Quotes from Ed Kowalczyk

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.'

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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've been slighted in the press for being heartfelt.

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.

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.

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

Life takes turns. There are forks in the road.

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.