Living Colour [ tickets ] didn't set the world ablaze right off the bat with 1988's "Vivid," even though Mick Jagger liked them enough to produce a couple of tracks. Radio wasn't paying that much attention. But after six months of extensive touring, a clip for "Cult of Personality" surfaced on MTV, and the ride began.

"Cult" hit #13 on the Billboard Hot 100, "Vivid" went double-platinum, the band won fan polls and a Best Hard Rock Performance Grammy, and opened for the Stones on their "Steel Wheels" stadium tour.

Things didn't slow with Living Colour's 1990 follow-up, "Time's Up," which reached No. 13 on the Billboard chart and earned another Best Hard Rock Performance Grammy.

The band's origins date back to 1984, when guitarist and Black Rock Coalition co-founder Vernon Reid formed the group, enlisting the talents of bassist Muzz Skillings, drummer and Berklee College of Music graduate Will Calhoun, and vocalist Corey Glover. (Reid saw Glover, an actor whose performance credits include "Platoon," singing "Happy Birthday" at a mutual friend's party.) Bassist Skillings left the group in 1991, and was replaced by Sugar Hill legend Doug Wimbish, who played on the group's third album "Stain."

After touring to support "Stain," Reid announced the band's breakup in 1995, explaining, "I have not made this decision overnight. I've been struggling with it and searching my soul, for well over a year...finally, it became obvious that I had to give up the band."

Fast forward to December of last year, CBGB's, where everything basically started for the group. Vernon Reid joins in a performance by Headfake--a band featuring Glover, Calhoun and Wimbish. It marks the first time the members of Living Colour share the stage in seven years. Last week, the reunited Living Colour wrapped up a brief West Coast tour.

LiveDaily correspondent Don Zulaica spoke with Brooklyn-native Glover about the reunion, the breakup, and what's in the crystal ball.

LiveDaily: The story of December's Headfake gig: now, some of the press had mis-reported that this was a Living Colour gig under a fake band name.

Corey Glover: Right, and it wasn't. Headfake has been around for a very long time, and I'd just gotten involved with them about nine months or a year before that. To assume that this was just a ruse to get you to not know it was Living Colour was bull---t.

LiveDaily: Still, there was no secret about Vernon's involvement in last year's show--everybody knew.

You know, the Internet is a very interesting thing, I must say. [laughs] ... Before we even got to rehearsals for this gig, there were rumors on the Internet--as there are anytime two or three of us play in a 15-foot proximity of each other. All of the sudden: "Will it be a Living Colour reunion? Could it be? 3/4 of Living Colour are playing." I saw posts with people saying, "Yes, it's true, they're getting back together. I was at rehearsal, I heard them play." "Who are you?" You know? The machine had already started to wind itself up, so we had to address that right off the bat.

[The show] was as much about Headfake as it was about Living Colour, because half of the set was Headfake stuff.

Must have been intense for you.

It was. It was intense, it was strange. It was very, very, very familiar, though. It was like time stood still, like the last seven-eight years didn't even exist. Here we are, back at CBGBs, Vernon's to my right, Doug's to my left, and nothing has really changed. We sound just as good. We look a little different, but other than that, it's the same folks.

Who said, "Let's do a tour?"

Well, we had decided to do that months beforehand. Years. We were talking, "Yeah, maybe we should do something, but it should be at the right time, at the right places. It should be a slow burn." We had talked a year before, and it wasn't the right time.

Now, the breakup in 1995--that was burnout, right?

Oh, yeah, completely. We were tired, and we weren't taking care of ourselves. Because of that, a lot of what we were trying to accomplish as a band really suffered in the interim. We spent a great deal of time out of bags in hotel rooms. After a while, our personal lives, with each other and outside of the band, really started to suffer.

I hear that a lot from younger musicians who just get signed, and it's like they have no idea how difficult it can be.

What was interesting for us was that we hit the ground running with our first record. We expected a slow burn, and in hindsight, we had a meteoric sort of thing happening. Just ... gone.

We put out the record in '87 and were on the road. At one point, we had done up to 138 shows in half a year or something like that. We finished "Vivid," did the tour that ended with the Stones shows, and went right into the studio to work on "Time's Up." Didn't take any time off. Wrote and recorded "Time's Up," and went on the road again.

When that tour ended, we tried to regroup, and really couldn't. Muzzy left, and Doug came along, so we had to get Doug acclimated and get in the studio and make another record--and that's what we did. As soon as "Stain" was done, we went back on the road again. That was our routine. We didn't take any time to smell the roses at all. It just made us ... koo-koo.

This first club tour is pretty short. What happens after that? Maybe an album?

Basically, these shows on the West Coast are to get our sea-legs together, to get back into touring mode. So we're going to do these seven back-to-back dates, then we'll take a couple weeks off. Then we'll go to South America for three and a half weeks, then go to Europe for another three and a half weeks, then come back and assess where we are: "Do we need to make the record? Do we need to tour some more? What do we need to do to make this work? Is it mentally satisfying ... to do this?" You know.

Our cut-off point is in August. Once we've finished touring in August, we're going to sit down and have a long chat, probably over some Japanese food, and try to figure out what it is we're doing.

Musically, what can folks catching you live on this tour expect to hear? You had your solo album, "Hymns," Vernon had "Mistaken Identity," and there's Headfake ...

You may hear some Headfake stuff, and there may be one or two things outstanding from any of our other records. But for the most part it will be Living Colour stuff. There will be some new songs, though, things that no one has ever seen us play.