"I feel like I'm in a Magritte painting, falling from the sky with my top hat and guitar."
"Stephan Jenkins is a total megalomanic freak. He is so narcissistic that he is not capable of rational thought."
"Some people confuse [narcolepsy] with necrophilia; that's a big difference there. I'm twisted, but not that twisted."
"Nobody fucks with my fans, NOBODY."
"The first song I ever learned was Bob Dylan's "Like a Rolling Stone." My mom subliminally force-fed me Bob Dylan when I was a kid. I grew up with my mother and three sisters, and I was the youngest in the family. There was one radio and one record player, so my musical tastes were pretty much dictated by what my sisters were listening to, which was everything from Kurtis Blow to Abba. I was basically stuck with whatever was playing. But my mom listened to a lot of Dylan, so I started picking up just the songwriting, which was more about feeling and emoting than about actually creating perfect pitches and harmonies."
"In my early 20's, I just felt like I was on my deathbed...I went through practically every anti-depressant there was on the market. I know what it feels like to wake up and want to go right back to bed. So anyone who's feeling that way now, I'm down with you. You've got to have faith that it will end, you know."
"I'm not a psychopath, I know there's only one of me"
"we had, we heard some, some wild, way out stories, ya know? this one girl said that uh, this song, "The Background", brought her back from, from death. yeah, she had uh, she had drowned and she was clinicly dead for about 5 min. like they, her heart had stopped.and uh, she said that, this is probably complete bullshit (laughs), but i'm gullable so what the hell. yeah she said that, ya know, she knew she had to stay alive so she could come see our show friday night."
"Man forget the 2 million records, this is what it's all about" (refering to connection with the fans)
"In the Bay Area-where I'm from-and if you add up all the cities around there are like 2 million people. Sometimes when I'm at home walking down the street, I think every person that I see could of bought this record and I do trip off that"
On writing while on the road:
"I'm writing a lot. Steve and I both write a lot on the road. It's all crap but we write. Laughs No, it's not crap. I'm being sarcastic.
"Be careful with the
people, they're fragile"
"I'm very concious of the audience...I need to..ya know..um, get the feedback from them"
"Trees are the only living things that wear less in the winter"
"...I've always been about the music never the money."
Acceptance speech for "Best Song Writer" at the Bammies.
"If I wasn't in Third Eye Blind, I'd be wandering around Golden Gate Park muttering profanities. So, thanks."
"I want to be a dentist, so thank God I've made money so I can go to dental school now. 'Cause that's what I really want to do."
"The big distortion sounds that are key in my playing I try to keep secondary to the music, I think the songs should be able to translate over in their barest form."
"I just wanted to play the most prominent-sounding instrument in rock music and I figured that's the guitar. It's a way for me to become someone else on stage. It's like my second voice."
"Just take the bloody tuners and turn 'em and twist 'em and see what you come up with"
"I'm doomed to be Ebert."
"If you keep taking the High Road, then bring an oxygen tank"
"It's like solving a puzzle - It's fun to turn things upside down and to challenge yourself. Just take the bloody tuners and turn 'em and twist 'em and see what you come up with. When things aren't happening and you're not creating anything, that's one way to shake it up and try something different. Maybe something will come out of it."(different guitar tunings)
"This next song is for all of you people way up at the top. You paid good money to stare at the top of our heads. Cheers to you."
On not changing the raunchy parts of "Semi-Charmed Life" for their Conan O'Brien appearance:
"We went back to the original, being the punks that we are."
"You're taking a big risk when you decide to pursue a career in music. If you can play music on this level, it's the best job in the world , there's nothing like it, whether you're playing in little clubs or you're a rock star"
"When he tried to teach me solos, I had to quit." (about lessons with Joe Satriani)
"So, this is Kevin with a little Christmas message. I would just like to say, you know, when it's Christmas time, it's the time to just lower your voice, relax, spend time with your family, your loved ones. What's important is you gotta be patient. Don't get angry. And, uh, be cool to your fellow man or woman - especially be cool to your fellow woman. And, uh [yawns] get some sleep."
"A lot of my playing at that time had the little triplets stuff, the rhythm thing with the delay - I liked to do volume swells and create those lush sort of sounds. That was a big part of my playing, but I was a real rhythm player. It was more groove-oriented playing. Even though the effects add to the music, I want them to remain secondary. I don't want to completely rely on them, or have effect-oriented guitar sounds."(talking about his 80's playing)
"Never enter a temple that does not allow in light"
"We got to meet the Stones once. It was just a real quick photo op. We could hear Mick saying, "C'mon, we've gotta take this bloody picture."
"If you want to hear Kevin Cadogan, you have to listen to "Wounded," 1000 Julys," "The Red Summer Sun," Camouflage," "Kiss Goodnight," and "Darkness."
"I love sounding bigger than I am. It's funny-I'm not a short guy. I'm six feet tall. I just want my guitar to sound big!"
Hard Rock Live:
"This is my favorite thing to do in the whole world and I recommend it highly. All of you, you should try this right now."
Screams
"Can I graduate?"
"I get sick of hearing the same chords. I do a lot of alternate tuning. On a song like 'Narcolepsy' I use open tuning."
"There have been lots of moments of triumph, where I've felt I reached my own personal goals before we even sold a record. I figured I'd just be happy knowing that I finally got to make a real record."
Sing: "It's raining Magritte. Hallelujiah..."
"...I look around and I notice that there's, like, 25 exits in this hall. Most other places we play, there's only three or four. Maybe it's because this is a concert hall for classical music and old people have to pee a lot."
"The songs are about whatever moods we're in. When I'm playing guitar, I'm expressing the mood I'm in - whether it's anxiety, depression, or joy. It's kind of a release for me."
"We came up with "Graduate" right before tracking, Stephan and I always like to surprise each other. We work fast. I've been in a lot of bands and, believe me, it's rare when you have a chemistry in a group where you can just feed off each other and the song forms out of that."
"I get things stuck in my head, and it's hard for me to get them out... Music comes in but it don't come out."
On Pink Floyd's David Gilmour:
He's like a poet who doesn't muddy his waters - you know, the old Nietzsche quote about poets who muddy their waters so as to appear deep. I think Gilmour likes a clean pond. You can see a Koi swimming in his pond.
"I can't even grow hair on my chin."
"Sometimes I also feel like a piece of graffiti scrawled on the side of a liquor store"
"The last time I saw Mike Dirnt, he looked like Braveheart, with blood running down his face. It was a beautiful day, he wasn't going to try to kick my ass in the flower shop, so I introduced myself and said, "Hey, how's it going?" The guy completely disarmed me. He was just so charming, pleasant & a really nice guy."
"No one has ever called me a 'pop' star so I have yet to deal with that. I have been called a 'rock star' by my friends sarcastically. Little tossers, they are. But 'pop star'? I've never been called a 'pop star.' If our music's popular, that's great. Everyone's welcome to the party."
I've done all kinds of stuff, punk and hard-core things when I was in high school. But now I just like to have big fat sounds, big fat tones - just rock it. I like it whether it's accessible or not. "
"Being mature means standing up for yourself and others that you see being mistreated. Being honest about your feelings and truthful about the facts. Not to be afraid to let others know what you believe no matter what the consequences might be. This is real maturity."
"It's kind of a pain in the ass live because I have, like, five different tunings and I have to switch guitars so I have guys throwing guitars at me all the time."
Kevin heard about how a kid in his old neighborhood got stabbed with a screwdriver so "Since I grew up in this area, I can't stand hearing about any sadistic violence occurring, so I decided to hang out with this kid one day. I didn't want him to develop Mean World Syndrome if I could help it."
"That's what rock and roll is all about: spontaneity and just happenin' - and just things happenin'. You know, it wasn't like, you know, a demo tape being passed around and each person putting their own parts on it.
Interviewer: A collaboration. A band for God's sake.
Kevin: Exactly, that's what we're talkin' about.
"The lyrics are hard to read on the album - especially "Semi-Charmed Life." You have to turn the CD cover over and over. Very confusing."
"I still care what people think, that's 1 of my weaknesses. It was hard coming home from a tour where I'd spend hours on the phone doing interviews, telling everyone how great the Bay Area is...and the San Francisco music scene and reading about some bitter person in the East Bay Express or whatever...I can't say it was a triumphant moment."
