Eddie Vedder
No matter how good you are, at some point your kids are gonna have to create their own independence and think that Mom and Dad aren't cool, just to establish themselves. That's what adolescence is about. They're gonna go through that no matter what.Collection: Teen
I think music is the greatest art form that exists, and I think people listen to music for different reasons, and it serves different purposes. Some of it is background music, and some of it is things that might affect a person's day, if not their life, or change an attitude. The best songs are the ones that make you feel something.Collection: Art
I'm trying to break any chain of negative parenting that I might have survived.Collection: Parenting
It's a crazy world, so sports and athletics and music can be a form of escapism.Collection: Sports
I was living on the wrong side of the tracks in Evanston, Illinois, in a home for boys. We had these Jackson 5 records. I really related to their voices - they were about my age, but they were doing it.Collection: Home
The Who on record were dynamic. Roger Daltrey's delivery allowed vulnerability without weakness; doubt and confusion, but no plea for sympathy.Collection: Sympathy
The best revenge is to live on and prove yourself.Collection: Best
It's an art to live with pain... mix the light into gray.Collection: Art
Life moves fast. As much as you can learn from your history, you have to move forward.Collection: History
There's a finite amount of time on this planet for each of us. Sometimes, the only way we figure out how to deal with that reality - knowing that there will be an end to every story, and you don't know how many chapters are left in your book - is by living in denial.
Whatever your walk of life is, I think you have to be real about it.
It's a character-builder to be a fan of the Chicago Cubs.
When it comes to grunge or even just Seattle, I think there was one band that made the definitive music of the time. It wasn't us or Nirvana, but Mudhoney. Nirvana delivered it to the world, but Mudhoney were the band of that time and sound.
Music was your real passion, this thing you held dear even above family. It was this relationship that never betrayed you. Once it became your job - this thing that was highly visible, this thing that became about commerce - that's when you were holding onto music like it was a palm tree in a hurricane.
People are just trying to work their jobs, raise their families, discipline their kids, and have a good life... Politics has just become like bad weather. And they deserve clear skies.
I am not a good enough writer to have an agenda or come up with a message and try to put it into a song. It's more like you write what comes to you... You try to reflect the mood of the songs.
Caffeine. The gateway drug.
The way we're attached to our phones these days, they buzz and twitch in our pockets, and we have to look and see if it was a text, a voicemail, or an e-mail. We're almost like lab rats. I tried to eschew the whole cell phone theory until I had kids; then, I had to be reachable at all times.
There's been times when I've been standing in a line at a movie and someone's hit me with something really heavy about someone really close and how our music has helped them get through it. Even in our darkest moments we try and find something beautiful.
I don't need drugs to make my life tragic.
As far as viewpoints, I think I'm more well-rounded and definitely more educated, and probably more hopeful than I used to be. I think when you're young and you get into a cause, you get frustrated with it within a few years, or six months.
I've never been a calm, midrange type person.
I probably get strangers coming up to me two or three times a week to just say something nice. I get more than my share of compliments as I walk through my daily life. I'm not having to show off or make a point about how good I am at doing something. I think I've always kind of been that way.
I was around nine when a babysitter snuck 'Who's Next' onto the turntable. The parents were gone. The windows shook. The shelves were rattling. Rock & roll. That began an exploration into music that had soul, rebellion, aggression, affection.
The love received is the love that is saved.
I feel like we have to keep our eyes on the road. Being nostalgic is like taking an offramp and getting a sandwich - and then you get back on the highway. I don't want to be spending the rest of my life at the gas station.
I think that if your approach is one where you don't want to alienate anybody, you're going to have to soften the viewpoint or the information that you're offering to such an extent that it doesn't have the power to make any difference. You have to take that risk.
That's part of the curse: If you're gonna play the song, you better play it. I've tried to phone in 'Jeremy' a few times, and it's tough. It doesn't work.
When I was 13, I got my first guitar, and I could sort of play Ted Nugent songs, but I couldn't play the solos. But I could play along with entire Ramones songs.
It's not a bad time to be me.
At a certain point, you realize you have a responsibility more behind yourself and your need for adrenaline. I'm glad I did things in my 20s that were more reckless.
I'm an example of someone who never made it to university. I did have this dream to be a musician. I felt that this dream had an expiration date.
When I had a child, everyone was telling me that I was going to see the world through her eyes, and everything was going to get this nice gloss to it. I kept waiting for that to happen, and thought there was a real problem with me that it wasn't.
If at noon you sit down and there's just silence or blank tape, in an hour if you have a song, that didn't exist an hour ago. Now it exists and it might exist for a long time. There's something empowering about that.
I think celebrities suck.
Sometimes, whether you like it or not, people elevate you. It's real easy to fall.
Our influences are who we are. It's rare that anything is an absolutely pure vision; even Daniel Johnston sounds like the Beatles. And that's the problem with the bands I'm always asked about, the ones derivative of the early Seattle sound. They don't dilute their influences enough.
If I'm not on tour or in the studio, I'm in nature somewhere, usually some kind of ocean. Playing music has afforded me that. It's not lost on me that it's a tremendous opportunity to be able to spend your life being surrounded by nature.
After the Ramones, it was more about new wave for me than punk.
The interesting thing is that it seems like George W. Bush would have been happy being the president of anything. He could have been president of Major League Baseball.
The one thing about going from the audience to the stage in just three years is that you know how it feels to be down there.
People say, 'How does having kids change your writing? Do you see the world through their eyes?' No - you just become a faster songwriter... In the old days, you'd be like, 'Oh I'm gonna work on this song for a few days.'
I suppose one of the challenges of writing the word-side of music these days is trying to decipher and communicate how this planet is very overwhelming at this point. The difficulties we face are overwhelming. It's very difficult to give yourself the time to breathe and appreciate the joy and beauty that might be just right around us.
So my one kid's 4, my other kid's 4 months, I'm 44, Barack Obama is the 44th president - it's all lining up nicely here.
The fact that we're living in a country where 90 percent of the people want further gun laws - to maybe somehow put a dent in some of this insanity that's happening - and yet there's no further legislation taking place, it's very frustrating and upsetting.
When attempting to make a plea for more peace in the world at a rock concert, we are reflecting the feelings of all those we have come in contact with so we may all have a better understanding of each other.
I just think that all of us in this room should have a voice in how the USA is represented. And he don't allow us our voice, that's all I'm saying.
If it's a good cause, I'll play just about anything.
You know, punk bands now sell with one record - their first or second record - sell 10 times the amount of records than the Ramones did throughout their career with 20-something records. That's why I go over to Johnny Ramone's house and do yard work three times a week, just to absolve some of the guilt.
It's fun singing with other people who are really good singers. There's something kind of poignant about braiding a couple vocals.