Ed Kowalczyk Quotes

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.

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.

I always thought it odoriferous for people to go about trying to pummel others with their ideas.

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.

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

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?’

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.

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

If I were to sit around and think about all the things that were said about Live, I’d never get anything done.

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

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.

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?

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

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

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.

We’ve always been a band that questions things.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

Life takes turns. There are forks in the road.

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.

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.

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

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.

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!

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

I think ‘cool‘ is overrated.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.