After releasing just two studio albums, The Philosopher Kings will put out a live album, One Night Stand (Nov. 9). The soulful Toronto pop band, all skillful schooled musicians, usually pull apart its songs onstage and interacts with the audience, justifying a live recording at this early point in its career.
"Our live show is probably what we do best and people always ask us about a live album, even at this stage, because I think when they see the show, they see us in a whole different light," explains singer Gerald Eaton. "So we wanted to present ourselves in that light as early as possible."
The live tracks were recorded on the band's recent summer tour behind 1997's Famous, Rich And Beautiful, after which the members -- including Eaton, Jon Levine (keyboards), James McCollum (guitar), Brian West (guitar), Jay Levine (bass) and Denton Whited (drums) -- had the "intimidating" task of sorting through the great from the good and bad.
"We had all shows printed on CDs, every show," says Eaton. "So 20 CDs and 15 songs, because not all the songs made the album, so we had 20 versions of each song. We put all the 'I'm The Man's on one CD, all the 'You Stepped On My Life's on one CD and we just had to go through them. It was harsh because after about the third version you have to stop and take a break, otherwise it just all sounds the same. You can't listen to it."
There wasn't a lot of haggling between bandmates over the best cuts, according to Eaton. "I think my performance was the most important so I didn't have to get into that. There were a couple of times where there were two versions where I thought my performance were equally as good but James liked one better. I think it was 'You Stepped On My Life,' but actually that one didn't make the album. We decided to put on the radio remix of it because a lot of people really liked that one."
In addition to its hits like "Charms," "I'm The Man," "You Don't Love Me," and "Hurts To Love You," the album also include two brand new studio songs, "If I Ever Lose This Heaven," which will go to radio next week, and "Supersex 69," a slick disco-soul song complete with orgasmic pants (courtesy of a Sony staff member) and a beginning reminiscent of the Stones' "Emotional Rescue."
Eaton calls it the band's "pro pornography song." The lyrics were written by Jon Levine. "It's funny because all our songs are love songs, ultimately and because we like to write about love so much, we like to come up with interesting perspectives. And 'Supersex 69' is actually about a guy who's in love with a pornographic video cassette that's called Supersex 69.
"I think it was very inspired by (the movie) Boogie Nights, the whole concept of it," Eaton adds. "It went hand in hand with that kind of very early '80s disco -- the golden years of pornography," he chuckles.
The band is even making a video for the song, two versions in fact, one of which might find itself up for debate on MuchMusic's Too Much For Much, a live television forum which questions music videos of questionable taste.
"We're actually going to make a porno for Supersex. It's going to be pretty fun," Eaton laughs. "It's sort of a making of one of those low budget video 8 pornos. The non x-rated version, we'll see if Much wants to play it. It's great because we're using very little money to make it, so we really have no expectations. Whoever wants to play it can play it. We're really just totally entertaining ourselves."
Meanwhile, besides two concerts -- in Toronto Dec. 3 and Edmonton New Year's Eve -- The Philosopher Kings is taking some time off to write its third album, due out in 2000.
