Live’s Chad Taylor – HuffPost 10.29.14

Mike Ragogna: What advice do you have for new artists?

Chad Taylor: Make music for yourself. I think that’s the most important thing, that you turn yourself on. If you’re going to make ensemble music in the band, make it about each other. About turning on that inner circle of friends. It’s less collared, so the chips fall where they may. I think that too many young artists are concerned — probably, by the way, because of the internet and the awareness of so many other things — they’re very aware of each other and the trends of music. Live’s greatest blessing was being from York. Had we been New York City kids I’m sure we would’ve been influenced by any myriad of things, but by being in this isolated pocket and only concentrating on each other and making music that got us excited of course other people discovered us and got excited about the music. That’s what Hilly Kristal saw in it. You have to think of that moment. When we went in and auditioned for Hilly Kristal — I could only imagine the crazy bands that had been laid in front of him — here were these four young boys from York, Pennsylvania, still in high school and playing music that at the time was of course not popular at all and he goes, “Yeah, I love this, I’ll have these guys back next week.” We were like, “Wow, cool, we get to play at CBGB, this is awesome.” It makes it too small if you call it a “punk rock credo,” because then what about the pop singers and the blues singers and the jazz singers. But it’s not a punk rock ethos, it’s more just, “Follow your own voice and make that voice the center of everything you do.”

MR: What advice would you have told Live when they were first starting out?

CT: Pick a different name.

MR: [laughs]

CT: [laughs] Live was born of being in the moment and what’s interesting is that one could never imagine search engines like Google and typing in “Live” and what you might find in this era.