Quotes from 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.

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!

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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 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.

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?

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.