wow, man now that you say that it seems so obvious, but I didn’t immediately put that together. That makes it so much more real.
Corey: Yes, and that’s the lynchpin to a lot of the stuff. And musicians from three different genres as well, from the Blues to Rhythm and Blues to Hip Hop, that kind of thing was pervasive. So it’s an ‘Easter egg’ of sorts but…
Mark: And talking of passion, you mentioned before that the music that moved you had to have that emotional content: the final track on ‘Shade’, ‘Two Sides‘, is the only ballad on the album, and it’s full of passion and power it a great way to close. What can you tell us about that song?
Corey: It was labour intensive, so for me I had to pull out a lot of stuff. I had to get all that emotion into that song in order for it to work. Because you know, we’re paying a lot of tribute to a lot of people in that song and looking to really throw in a whole bunch of emotional things and also bring in social aspects – the idea of ‘Truth’ and you know like they say there are more than two sides to every story, but in actuality there’s only one side to a story, the story itself and to be able to speak the truth of the story is always the issue.
Mark: Take it all the way back for us – what was it that made you realise that music was going to be your life? Was there a defining moment or a gradual realisation? Thinking back to your early memories of music, what was it that first made you decide you needed to be a musician?
Corey: I think that for me it was really about me finding the art. I thought that would be my life. That I was gonna be doing this for a living. But I went to school, I tried to get an education if it didn’t work out I felt I had to have a fall-back. But that time to use that never came. But going to school I was trying to become something that had nothing to do with the music industry, nothing to do with the art and it didn’t speak to me. But when I was doing something creative it did, and it felt right and it didn’t feel like anyone could take it away from me. So I had that something for myself.
Mark: So it was a gradual realisation then for you because music was giving you what had been missing?
Corey: Yes it was. You know my family sort of gave me the idea they thought that the music thing was really good but no one really made a living at it! (laughs) Music’s never going to give you a real living so you should have a fall-back. And I thought, OK that sounds like a plan, I can have that for emergencies… Until I realised that I can’t do too much of anything else! (laughs)
Mark: If we had to put you on the spot and ask you to name one single song that really exemplified your feelings about music, its power and emotion could you do that?
Corey: No, but I could tell you why certain Living Colour songs resonate with me. Take a song like ‘Middleman’ – a song that Vern and I wrote together, that’s a song that has significance because it was a part of stuff that I was writing on my own about being depressed and about my life as it was. It was very personal. And on ‘Shade’ there’s a bunch of personal stuff on there. Almost all the songs are on there in some way very personal. So I can tell you about those songs but of the top of my head I couldn’t pick out one single song that has that sort of power for me.
Mark: Sure, I think we’ve just time for one more quick question and we always save the easy one till last – What is the meaning of life?
Editor’s note: You know sometimes when unexpected things happen? Well all through the interview Corey has been on speakerphone in his car driving and at the point we get to ask the last question he is unbeknownst to us in a drive through ordering. After we finish the final question we hear his voice finishing his order and just for one second wonder if he’s given us a huge mystical insight into the question that has eluded mankind since the dawn of time…
Corey: … and one limeade – large…
Corey: OK so what was the last question I’m sorry?
Mark: (still laughing at the unexpected limeade order) what is the meaning of life?
Corey: The secret of life is what you make of it. Whatever it is for you.
Mark: That’s a great answer, can’t wait to catch up when you get down-under. Thank you Sir.
Corey: Oh yeah, can’t wait. Thanks Mark catch you soon.
LIVING COLOUR Australian Tour Dates:
Saturday 15th – Perth – Astor Theatre
Monday 17th – Adelaide – The Gov
Wednesday 19th – Melbourne – 170 Russell
Thursday 20th – Brisbane – Triffid
Friday 21st – Byron Bay – The Northern
Saturday 22nd – Sydney – Metro Theatre
Tickets Via: https://metropolistouring.com/living-colour-2018/
