PUBLISHED IN THE KITCHENER-WATERLOO RECORD NOVEMBER 10, 1998

ADAM COHEN SEES THE LIGHT

By Nick Krewen

There's nothing like a near-death experience to brighten your outlook on life.

In ADAM COHEN's case, it was a 1990 car accident in the West Indies that crippled and hospitalized him for a year. It was difficult not to wince as he recited his injuries in a phone conversation in Toronto last night.

"I broke my neck. I broke nine ribs. I broke my hip," said Cohen, the 26-year-old singer, songwriter and Sony recording artist who appears with JIM CUDDY at Club Denim in Guelph tonight and at Stages in Kitchener on November 26.

"I have a metal hip right now. I broke my knee, my ankle. One of my lungs was collapsed. My abdominals were crushed. I was out, man."

Cohen said he had to learn how to walk again, and the year spent flat on his back gave him a deeper appreciation of life and heightened his senses.

Perhaps that's the reason Adam Cohen's self-titled debut is such a sensual experience. Some might even say that Adam Cohen's seductive pop is cut from the same cloth as his famous father, LEONARD COHEN. It's something the younger Cohen denies.

"It seems that his music is sexy from the use of language, a certain intellectual posturing and a use of metaphors that are evocative," Adam Cohen explains.

"My stuff is sexy because it's got an inherently sexy attitude in the actual structure of the melodies and the rhythms that are constructed in a much more simple and accessible visceral way."

Then there's The Voice, which Cohen says is influnced by the phrasing of such favorites as BOB MARLEY and MARVIN GAYE.

"I needed a bottle and a half of Ouzo for the vocals on `Quarterback'," he states.

And there's a worldliness to Adam Cohen's sound that can only be attributed to a life of living around the world.

"I grew up all over the place -- Montreal, Los Angeles, the South of France, Greece, London, Paris," he states.

"I think it taught me to pay attention to life experience, the intricacies of human interaction in general, and an attention to languages, because I have to learn a few of them in my travels."

But Cohen says that even his round-the-globe upbringing doesn't give him any advantages when it comes to the artistic process.

"At the end of the day, it's still you alone against a blank piece of paper," he reasons.

"It comes down to your ability to translate what you've experienced or what other people have experienced onto that paper, and hopefully attach it to some undeniably beautiful and compelling melody."

-30-

DISCOGRAPHY

1998 -- Adam Cohen, Adam Cohen

COLLABORATIONS

1998 -- Various Artists, Explore

1999 -- Various Artists, Dawson's Creek

QUOTES FROM ADAM COHEN'S SONY MUSIC BIOGRAPHY:

"Our home was filthy with art and painting, dripping with poetry, music and literature," he recalls. "As a child I was constantly woken up by drunken poets and loud music. There were eccentric people all around and that gave me permission to do what I am doing now.

"In fact you could say it was expected of me."

"I had a clear vision of creating a series of autobiographical songs that were confessional and as fresh as possible on the subject of love, which has been historically exhausted but is still endlessly fascinating.

"The challenge was to incorporate my real life stories into settings that were new and engaging. It's a composite of life experiences, from late nights stumbling home drunk to sitting in front of a blank page and blackening it with whatever came to mind."

TRIVIA TIME -- Adam Cohen once started a band with Chris Stills, son of Stephen. It lasted about a year.

THANKS: Lorraine Quartaro, Philip Bast

Home

About Octopus Media Ink