Ed Kowalczyk Quotes

I believe that rock and roll can really make a huge impact on people's lives.

- Ed Kowalczyk

Open Wings - Broken Strings is an opportunity for you to get to the heart of your favorite artists and their songs in a unique and compelling way. Stripped down, intimate and acoustic, you'll hear the strings on the guitar vibrate and buzz, the vocal chords hum and pulsate as the songs you love come to life like you never knew they could.

- Ed Kowalczyk

The place we go as a band is a sort of samadhi, intensely emotional and not bound by self-thinking. And lyrically, one of the goals is to suggest that something is going on beyond what you can see.

- Ed Kowalczyk

We've never been your traditional rock-pop band. Lyrically, I've always had more of an interest in spirituality and that kind of thing.

- Ed Kowalczyk

I hit this point - I guess you'd say an end of a chapter - where I felt like I kind of did everything. I wasn't interested in music. It was a really strange feeling, and needless to say, it freaked me out a little bit. I really started to go inward and say, 'Hey, what is this about?'

- Ed Kowalczyk

One of the lyrics from Bono that always sticks with me is 'Where the Streets Have No Name.' Just the name of the song, that sort of oneness, and there isn't any division in yourself, and your just at peace and fired up at the same time.

- Ed Kowalczyk

I love Peter Gabriel, and I've come so close to working with him a few times. We were on a movie soundtrack together, but we didn't actually write together.

- Ed Kowalczyk

All my favorite artists were pretty serious in the sense that their music was something I could sink my teeth into, from Peter Gabriel to U2 to these artists that made me want to read the lyrics and dig into it.

- Ed Kowalczyk

We never really write 'love' love songs. There's always something twisted about them. But as far as love songs, women just became way more important to us after we turned 21, as a band in general. Kind of broke up our boyhood solidarity as we started branching out into babes.

- Ed Kowalczyk

Arenas, to me, and especially sheds, are really great venues. You get that sea of humanity, but everybody can still see it and hear it. And that's really important to us.

- Ed Kowalczyk

When I was a kid, my aunt coached me a little bit for choir, and what she taught me actually stuck with me. She basically taught me to sing from my diaphragm and not from my throat.

- Ed Kowalczyk

I've always been into asking the big questions; I'm the last guy out the door at closing time cuz I was sittin' around 'til the wee hours with the other ones who were asking the same things.

- Ed Kowalczyk

Those first big concerts we played as 'Throwing Copper' started to really reach people worldwide - I think we played our first big arena show at the George Estate basketball arena down in Atlanta. I remember showing up and standing on stage and just being like, 'I can't believe this is going to be full of people. This is huge.'

- Ed Kowalczyk

I consider our music a catalyst, something that might spark a thought or a question.

- Ed Kowalczyk

I think 'cool' is overrated.

- Ed Kowalczyk

It's always so rewarding, gratifying to me, as an artist and a writer, to see how this music gets more important for a lot of people as time goes by. And it's not just nostalgia. It's a feeling of it's really relevant to their lives, even though it's 20 or 25 years old or more.

- Ed Kowalczyk

I'll never forget the first concert I basically went to. Actually, Sonny and Cher was my first concert, but U2 was my first real concert. I was 17 and saw them at JFK Stadium and had really crappy seats.

- Ed Kowalczyk

When you're 19, girlfriends are girlfriends. Then you start thinking about the rest of your life and stuff. I don't know; something happens with your glands. Your alimony gland.

- Ed Kowalczyk

I grew up in an area that was the typical city that was a racially divided and economically segregated place. And it had a big influence on me.

- Ed Kowalczyk

I was into all of the Pennsylvania teams at some point in my childhood. I would flip back and forth between the Pirates and the Phillies, and I was always a Steelers fan but not much of an Eagles fan. Then I became kind of a band nerd in school, and I went the music route.

- Ed Kowalczyk

I would have to recommend the chorus of 'Lightning Crashes' for just about everyone that needs a little something, a little comeback.

- Ed Kowalczyk

It really has become the singular motivation in my life - to surrender to the art and to the free expression of what I may be experiencing in my life spiritually. It is really hard in the face of people who don't get it, but what do you do?

- Ed Kowalczyk

Lots of human-rights tragedies deserve concerts, but there's something extra with Tibet. It's a spiritual culture, a country rooted in humility and compassion. And among artists, there's a lot of Buddhists, people who want an alternative to basic Christianity, which doesn't offer much.

- Ed Kowalczyk

When you accept the way things are, there's really no other way to operate than the way you've been conditioned to. You live in America: you're free to vote, you go vote, and you continue to see the problems of being a nationalistic society. You don't really know what to do because you're conditioned to feel that's just the way things are.

- Ed Kowalczyk

Anarchy would be a world that nobody felt responsible for, that nobody felt any sort of love for. When there's real intelligence happening, when there's real love happening, there's a sense of responsibility: Hey, we've got to take care of this place and each other.

- Ed Kowalczyk

We've never been a band that gets up on stage and says, 'OK, we're going to play our entire new album.' Of course we want to introduce new music, but we also want to play the songs people want to sing along with.

- Ed Kowalczyk

I remember people telling me that at 5 1/2 minutes long, 'Lightning Crashes' would never be a hit song.

- Ed Kowalczyk

You look at a song like 'Lightning Crashes,' and it's just so universal.

- Ed Kowalczyk

There's a lot of spirituality and hope in our music that I think people are catching on to. It's not punk, it's not Green Day, not Offspring, not Soundgarden, not Stone Temple Pilots, not all of the other bands that are coming out.

- Ed Kowalczyk

We've been slighted in the press for being heartfelt.

- Ed Kowalczyk

I think that every band, whether they admit it or not, is going out there to succeed. I've always worn that on my sleeve.

- Ed Kowalczyk

I really don't do concept stuff very well. If I'm sitting thinking about what kind of song I want to write, within a few minutes, I'm kind of bored. It's just a personal thing for me.

- Ed Kowalczyk

I was buddies with Dennis Rodman back in the day; actually, I am still buddies with him, and so I have gone to a lot of games and always enjoyed it.

- Ed Kowalczyk

I have never been able to separate - nor have I wanted to - my personal love and desire for truth, passion, and understanding from my lyrics.

- Ed Kowalczyk

Our success just flies in the face of critics or people who would rather that we just failed... because we didn't fit into the style of the times or our lyrics were too upfront or too earnest or whatever.

- Ed Kowalczyk

I've found lyrics in songs that always center me.

- Ed Kowalczyk

The message of 'The Distance To Here' is no secret. It is a message of love and an invitation to myself and to those who want to come along to ask the big questions and not feel uncool doing it.

- Ed Kowalczyk

As a songwriter and a singer in a successful rock band, I have had the good fortune of being surrounded by incredible musicians, lots of wonderful production on both record and onstage, and plenty of volume!

- Ed Kowalczyk

Until you solve problems like fear individually, resolve why individuals feel the need to believe in whatever, there's really no point in organizations, in things that turn the world into a concept rather than an individual fact.

- Ed Kowalczyk

We take the art seriously. We take communicating it seriously. And maybe we took ourselves a little too seriously in the beginning. Sometimes I watch the videos, and I think, 'Yeah, you could've relaxed a lot in the 'I Alone' video,' you know?

- Ed Kowalczyk

I think the message of the Live/Counting Crows tour is that, aside from what's going on trendwise, if you dig a little, you can always find something to inspire you.

- Ed Kowalczyk

If there is a doctrine, a message behind Live, it's just that wordless intensity that doesn't necessarily have to mean anything.

- Ed Kowalczyk

Practicing love is a difficult thing to do. It's much easier to get angry.

- Ed Kowalczyk

When we were starting out as a band, I was addicted to college radio.

- Ed Kowalczyk

I have always been cursed or blessed with this inability to hide behind anything and to just say exactly what I am experiencing.

- Ed Kowalczyk

Ever since we started, we've been trying to give people music that is pop music where you could just get into the melody and get into the performance of the band and be quite satisfied.

- Ed Kowalczyk

With every kid, there has just been a deepening of my humanity, because there's no more of a feet-on-the-ground moment than having a child.

- Ed Kowalczyk

I took a page out of the U2 book. They've always had a universal approach. Nobody doubts they're Christian, but there's an open door for everybody in any faith to consume the music at any level.

- Ed Kowalczyk

All of my favorite artists who inspired me were never afraid to be uncool and never afraid to wear their hearts on their sleeves - no matter how much flak they took for it.

- Ed Kowalczyk

The Web has incredible potential for an artist who keeps in touch with millions of people.

- Ed Kowalczyk

It's something I've always been passionate about - which is the power of rock and roll itself. I'm a walking example of its power, 'cause I was totally altered in the seminal years of Live by bands like U2 and R.E.M., U2 in particular.

- Ed Kowalczyk

I've never allowed my specific personal practice or belief to be overtly integrated to the music. Because that's crossing the line into, 'We want you to think this.' And that's not what we're about.

- Ed Kowalczyk

With 'Mental Jewelry,' we put a lot of pressure on ourselves to get something happening. I think we lost some of the personality in the music. 'Throwing Copper''s mission was to begin to get some of that back.

- Ed Kowalczyk

I am an Alanis Morissette fan. I think that she has a fantastic voice, and I would love to sing with her someday.

- Ed Kowalczyk

Life takes turns. There are forks in the road.

- Ed Kowalczyk

We don't want Offspring-itis, Green Day-itis: you know, that thing where bands are all over the place at once, getting everything at once - major airplay on radio, major airplay on MTV.

- Ed Kowalczyk

From the very beginning, we were all a hundred and ten percent about the music, from the very early days when we could barely play our instruments, and we were just covering other people's songs when we were in high school.

- Ed Kowalczyk

I kind of spooked myself about getting older. It's not that bad really.

- Ed Kowalczyk

I've never had trouble finding inspiration for new songs, no matter what I'm doing.

- Ed Kowalczyk

I feel proud to be a part of rock n' roll and the whole tradition of rock n' roll.

- Ed Kowalczyk

Part of being an artist is that you want to express yourself to as many people as possible. But you don't want to exclude anyone.

- Ed Kowalczyk

We came from a small town where there was no music scene or no other bands, and we decided to put ours together and go for it.

- Ed Kowalczyk

Individuals have to find a place to experience a profundity of feeling, and art is a means to that.

- Ed Kowalczyk

Music, in its clearest and simplest form, can be a catalyst to thought, but that's about it.

- Ed Kowalczyk

Life is full of inspiration, far more than I'll ever get to write about.

- Ed Kowalczyk

We've never been satisfied with just making 'me' music. What we're doing is trying to go to a place of some reverence.

- Ed Kowalczyk

Critics are critics: their job is to find things wrong with people.

- Ed Kowalczyk

To make music that means something, you kind of have to drop the cool. You have to be prepared and willing to be uncool.

- Ed Kowalczyk

The way you perform really depends on the way you live your life. It's not two separate things.

- Ed Kowalczyk

You're living in a fantasy to think that music can actually change something.

- Ed Kowalczyk

Music is a spiritual event and a means to realize freedom.

- Ed Kowalczyk

What I think shines through for us is that we have a real respect for the music and a real reverence.

- Ed Kowalczyk