Lloyd Cole Stays Positive With Negatives

March 19, 2001 -- Lloyd Cole is at a crossroads. At the age of 40, the former Commotions heartthrob is finding himself mid-career. Having parted ways with his label, he's formed a new band, The Negatives, and has recorded a new CD bearing their name. Looking back, he's thought a lot lately about what "it" all has meant.

"When I was 23, I had no problem being pretentious," Cole says, laughing at his early resistance to being called a "singer-songwriter." "I would say, 'No, I'm a writer. [A singer-songwriter] is what I am, but I don't like the way it sounds. It's sort of like calling someone a mason!'"

These days, Cole is happy to call himself "working." Debuting in 1984 with the impressive Rattlesnakes, Cole's witty poetics earned him a reputation as a talent on par with Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen.

Shedding The Commotions in the early '90s, Cole continued to garner great reviews but only moderate sales. In 1996, his record label rejected the material he'd written for his next album. Without a contract or an income, Cole took his guitar and his tunes on the road.

"Things that sometimes happen against your will can turn out well," he says. "It's been very nice to be forced to go out and be a folk singer because I had nothing else to do to make money."

Cole learned his reputation carried enough clout that he could "play 25 shows a year and be fine."

Recognizing that he also wanted more autonomy over future releases, he teamed up with fellow independent thinkers Aimee Mann and Michael Penn to form United Musicians, a co-op that gives artists more control over the financial aspects of their careers.

"The United Musicians concept is that there's a machinery in place run by major corporations, major retailers, major distributors," he explains. "There is no reason why a cooperative of artists should not be able to compete with that."

The United Musicians Web site will allow artists to market their releases without the high overhead with which major labels can operate.

"A lot of people would much rather that five bucks went to us than to a retailer," Cole says of fans' feedback on his Web site.

The cooperative is the next step along Lloyd Cole's path, a path that he now sees has a definite end in sight.

"My official line on it is, 'I will welcome it when it happens.'" Cole says of his the end of his career.

For now, Cole feels his own career is right where it should be.

"We played Irving Plaza in 1985 when we were a supposed 'big deal,' and last year we got an offer for The Negatives to play Irving Plaza," heconcludes. "We're pretty much exactly where we've always been. And there's something reassuring about that."