Stone Gossard Quotes

I like to play music. I like projects. I like excuses to hang out with my friends and play music.

I walked to Seward School first through fourth grade. It's just amazing to me now that we'd walk down 10th Avenue on Capitol Hill.

I think people will always love a heavy Sabbath riff because it's fundamental to rock.

Call it holistic or holographic thinking, it's been quite effective imagining the world's problems are all right in front of you on a smaller scale with your band. You deal with those relationships, and that's where real major change begins.

It's a perfectly human instinct to want to be near water.

The focus of my playing is the groove, and every time I find a new rhythm, I find I can write a bunch of new songs. Learning how to dance, or drum, or to swing my body in a new way is the fundamental way I find a new riff. Because when you learn to swing your body in a new way, you begin to swing with your instrument differently.

Every year is filled with good times and fights and struggles and misunderstandings. All of it adds up to being in a band over a long time.

I've always related music to those moments when someone turns you loose on something and they haven't told you how to do it.

A lot of fun stuff happens when you go out on a bike compared to when you're in a car. You're more in the environment. It's enjoyable. Even when It's raining It's still fun.

I think if you exercise, your state of mind - my state of mind - is usually more at ease, ready for more mental challenges. Once I get the physical stuff out of the way it always seems like I have more calmness and better self-esteem.

As a songwriter it's kind of hard to listen to your own stuff with clarity.

We’re super fortunate in Pearl Jam to have such loyal fans...who really want to come & see us play.

I think I have my own sort of distinctive swing, for sure. I think that's something that comes really natural to me, to push against the beat and kind of explore a triplet feel behind everything just to see what that feels like.

It's really comforting for me and Jeff, at least, that after 12 years we finally feel we've reached a place where we can be more honest, real and loving with each other. And we're finally in a band that we know is good, and deserves the credit it's getting.

If you have a lot of nature in your city, it becomes a more enjoyable place. That's my own feeling about it.

On some planet, I probably could have been a lawyer. On some planet, I could have been somebody in advertising.

I liked the banana-seat bikes with the high handlebars - maybe a card in the wheel could have been part of it.

Right, those relationships with your parents and family are the hardest to figure out, and the same patterns get carried into a band situation.

It's a very complex scenario, and certainly Dave was, and is, not the only person in Pearl Jam with personality flaws. Everybody in this band exhibits some form of neurotic behavior. And we couldn't find a balance, a mutual respect for each other.

It would be great to take one city street and turn it into a pedestrian corridor and see what kind of effect it has on the businesses in that area - It's the future I think.

I like myself. I think I'm cool. But I think when you're in a band you take on a role within the band, and I think people over the course of years can identify those roles as almost being bigger than just the individual. I don't know. It's kind of hard to talk about.

I really enjoy not getting in a car and running errands on bikes.

I picked up a guitar, and I knew what I wanted to do.

I like rhythmic things that butt up against each other in a cool kind of way.

I'm in a rock band - I don't have a day job! I am spoiled... a lot.

Raising awareness, changing the marketplace, effecting spiritual change - whatever it is that you decide is your thing, go for it.

Dave played an important part in our growing, but change occurs.

Politics is tricky; it cuts both ways. Every time you make a choice, it has unintended consequences.

That's not to say Eddie's never done anything malicious. But he never grabbed power for power's sake. His position was gained only because he has that energy, and that's naturally where he ended up.

It may take me a long time before I feel 'ready' to tour as a lead singer. I may never be ready... we'll just have to see.

A significant event for me was learning Hank Williams, reconnecting with his music's simplicity, which inspired me to inhabit the same territory. It's different, because I grew up on Led Zeppelin, The Stooges and punk, so in that sense I'm mutating country and folk more than a few degrees.

We may take breaks and do other things, but we feel we'll ultimately have Pearl Jam as a family.

I've seen neighborhoods that I would have never driven though because I'm riding my bike, because I'm looking for side roads, looking for maybe more hills or less hills depending if I'm exercising or not. You see a lot more, and you get the flow of a city a lot more.

I just know that I love to write songs, and I have for a long time.

I learn stuff from making music every time I go in the studio. I'm continuing to try to find new ways to play in a song or be in a song and have a positive impact on a song.

You know, at 35 or at 38 or 40 you really start to see what your body could look like if you just don't do anything all winter long. So that's another motivating factor, our vanity.

Well, you go to Holland and everybody's on a bike - nobody would think to have a car.

I think it's evident that expensive neighborhoods in Seattle are surrounded by natural beauty. That elevates city life. So if we can make cities more attractive in the long run, we can be smarter about issues like development, zoning and economics.

My methodology is not knowing what I'm doing and making that work for me.