“It definitely was [nerve wracking] in the beginning,” admits Kowalczyk, speaking from his home in Connecticut. “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, his quickest ever turnaround for trips to Australia, on his I Alone tour. This time, it’s one of the tours that truly live up to that name. Apart from the odd tune here and there, it’s just Kowalczyk and his guitar.
“It’s just me alone,” he explains. “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. He’s been doing a lot of shows in tribute to that record, playing it in its entirety, and he’ll be doing a number of tracks from it on this tour. However, the show will be more of an acoustic retrospective of his entire career.
“I do play a good selection of songs from Throwing Copper,” he reveals, “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’s the first to admit the time has flown, and it simply doesn’t seem like two full decades since that album came out.
“I have gone back in time a lot this year,” he insists, “And remember sitting with an acoustic guitar, writing I Alone and Lightning Crashes, think[ing], ‘These are pretty good, maybe I’ll get to do another record. Maybe I’ll get to go on tour.’
“To be able to look back, 20 years later, and see that this music means so much to so many people, as a writer it doesn’t get any better than that. You can’t even imagine until you’re doing it, it’s a trip.”
Now, with his illustrious past behind him, 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,” he reflects. “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.”
BY ROD WHITFIELD
