Back in 1994 skinhead singer and songwriter Ed Kowalczyk and his band Live had a fan base equalling the number of hairs covering his cranium. Then came Throwing Copper, their multi-million-selling second album, and before they knew what hit them, the world learned to love the hairless Kowalczyk and the plethora of singles that came from one of that years biggest records.Close on a decade and four albums later, Live are one of rock music’s more important and widely respected players when it comes to enthused originality and balls-to-the-wall, feel-good modern rock. The time between the group’s previous album, V, and their new release, Birds of Pray, has been filled with many life-altering and humbling moments. The biggest of these was the birth of Kowalczyk and his wife’s first child. The bond between father and child (in his case a daughter) is one that few can truly explain to the uninitiated, but Kowalczyk attempts to do so through the new album’s first single, Heaven, an effort to elucidate just what a truly awesome experience and honour it is for him to be blessed with a life that shares his surname and DNA.Procreation aside, Birds of Pray is a record that harps back, in structure at any rate, to the phenomenal and critically acclaimed Throwing Copper. After having toyed with the dark and programmed on Secret Samadhi, pure unbridled passion on The Distance to Here, and wild-oats-sowing on V, Kowalczyk, Chad Taylor, Patrick Dahlheimer and Chad Gracey celebrate this as their ‘full-circle record”. The only real difference besides the number of wrinkles and styled locks (all now hint at the lighter shade of grey) is the fact that most of the CD is a mature, perfectly balanced mix of no-nonsense, lyrically loaded rock that sits just this side of sensible pop without the bubblegum sticking to your trendy Pumas.Speaking to Gracey from his quiet and now somewhat palatial New York State home, ease and anticipation converge on the AT&T connection. ‘It’s great to be back,” he enthuses. ‘Making music is what we do. Now and again we tour a little bit and in between we take time out and make another record … like I say, it’s what we do.” ‘Rock’n’roll has been very nice us thus far, that cannot be disputed,” he continues. ‘Knowing that we’ve sold 18-million albums is a bit odd to comprehend, but these days I do enjoy going into record stores and seeing the catalogue, that’s really cool. To see five, soon to be six, albums together on the same shelf … that’s a moment right there. I always think, who would have thought? Four guys from York, Pennsylvania, whose future has rolled out before our very eyes in a way none of us could ever have imagined.”The new album in many ways is a celebration and acknowledgement by the band of the space they fill in the world of popular music as well as a thank you to their fans that were there from the early Nineties and who are today still loyal. ‘All the records are for the fans,” Gracey asserts. ‘First they’re for us, to get our creative energy out, and second they are for the fans. As with all the records before this one, we just love making music and we’re always keen on having people hear it, having them come to the shows and hopefully singing along with us.”An important record for Live to have made, Birds of Pray celebrates the power of sound and enticing and addictive song writing, two elements sorely lacking in most of today’s top 20. ‘This album harkens back to Throwing Copper for us in that it’s a lot more guitar-heavy than the previous three records. We worked with a new producer, Jim Wirt [Incubus, Hoobastank], who brought with him this incredible energy.”With keyboards and electronica shelved for now, Live are once again embracing their roots. ‘This record evolved very naturally,” Gracey elaborates. ‘Working with a producer known for his work with guitar-based rock also probably had something to do with how the album turned out in the end.”Music fans and critics alike are guilty of dissecting music in an effort to understand its genesis and the inspiration behind its creation. The art that is the music of Birds of Pray will also find itself scrutinised and pulled apart by each listener. After all, music and its interpretation has always been a very personal thing. ‘Our high still comes from feeding off of an audience and their take on what it is that we do,” Gracey concurs.Live have been firm favourites in South Africa, Australia, Europe and of course in their own back yard, but one territory that still eludes them is the Far East. ‘We’ve never played Japan and I would love to go there. I love sushi — what better reason in the world to crack a territory than in the name of a national dish? Europe, on the other hand, keeps growing for us. We’re aware that the clock is always ticking, so it’s fun for us to keep going back and seeing just how big this thing can get.’Our biggest inspiration when we were starting out was U2,” Gracey closes. ‘When The Joshua Tree came out, we started to identify with them and still do today, if only out of respect for the fact that they are still vital and breaking new ground. So I think, as we do and clearly a band like U2 do, if you stay true to what you’re doing and keep the emotion real, fans will stay with you. ‘I hope we can have a career as long as U2’s or even the Rolling Stones’s, that’s all we’ve ever wanted. It was our first objective when we started our band and were writing songs. Today our manifesto reads the same, only now the book it’s written in has grown some and, God willing, it will continue to, until he decides otherwise.” Birds of Pray is now available in South Africa.