Living Colour’s Corey Glover continues to push his own artistic and creative boundaries with his new project Sonic Universe. The band featuring Mike Orlando (Adrenaline Mob), Booker King and Taykwuan Jackson are an exciting new quartet. Sonic Universe will release their debut album “It Is What It Is” on the 10th of May via earMUSIC.
We caught up with Corey Glover via Zoom whilst on Living Colour’s US run. Recent times have seen the funk/rock legends spending a lot of time on the road. Reflecting on last year, Glover said: “2023 was actually pretty good. Living Colour was working a lot. We’ve been out recently with Extreme. We did part of North America with them, and then we went to England with them. And then we’re doing more of North America. Now we’re in Oklahoma City on a tour of our own that is not connected with Extreme. But next week, we go back out with them for another week and a half, and then we go home. And we’ve been out with them at this point, almost two months.”
Being on the road with Extreme is something that the Living Colour frontman has enjoyed. “Those guys are really good to us. And we’ve been having a really good time. Not for nothing. Nuno Bettencourt is a really, really good guitar player, but so is Vernon Reid. And I cannot stress enough that I think it’s our time. I think people are recognizing what we do. And Vernon’s particular style of playing and Living Colour’s whole kind of ethos and how we play,” explains Corey.
With Living Colour firing on all cylinders, Corey has managed to squeeze some time into his schedule to get things moving with his new project Sonic Universe. The band came to fruition when the frontman met with his new bandmate Mike Orlando (Adrenaline Mob). “I’d say about four years ago, I was on one of those rock cruises, Shiprocked as what they call a stowaway, which is basically an artist at large. And I saw Mike Orlando doing something and I was blown away by his playing. I’ve worked with a bunch of guitar players. And I was very impressed by his guitar playing. I had to say that this was the most outstanding thing I’d seen in a very long time. And it was like, we struck up a friendship and he was like, we need to work on something and see if we can get something going. And I went to his house, and he had grooves, and we would write to these grooves. And basically, it turned into what you hear now I Am.”
Perhaps Sonic Universe has given Corey a platform to write music which doesn’t necessarily fit into the Living Colour mould. “I brought to this particular project the quarter of what I bring to Living Colour, and now it’s a half of what Sonic Universe is. I think this is a lot funkier than Mike is maybe used to with Adrenaline Mob, but he still brings his whole thing to it. I think it has a little bit more of a soulful edge to it than what he’s used to. And, quite frankly, for me, it was a lot more personal. So, my personal musing as opposed to social musing, which is what I think Living Colour is more about,” confirms Corey.
The band’s debut album has somewhat of a thought-provoking title – It Is What It Is. Perhaps a phrase we find ourselves saying more and more often in daily life. Reflecting on the title Corey said: “You know that there’s so much information that you can get at any given point. Some of it is revelatory, and some of it is sort of mundane and has no bearing on anything. And it doesn’t stop you from paying your rent, it doesn’t stop you from going out grocery shopping, it doesn’t stop you from doing whatever you want to do. It is what it is. These things exist, these things are out here. These things exist in their own way. Okay, it is what it is. And for us, I think the statement of yeah, there’s a lot of things going on, but we’re here to, that is what it is. It’s sort of like where we’re at.”
Sonic Universe’s debut record It Is What It Is came together over a few years. “Most of this record was done in 2021, 2022 and 2023. We finished up the last of it, this time last year, and we were just putting the finishing touches on it. So, the fact that we got a deal and everything sort of came about as we are finishing up what this is was really astounding. Because I’ve been in a bunch of projects, that languish in some kind of hellscape where the songs are finished, the songs are mastered, the songs are ready to go. But thank God for our manager, Larry – he heard it, and he was on board from the very beginning and made sure that it got heard. And we want to thank him for that,” explains Corey.
With such a busy touring schedule with Living Colour are there any plans to take Sonic Universe out on the road? “We’ll probably try to do some shows and see what that looks like. And then go from there. But Living Colour has not really done this kind of touring in about 20 years. And we are in the midst of trying to make another record as well. I’m trying to prioritise what’s necessary for both at this point,” said Corey.
Speaking about the new Living Colour album Corey said: “It’s a work in progress, and we’re working on songs at this point. We’re going to go back in the studio next month for a couple of days and see how that goes. We’re also working on a documentary about the band. I think it’s safe to say it’s becoming our time again great.”
Billboard Magazine recently listed Corey Glover in their Top Greatest Rock Singers of All Time 2023 list. And deservedly so. Speaking about the acknowledgement Corey said: “I was very flattered by it. I was flattered and taken aback that it actually existed. That there was somebody actually listening. I felt like people were not really listening to my particular contribution as a singer, as a frontman, and to have that acknowledged is really, really cool. I thank those who thought of me,” he said.
Living Colour will be back in the UK this summer, with an itinerary that features festival dates like Maid of Stone amongst others. “We are going back to Europe in June and July. The rest of the year is not particularly planned out. I know we’re going to spend some time working on this new album. The process is always slow with us. We take our time making records – five years or six years between records is all you can count on with us. But we have to buckle down and really get to some songwriting done for sure.”
It Is What It Is, the new album from Sonic Universe will be released by earMUSIC on the 10th of May.
Interview by Adam Kennedy
Photo Credit: Rob Shotwell