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 believe that rock and roll can really make a huge impact on people’s lives.
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
Practicing love is a difficult thing to do. It’s much easier to get angry.
Ed Kowalczyk
I kind of spooked myself about getting older. It’s not that bad really.
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
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
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
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
I’ve found lyrics in songs that always center me.
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
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
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
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
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 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 am an Alanis Morissette fan. I think that she has a fantastic voice, and I would love to sing with her someday.
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
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
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 satisfied with just making ‘me’ music. What we’re doing is trying to go to a place of some reverence.
Ed Kowalczyk
We’ve been slighted in the press for being heartfelt.
Ed Kowalczyk
Critics are critics: their job is to find things wrong with people.
Ed Kowalczyk
If I were to sit around and think about all the things that were said about Live, I’d never get anything done.
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
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
We really want the whole world to know about Live and to experience us.
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
Life takes turns. There are forks in the road.
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
We’ve always been a band that questions things.
Ed Kowalczyk
Music is a spiritual event and a means to realize freedom.
Ed Kowalczyk
Individuals have to find a place to experience a profundity of feeling, and art is a means to that.
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
What I think shines through for us is that we have a real respect for the music and a real reverence.
Ed Kowalczyk
I feel proud to be a part of rock n’ roll and the whole tradition of rock n’ roll.
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 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
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
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 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
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
Life is full of inspiration, far more than I’ll ever get to write about.
Ed Kowalczyk
I’ve never had trouble finding inspiration for new songs, no matter what I’m doing.
Ed Kowalczyk
When we were starting out as a band, I was addicted to college radio.
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
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 remember people telling me that at 5 1/2 minutes long, ‘Lightning Crashes’ would never be a hit song.
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
I think ‘cool’ is overrated.
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