Quotes from 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.

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 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.

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

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.

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 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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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?'

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.

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.

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.

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

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?

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

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