Live Living Colour pictures

Back in the band

From Duran Duran to Blondie, once-extinct bands are putting acrimonious splits behind them to try to make another go of it.

By Erik Spanberg
Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor
(editted for LC blog; click link for full article)
....For Corey Glover, lead singer of Living Colour, which released its comeback album last fall, any reunion hinges on repairing frayed relationships. That, he says, can be a daunting proposition.

"No band breaks up because record sales are bad. They break up because of relationships," Glover says. "You have to ask yourself whether you're willing to go through that again. It's a tough question because, let's face it, people don't change."

Such concerns have been borne out with brief returns that quickly fizzled. In 1996, for example, Van Halen appeared at the MTV Video Music Awards with original lead singer David Lee Roth in tow.

Soon after, though, the band began squabbling again - long before a reunion tour ever happened.

Even realized reunions can turn sour. The evident hostility between Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel led many critics to pan the duo's recent tour, dismissing it as a money-grab.

Soon after Living Colour began toying with the idea of a return, Glover went to lunch with guitarist Vernon Reid and hashed out past differences. Looking back, Glover says the unexpected success of the band's debut album had caused enormous problems.

Within a year of debuting, Living Colour's foot-stomping anthem, "Cult of Personality," became an MTV staple and the band toured with the Rolling Stones. The heady experience set the group on a disastrous cycle of constant tours and records, causing burnout and a split.

Still, Glover isn't surprised by his recent rock 'n' roll rapprochement: "It couldn't end where we left it."....